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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4
+by Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
+
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+Title: Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4
+
+Author: Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8401]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 7, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMAN HISTORY, V4 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, David King
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+GERMANY
+
+FROM THE
+
+EARLIEST PERIOD
+
+BY
+
+WOLFGANG MENZEL
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION
+
+By MRS. GEORGE HORROCKS
+
+WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS
+
+By EDGAR SALTUS
+
+VOLUME IV
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF GERMANY
+
+PART XXI
+
+THE RISE OF PRUSSIA
+
+(CONTINUED)
+
+CCXLIV. Art and Fashion
+
+
+Although art had, under French influence, become unnatural,
+bombastical, in fine, exactly contrary to every rule of good taste,
+the courts, vain of their collections of works of art, still emulated
+each other in the patronage of the artists of the day, whose
+creations, tasteless as they were, nevertheless afforded a species of
+consolation to the people, by diverting their thoughts from the
+miseries of daily existence.
+
+Architecture degenerated in the greatest degree. Its sublimity was
+gradually lost as the meaning of the Gothic style became less
+understood, and a tasteless imitation of the Roman style, like that of
+St. Peter's at Rome, was brought into vogue by the Jesuits and by the
+court architects, by whom the chateau of Versailles was deemed the
+highest chef-d'oeuvre of art. This style of architecture was
+accompanied by a style of sculpture equally unmeaning and forced;
+saints and Pagan deities in theatrical attitudes, fat genii, and
+coquettish nymphs peopled the roofs of the churches and palaces,
+presided over bridges, fountains, etc. Miniature turnery-ware and
+microscopical sculpture also came into fashion. Such curiosities as,
+for instance, a cherry-stone, on which Pranner, the Carinthian, had
+carved upward of a hundred faces; a chessboard, the completion of
+which had occupied a Dutchman for eighteen years; golden carriages
+drawn by fleas; toys composed of porcelain or ivory in imitation of
+Chinese works of art; curious pieces of mechanism, musical clocks,
+etc., were industriously collected into the cabinets of the wealthy
+and powerful. This taste was, however, not utterly useless. The
+predilection for ancient gems promoted the study of the remains of
+antiquity, as Stosch, Lippert, and Winckelmann prove, and that of
+natural history was greatly facilitated by the collections of natural
+curiosities.
+
+The style of painting was, however, still essentially German, although
+deprived by the Reformation and by French influence of its ancient
+sacred and spiritual character. Nature was now generally studied in
+the search after the beautiful. Among the pupils of Rubens, the great
+founder of the Dutch school, Jordaens was distinguished for brilliancy
+and force of execution, Van Dyck, A.D. 1541, for grace and beauty,
+although principally a portrait painter and incapable of idealizing
+his subjects, in which Rembrandt, A.D. 1674, who chose more extensive
+historical subjects, and whose coloring is remarkable for depth and
+effect, was equally deficient. Rembrandt's pupil, Gerhard Douw,
+introduced domestic scenes; his attention to the minutiĉ of his art
+was such that he is said to have worked for three days at a
+broomstick, in order to represent it with perfect truth. Denner
+carried accuracy still further; in his portraits of old men every hair
+in the beard is carefully imitated. Francis and William[1] Mieris
+discovered far greater talent in their treatment of social and
+domestic groups; Terbourg and Netscher, on the other hand, delighted
+in the close imitation of velvet and satin draperies; and Schalken, in
+the effect of shadows and lamplight. Honthorst[2] attempted a higher
+style, but Van der Werf's small delicious nudities and Van Loos's
+luxurious pastoral scenes were better adapted to the taste of the
+times. While these painters belonged to the higher orders of society,
+of which their works give evidence, numerous others studied the lower
+classes with still greater success. Besides Van der Meulen and
+Rugendas, the painters of battle-pieces, Wouvermann chiefly excelled
+in the delineation of horses and groups of horsemen, and Teniers,
+Ostade, and Jan Steen became famous for the surpassing truth of their
+peasants and domestic scenes. To this low but happily-treated school
+also belonged the cattle-pieces of Berchem and Paul de Potter, whose
+"Bull and Cows" were, in a certain respect, as much the ideal of the
+Dutch as the Madonna had formerly been that of the Italians or the
+Venus di Medici that of the ancients.
+
+Landscape-painting alone gave evidence of a higher style. Nature,
+whenever undesecrated by the vulgarity of man, is ever sublimely
+simple. The Dutch, as may be seen in the productions of Breughel,
+called, from his dress, "Velvet Breughel," and in those of Elzheimer,
+termed, from his attention to minutiae, the Denner of landscape-
+painting, were at first too careful and minute; but Paul Brill, A.D.
+1626, was inspired with finer conceptions and formed the link between
+preceding artists and the magnificent Claude Lorraine (so called from
+the place of his birth, his real name being Claude Gelee), who resided
+for a long time at Munich, and who first attempted to idealize nature
+as the Italian artists had formerly idealized man. Everdingen and
+Ruysdael, on the contrary, studied nature in her simple northern garb,
+and the sombre pines of the former, the cheerful woods of the latter,
+will ever be attractive, like pictures of a much-loved home, to the
+German. Bakhuysen's sea-pieces and storms are faithful representations
+of the Baltic. In the commencement of last century, landscape-painting
+also degenerated and became mere ornamental flower-painting, of which
+the Dutch were so passionately fond that they honored and paid the
+most skilful artists in this style like princes. The dull prosaic
+existence of the merchant called for relief. Huysum was the mosrt
+celebrated of the flower-painters, with Rachel Ruysch, William von
+Arless, and others of lesser note. Fruit and kitchen pieces were also
+greatly admired. Hondekotter was celebrated as a painter of birds.
+
+Painting was, in this manner, confined to a slavish imitation of
+nature, for whose lowest objects a predilection was evinced until the
+middle of the eighteenth century, when a style, half Italian, half
+antique, was introduced into Germany by the operas, by travellers, and
+more particularly by the galleries founded by the princes, and was
+still further promoted by the learned researches of connoisseurs, more
+especially by those of Winckelmann. Mengs, the Raphael of Germany,
+Oeser, Tischbein, the landscape-painters Seekatz, Hackert, Reinhardt,
+Koch, etc., formed the transition to the modern style. Frey,
+Chodowiecki, etc., gained great celebrity as engravers.
+
+Architecture flourished during the Middle Ages, painting at the time
+of the Reformation, and music in modern times. The same spirit that
+spoke to the eye in the eternal stone now breathed in transient melody
+to the ear. The science of music, transported by Dutch artists into
+Italy, had been there assiduously cultivated; the Italians had
+speedily surpassed their masters, and had occupied themselves with the
+creation of a peculiar church-music and of the profane opera, while
+the Netherlands and the whole of Germany were convulsed by bloody
+religious wars. After the peace of Westphalia, the national music of
+Germany, with the exception of the choral music in the Protestant
+churches, was almost silent, and Italian operas were introduced at all
+the courts, where Italian chapel-masters, singers, and performers were
+patronized in imitation of Louis XIV., who pursued a similar system in
+France. German talent was reduced to imitate the Italian masters, and,
+in 1628, Sagittarius produced at Dresden the first German opera in
+imitation of the Italian, and Keyser published no fewer than one
+hundred and sixteen.
+
+The German musicians were, nevertheless, earlier than the German
+poets, animated with a desire to extirpate the foreign and degenerate
+mode fostered by the vanity of the German princes, and to give free
+scope to their original and native talent. This regeneration was
+effected by the despised and simple organists of the Protestant
+churches. In 1717, Schroeder, a native of Hohenstein in Saxony,
+invented the pianoforte and improved the organ. Sebastian Bach, in his
+colossal fugues, like to a pillared dome dissolved in melody,[3]
+raised music by his compositions to a height unattained by any of his
+successors. He was one of the most extraordinary geniuses that ever
+appeared on earth. Handel, whose glorious melodies entranced the
+senses, produced the grand oratorio of the "Messiah," which is still
+performed in both Protestant and Catholic cathedrals; and Graun, with
+whom Frederick the Great played the flute, brought private singing
+into vogue by his musical compositions. Gluck was the first composer
+who introduced the depth and pathos of more solemn music into the
+opera. He gained a complete triumph at Paris over Piccini, the
+celebrated Italian musician, in his contest respecting the comparative
+excellencies of the German and Italian schools. Haydn introduced the
+variety and melody of the opera into the oratorio, of which his
+"Creation" is a standing proof. In the latter half of the foregoing
+century, sacred music has gradually yielded to the opera. Mozart
+brought the operatic style to perfection in the wonderful compositions
+that eternalize his fame.
+
+The German theatre was, owing to the Gallomania of the period, merely
+a bad imitation of the French stage. Gottsched,[4] who greatly
+contributed toward the reformation of German literature, still
+retained the stilted Alexandrine and the pseudo-Gallic imitation of
+the ancient dramatists to which Lessing put an end. Lessing wrote his
+"Dramaturgy" at Hamburg, recommended Shakespeare and other English
+authors as models, but more particularly nature. The celebrated
+Eckhof, the father of the German stage, who at first travelled about
+with a company of actors and finally settled at Gotha, was the first
+who followed this innovation. He was succeeded by Schroeder in
+Hamburg, who was equally industrious as a poet, an actor, and a
+Freemason. In Berlin, where Fleck had already paved the way, Iffland,
+who, like Schroeder, was both a poet and an actor, founded a school,
+which in every respect took nature as a guide, and which raised the
+German stage to its well-merited celebrity.
+
+At the close of the eighteenth century, men of education were seized
+with an enthusiasm for art, which showed itself principally in a love
+for the stage and in visits for the promotion of art to Italy. The
+poet and the painter, alike dissatisfied with reality, sought to still
+their secret longings for the beautiful amid the unreal creations of
+fancy and the records of classical antiquity.
+
+Fashion, that masker of nature, that creator of deformity, had, in
+truth, arrived at an unparalleled pitch of ugliness. The German
+costume, although sometimes extravagantly curious during the Middle
+Ages, had nevertheless always retained a certain degree of picturesque
+beauty, nor was it until the reign of Louis XIV. of France that dress
+assumed an unnatural, inconvenient, and monstrous form. Enormous
+allonge perukes and ruffles, the fontange (high headdress), hoops, and
+high heels, rendered the human race a caricature of itself. In the
+eighteenth century, powdered wigs of extraordinary shape, hairbags and
+queues, frocks and frills, came into fashion for the men; powdered
+headdresses an ell in height, diminutive waists, and patches for the
+women. The deformity, unhealthiness, and absurdity of this mode of
+attire were vainly pointed out by Salzmann, in a piece entitled,
+"Charles von Carlsberg, or Human Misery."
+
+[Footnote 1: Also his brother John, who painted with equal talent in
+the same style.--_Trans_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Called also Gerardo dalle Notti from his subjects,
+principally night-scenes and pieces illuminated by torch or
+candle-light. His most celebrated picture is that of Jesus Christ
+before the Tribunal of Pilate.--_Ibid_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Gothic architecture has been likened to petrified music.]
+
+[Footnote 4: He was assisted in his dramatic writings by his wife, a
+woman of splendid talents.--_Trans_.]
+
+
+
+CCXLV. Influence of the Belles-Lettres
+
+
+The German, excluded from all participation in public affairs and
+confined to the narrow limits of his family circle and profession,
+followed his natural bent for speculative philosophy and poetical
+reverie; but while his thoughts became more elevated and the loss of
+his activity was, in a certain degree, compensated by the gentle
+dominion of the muses, the mitigation thus afforded merely aggravated
+the evil by rendering him content with his state of inaction. Ere
+long, as in the most degenerate age of ancient Rome, the citizen,
+amused by sophists and singers, actors and jugglers, lost the
+remembrance of his former power and rights and became insensible to
+his state of moral degradation, to which the foreign notions, the vain
+and frivolous character of most of the poets of the day, had not a
+little contributed.
+
+After the thirty years' war, the Silesian poets became remarkable for
+Gallomania or the slavish imitation of those of France. Unbounded
+adulation of the sovereign, bombastical _carmina_ on occasion of the
+birth, wedding, accession, victories, fêtes, treaties of peace, and
+burial of potentates, love-couplets equally strained, twisted
+compliments to female beauty, with pedantic, often indecent, citations
+from ancient mythology, chiefly characterized this school of poetry.
+Martin Opitz, A.D. 1639, the founder of the first Silesian school,[1]
+notwithstanding the insipidity of the taste of the day, preserved the
+harmony of the German ballad. His most distinguished followers were
+Logau, celebrated for his Epigrams;[2] Paul Gerhard, who, in his fine
+hymns, revived the force and simplicity of Luther; Flemming, a genial
+and thoroughly German poet, the companion of Olearius[3] during his
+visit to Persia; the gentle Simon Dach, whose sorrowing notes bewail
+the miseries of the age. He founded a society of melancholy poets at
+Königsberg, in Prussia, the members of which composed elegies for each
+other; Tscherning and Andrew Gryphius, the Corneille of Germany, a
+native of Glogau, whose dramas are worthy of a better age than the
+insipid century in which they were produced. The life of this
+dramatist was full of incident. His father was poisoned; his mother
+died of a broken heart. He wandered over Germany during the thirty
+years' war, pursued by fire, sword, and pestilence, to the latter of
+which the whole of his relations fell victims. He travelled over the
+whole of Europe, spoke eleven languages, and became a professor at
+Leyden, where he taught history, geography, mathematics, physics, and
+anatomy. These poets were, however, merely exceptions to the general
+rule. In the poetical societies, the "Order of the Palm" or
+"Fructiferous Society," founded A.D. 1617, at Weimar, by Caspar von
+Teutleben, the "Upright Pine Society," established by Rempler of
+Löwenthal at Strasburg, that of the "Roses," founded A.D. 1643, by
+Philip von Zesen, at Hamburg, the "Order of the Pegnitz-shepherds,"
+founded A.D. 1644, by Harsdörfer, at Nuremberg, the spirit of the
+Italian and French operas and academies prevailed, and pastoral
+poetry, in which the god of Love was represented wearing an immense
+allonge peruke, and the coquettish immorality of the courts was
+glowingly described in Arcadian scenes of delight, was cultivated. The
+fantastical romances of Spain were also imitated, and the invention of
+novel terms was deemed the highest triumph of the poet. Every third
+word was either Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, or English. Francisci
+of Lübeck, who described all the discoveries of the New World in a
+colloquial romance contained in a thick folio volume, was the most
+extravagant of these scribblers. The romances of Antony Ulric, duke of
+Brunswick, who embraced Catholicism on the occasion of the marriage of
+his daughter with the emperor Charles VI., are equally bad.
+Lauremberg's satires, written A.D. 1564, are excellent. He said with
+great truth that the French had deprived the German muse of her nose
+and had patched on another quite unsuited to her German ears.
+Moscherosch (Philander von Sittewald) wrote an admirable and cutting
+satire upon the manners of the age, and Greifenson von Hirschfeld is
+worthy of mention as the author of the first historical romance that
+gives an accurate and graphic account of the state of Germany during
+the thirty years' war.
+
+This first school was succeeded by a second of surpassing
+extravagance. Hoffman von Hoffmannswaldau, A.D. 1679, the founder of
+the second Silesian school, was a caricature of Opitz, Lohenstein of
+Gryphius, Besser of Flemming, Talander and Ziegler of Zesen, and even
+Francisci was outdone by that most intolerable of romancers, Happel.
+This school was remarkable for the most extravagant license and
+bombastical nonsense, a sad proof of the moral perversion of the age.
+The German character, nevertheless, betrayed itself by a sort of naïve
+pedantry, a proof, were any wanting, that the ostentatious absurdities
+of the poets of Germany were but bad and paltry imitations. The French
+Alexandrine was also brought into vogue by this school, whose
+immorality was carried to the highest pitch by Günther, the lyric
+poet, who, in the commencement of the eighteenth century, opposed
+marriage, attempted the emancipation of the female sex, and, with
+criminal geniality, recommended his follies and crimes, as highly
+interesting, to the world. To him the poet, Schnabel, the author of an
+admirable romance, the "Island of Felsenburg," the asylum, in another
+hemisphere, of virtue, exiled from Europe, offers a noble contrast.
+
+Three Catholic poets of extreme originality appear at the close of the
+seventeenth century, Angelus Silesius (Scheffler of Breslau), who gave
+to the world his devotional thoughts in German Alexandrines; Father
+Abraham a Sancta Clara (Megerle of Swabia), a celebrated Viennese
+preacher, who, with comical severity, wrote satires abounding with wit
+and humorous observations; and Balde, who wrote some fine Latin poems
+on God and nature. Prätorius, A.D. 1680, the first collector of the
+popular legendary ballads concerning Rübezahl and other spirits,
+ghosts and witches, also deserves mention. The Silesian, Stranizki,
+who, A.D. 1708, founded the Leopoldstadt theatre at Vienna, which
+afterward became so celebrated, and gave to it the popular comic style
+for which it is famous at the present day, was also a poet of extreme
+originality. Gottsched appeared as the hero of Gallomania, which was
+at that time threatened with gradual extinction by the Spanish and
+Hamburg romance and by Viennese wit. Assisted by Neuber, the actress,
+he extirpated all that was not strictly French, solemnly burned
+Harlequin in effigy at Leipzig, A.D. 1737, and laid down a law for
+German poetry, which prescribed obedience to the rules of the stilted
+French court-poetry, under pain of the critic's lash. He and his
+learned wife guided the literature of Germany for several years.
+
+In the midst of these literary aberrations, during the first part of
+the foregoing century, Thomson, the English poet, Brokes of Hamburg,
+and the Swiss, Albert von Haller, gave their descriptions of nature to
+the world. Brokes, in his "Earthly Pleasures in God," was faithful,
+often Homeric, in his descriptions, while Haller depictured his native
+Alps with unparalleled sublimity. The latter was succeeded by a Swiss
+school, which imitated the witty and liberal-minded criticisms of
+Addison and other English writers, and opposed French taste and
+Gottsched. At its head stood Bodmer and Breitinger, who recommended
+nature as a guide, and instead of the study of French literature, that
+of the ancient classics and of English authors. It was also owing to
+their exertions that Müller published an edition of Rudiger Maness's
+collection of Swabian Minnelieder, the connecting link between modern
+and ancient German poetry. Still, notwithstanding their merit as
+critics, they were no poets, and merely opened to others the road to
+improvement. Hagedorn, although frivolous in his ideas, was graceful
+and easy in his versification; but the most eminent poet of the age
+was Gellert of Leipzig, A.D. 1769, whose tales, fables, and essays
+brought him into such note as to attract the attention of Frederick
+the Great, who, notwithstanding the contempt in which he held the
+poets of Germany, honored him with a personal visit.
+
+Poets and critics now rose in every quarter and pitilessly assailed
+Gottsched, the champion of Gallomania. They were themselves divided
+into two opposite parties, into Anglomanists and Grĉcomanists,
+according to their predilection for modern English literature or for
+that of ancient Greece and Rome. England, grounded, as upon a rock, on
+her self-gained constitution, produced men of the rarest genius in all
+the higher walks of science and literature, and her philosophers,
+naturalists, historians, and poets exercised the happiest influence
+over their Teutonic brethren, who sought to regain from them the vigor
+of which they had been deprived by France. The power and national
+learning of Germany break forth in Klopstock, whose genius vainly
+sought a natural garb and was compelled to assume a borrowed form. He
+consecrated his muse to the service of religion, but, in so doing,
+imitated the Homeric hexameters of Milton; he sought to arouse the
+national pride of his countrymen by recalling the deeds of Hermann
+(Armin) and termed himself a bard, but, in the Horatian metre of his
+songs, imitated Ossian, the old Scottish bard, and was consequently
+labored and affected in his style. Others took the lesser English
+poets for their model, as, for instance, Kleist, who fell at
+Kunersdorf, copied Thomson in his "Spring"; Zachariä, Pope, in his
+satirical pieces; Hermes, in "The Travels of Sophia," the humorous
+romances of Richardson; Müller von Itzehoe, in his "Siegfried von
+Lindenberg," the comic descriptions of Smollett. The influence of the
+celebrated English poets, Shakespeare, Swift, and Sterne, on the tone
+of German humor and satire, was still greater. Swift's first imitator,
+Liscow, displayed considerable talent, and Rabener, a great part of
+whose manuscripts was burned during the siege of Dresden in the seven
+years' war, wrote witty, and at the same time instructive, satires on
+the manners of his age. Both were surpassed by Lichtenberg, the little
+hump-backed philosopher of Göttingen, whose compositions are replete
+with grace. The witty and amiable Thümmmel was also formed on an
+English model, and Archenholz solely occupied himself with
+transporting the customs and literature of England into Germany. If
+Shakespeare has not been without influence upon Goethe and Schiller,
+Sterne, in his "Sentimental Journey," touched an echoing chord in the
+German's heart by blending pathos with his jests. Hippel was the first
+who, like him, united wit with pathos, mockery with tears.
+
+In Klopstock, Anglo and Graecomania were combined. The latter had,
+however, also its particular school, in which each of the Greek and
+Roman poets found his imitator. Voss, for instance, took Homer for his
+model, Ramler, Horace, Gleim, Anacreon, Gessner, Theocritus, Cramer,
+Pindar, Lichtwer, Ĉsop, etc. The Germans, in the ridiculous attempt to
+set themselves up as Greeks, were, in truth, barbarians. But all was
+forced, unnatural, and perverted in this aping age. Wieland alone was
+deeply sensible of this want of nature, and hence arose his
+predilection for the best poets of Greece and France. The German muse,
+led by his genius, lost her ancient stiffness and acquired a pliant
+grace, to which the sternest critic of his too lax morality is not
+insensible. Some lyric poets, connected with the Graecomanists by the
+_Göttingen Hainbund_, preserved a noble simplicity, more particularly
+Salis and Hòlty, and also Count Stolberg, wherever he has not been led
+astray by Voss's stilted manner. Matthison is, on the other hand, most
+tediously affected.
+
+The German, never more at home than when abroad, boasted of being the
+cosmopolite he had become, made a virtue of necessity, and termed his
+want of patriotism, justice to others, humanity, philanthropy.
+Fortunately for him, there were, besides the French, other nations on
+which he could model himself, the ancient Greeks and the English, from
+each of whom he gathered something until he had converted himself into
+a sort of universal abstract. The great poets, who shortly before and
+after the seven years' war, put an end to mere partial imitations,
+were not actuated by a reaction of nationality, but by a sentiment of
+universality. Their object was, not to oppose the German to the
+foreign, but simply the human to the single national element, and,
+although Germany gave them birth, they regarded the whole world
+equally as their country.
+
+Lessing, by his triumph over the scholastic pedants, completed what
+Thomasius had begun, by his irresistible criticism drove French taste
+from the literary arena, aided Winckelmann to promote the study of the
+ancients and to foster the love of art, and raised the German theatre
+to an unprecedented height. His native language, in which he always
+wrote, breathes, even in his most trifling works, a free and lofty
+spirit, which, fascinating in every age, was more peculiarly so at
+that emasculated period. He is, however, totally devoid of patriotism.
+In his "Minna von Barnhelm," he inculcates the finest feelings of
+honor; his "Nathan" is replete with the wisdom "that cometh from
+above" and with calm dignity; and in "Emilia Galotti" he has been the
+first to draw the veil, hitherto respected, from scenes in real life.
+His life was, like his mind, independent. He scorned to cringe for
+favor, even disdained letters of recommendation when visiting Italy
+(Winckelmann had deviated from the truth for the sake of pleasing a
+patron), contented himself with the scanty lot of a librarian at
+Wolfenbüttel, and even preferred losing that appointment rather than
+subject himself to the censorship. He was the boldest, freest, finest
+spirit of the age.
+
+Herder, although no less noble, was exactly his opposite. Of a soft
+and yielding temperament, unimaginative, and gifted with little
+penetration, but with a keen sense of the beautiful in others, he
+opened to his fellow countrymen with unremitting diligence the
+literary treasures of foreign nations, ancient classical poetry, that,
+hitherto unknown, of the East, and rescued from obscurity the old
+popular poetry of Germany. In his "Ideas of a Philosophical History of
+Mankind," he attempted to display in rich and manifold variety the
+moral character of every nation and of every age, and, while thus
+creating and improving the taste for poetry and history, ever, with
+childlike piety, sought for and revered God in all his works.
+
+Goethe, with a far richer imagination, possessed the elegance but not
+the independence of Lessing, all the softness, pathos, and
+universality of Herder, without his faith. In the treatment and choice
+of his subjects he is indubitably the greatest poet of Germany, but he
+was never inspired with enthusiasm except for himself. His personal
+vanity was excessive. His works, like the lights in his apartment at
+Weimar, which were skilfully disposed so as to present him in the most
+favorable manner to his visitors, but artfully reflect upon self. The
+manner in which he palliated the weaknesses of the heart, the vain
+inclinations, shared by his contemporaries in common with himself,
+rendered him the most amiable and popular author of the day. French
+frivolity and license had long been practiced, but they had also been
+rebuked. Goethe was the first who gravely justified adultery, rendered
+the sentimental voluptuary an object of enthusiastic admiration, and
+deified the heroes of the stage, in whose imaginary fortunes the
+German forgot sad reality and the wretched fate of his country. His
+_fade_ assumption of dignity, the art with which he threw the veil of
+mystery over his frivolous tendencies and made his commonplace ideas
+pass for something incredibly sublime, naturally met with astonishing
+success in his wonder-seeking times.
+
+Rousseau's influence, the ideas of universal reform, the example of
+England, proud and free, but still more, the enthusiasm excited by the
+American war of independence, inflamed many heads in Germany and
+raised a poetical opposition, which began with the bold-spirited
+Schubart, whose liberal opinions threw him into a prison, but whose
+spirit still breathed in his songs and roused that of his great
+countryman, Schiller. The first cry of the oppressed people was, by
+Schiller, repeated with a prophet's voice. In him their woes found an
+eloquent advocate. Lessing had vainly appealed to the understanding,
+but Schiller spoke to the heart, and if the seed, sown by him, fell
+partially on corrupt and barren ground, it found a fostering soil in
+the warm, unadulterated hearts of the youth of both sexes. He recalled
+his fellow-men, in those frivolous times, to a sense of self-respect,
+he restored to innocence the power and dignity of which she had been
+deprived by ridicule, and became the champion of liberty, justice, and
+his country, things from which the love of pleasure and the
+aristocratic self-complacency, exemplified in Goethe, had gradually
+and completely Weaned succeeding poets. Klinger, at the same time,
+coarsely portrayed the vices of the church and state, and Meyern
+extravagated in his romance "Dya-Na-Sore" on Utopian happiness. The
+poems of Muller, the painter, are full of latent warmth. Burger,
+Pfeffel, the blind poet, and Claudius, gave utterance, in Schubart's
+coarse manner, to a few trite truisms. Musĉus was greatly admired for
+his amusing popular stories. As for the rest, it seemed as though the
+spiritless writers of that day had found it more convenient to be
+violent and savage in their endless chivalric pieces and romances
+than, like Schiller, steadily and courageously to attack the vices and
+evils of their age. Their fire but ended in smoke. Babo and Ziegler
+alone, among the dramatists, have a liberal tendency. The spirit that
+had been called forth also degenerated into mere bacchanalian license,
+and, in order to return to nature, the limits set by decency and
+custom were, as by Heinse, for instance, who thus disgraced his
+genius, wantonly overthrown.
+
+In contradistinction to these wild spirits, which, whether borne aloft
+by their genius or impelled by ambition, quitted the narrow limits of
+daily existence, a still greater number of poets employed their
+talents in singing the praise of common life, and brought domesticity
+and household sentimentality into vogue. The very prose of life, so
+unbearable to the former, was by them converted into poetry. Although
+the ancient idyls and the family scenes of English authors were at
+first imitated, this style of poetry retained an essentially German
+originality; the hero of the modern idyl, unlike his ancient model,
+was a fop tricked out with wig and cane, and the domestic hero of the
+tale, unlike his English counterpart, was a mere political nullity. It
+is perhaps well when domestic comforts replace the want of public
+life, but these poets hugged the chain they had decked with flowers,
+and forgot the reality. They forgot that it is a misfortune and a
+disgrace for a German to be without a country, without a great
+national interest, to be the most unworthy descendant of the greatest
+ancestors, the prey and the jest of the foreigner; to this they were
+indifferent, insensible; they laid down the maxim that a German has
+nothing more to do than "to provide for" himself and his family, no
+other enemy to repel than domestic trouble, no other duty than "to
+keep his German wife in order," to send his sons to the university,
+and to marry his daughters. These commonplace private interests were
+withal merely adorned with a little sentimentality. No noble motive is
+discoverable in Voss's celebrated "Louisa" and Goethe's "Hermann and
+Dorothea." This style of poetry was so easy that hundreds of
+weak-headed men and women made it their occupation, and family scenes
+and plays speedily surpassed the romances of chivalry in number. The
+poet, nevertheless, exercised no less an influence, notwithstanding
+his voluntary renunciation of his privilege to elevate the sinking
+minds of his countrymen by the great memories of the past or by ideal
+images, and his degradation of poetry to a mere palliation of the
+weaknesses of humanity.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: He was a friend of Grotius and is styled the father of
+German poetry.--_Trans_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Of which an edition, much esteemed, was published by
+Lessing and Ramler.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Adam Elschlager or Olearius, an eminent traveller and
+mathematician, a native of Anhalt. He became secretary to an embassy
+sent to Russia and Persia by the duke of Holstein.--_Trans_.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART XXII
+
+THE GREAT WARS WITH FRANCE
+
+CCXLVI. The French Revolution
+
+
+In no other European state had despotism arrived at such a pitch as in
+France; the people groaned beneath the heavy burdens imposed by the
+court, the nobility, and the clergy, and against these two estates
+there was no appeal, their tyranny being protected by the court, to
+which they had servilely submitted. The court had rendered itself not
+only unpopular, but contemptible, by its excessive license, which had
+also spread downward among the higher classes; the government was,
+moreover, impoverished by extravagance and weakened by an incapable
+administration, the helm of state, instead of being guided by a
+master-hand, having fallen under Louis XV. into that of a woman.
+
+In France, where the ideas of modern philosophy emanated from the
+court, they spread more rapidly than in any other country among the
+tiers-etat, and the spirit of research, of improvement, of ridicule of
+all that was old, naturally led the people to inquire into the
+administration, to discover and to ridicule its errors. The natural
+wit of the people, sharpened by daily oppression and emboldened by
+Voltaire's unsparing ridicule of objects hitherto held sacred, found
+ample food in the policy pursued by the government, and ridicule
+became the weapon with which the tiers-etat revenged the tyranny of
+the higher classes. As learning spread, the deeds of other nations,
+who had happily and gloriously cast off the yoke of their oppressors,
+became known to the people. The names of the patriots of Greece and
+Rome passed from mouth to mouth, and their actions became the theme of
+the rising generation; but more powerful than all in effect, was the
+example of the North Americans, who, A.D. 1783, separated themselves
+from their mother-country, England, and founded a republic. France,
+intent upon weakening her ancient foe, lent her countenance to the new
+republic, and numbers of her sons fought beneath her standard and bore
+the novel ideas of liberty back to their native land, where they
+speedily produced a fermentation among their mercurial countrymen.
+
+Louis XV., a voluptuous and extravagant monarch, was succeeded by
+Louis XVI., a man of refined habits, pious and benevolent in
+disposition, but unpossessed of the moral power requisite for the
+extermination of the evils deeply rooted in the government. His queen,
+Marie Antoinette, sister to Joseph II., little resembled her brother
+or her husband in her tastes, was devoted to gaiety, and, by her
+example, countenanced the most lavish extravagance. The evil increased
+to a fearful degree. The taxes no longer sufficed; the exchequer was
+robbed by privileged thieves; an enormous debt continued to increase;
+and the king, almost reduced to the necessity of declaring the state
+bankrupt, demanded aid from the nobility and clergy, who, hitherto
+free from taxation, had amassed the whole wealth of the empire.
+
+The aristocracy, ever blind to their true interest, refused to comply,
+and, by so doing, compelled the king to have recourse to the
+tiers-etat. Accordingly, A.D. 1789, he convoked a general assembly, in
+which the deputies sent by the citizens and peasant classes were not
+only numerically equal to those of the aristocracy, but were greatly
+superior to them in talent and energy, and, on the refusal of the
+nobility and clergy to comply with the just demands of the tiers-etat,
+or even to hold a common sitting with their despised inferiors, these
+deputies declared the national assembly to consist of themselves
+alone, and proceeded, on their own responsibility, to scrutinize the
+evils of the administration and to discuss remedial measures. The
+whole nation applauded the manly and courageous conduct of its
+representatives. The Parisians, ever in extremes, revolted, and
+murdered the unpopular public officers; the soldiers, instead of
+quelling the rebellion, fraternized with the people. The national
+assembly, emboldened by these first successes, undertook a thorough
+transformation of the state, and, in order to attain the object for
+which they had been assembled, that of procuring supplies, declared
+the aristocracy subject to taxation, and sold the enormous property
+belonging to the church. They went still further. The people was
+declared the only true sovereign, and the king the first servant of
+the state. All distinctions and privileges were abolished, and all
+Frenchmen were declared equal.
+
+The nobility and clergy, infuriated by this dreadful humiliation,
+embittered the people still more against them by their futile
+opposition, and, at length convinced of the hopelessness of their
+cause, emigrated in crowds and attempted to form another France on the
+borders of their country in the German Rhenish provinces. Worms and
+Coblentz were their chief places of resort. In the latter city, they
+continued their Parisian mode of life at the expense of the avaricious
+elector of Treves, Clement Wenzel, a Saxon prince, by whose powerful
+minister, Dominique, they were supported, and acted with unparalleled
+impudence. They were headed by the two brothers of the French king,
+who entered into negotiation with all the foreign powers, and they
+vowed to defend the cause of the sovereigns against the people. Louis,
+who for some time wavered between the national assembly and the
+emigrants, was at length persuaded by the queen to throw himself into
+the arms of the latter, and secretly fled, but was retaken and
+subjected to still more rigorous treatment. The emigrants, instead of
+saving, hurried him to destruction.
+
+The other European powers at first gave signs of indecision. Blinded
+by a policy no longer suited to the times, they merely beheld in the
+French Revolution the ruin of a state hitherto inimical to them, and
+rejoiced at the event. The prospect of an easy conquest of the
+distracted country, however, ere long led to the resolution on their
+part of actively interfering with its affairs. Austria was insulted in
+the person of the French queen, and, as head of the empire, was bound
+to protect the rights of the petty Rhenish princes and nobility, who
+possessed property and ecclesiastical or feudal rights[1] on French
+territory, and had been injured by the new constitution. Prussia,
+habituated to despotism, came forward as its champion in the hope of
+gaining new laurels for her unemployed army. A conference took place
+at Pilnitz in Saxony, A.D. 1791, between Emperor Leopold and King
+Frederick William, at which the Count D'Artois, the youngest brother
+of Louis XVI., was present, and a league was formed against the
+Revolution. The old ministers strongly opposed it. In Prussia,
+Herzberg drew upon himself the displeasure of his sovereign by
+zealously advising a union with France against Austria. In Austria,
+Kaunitz recommended peace, and said that were he allowed to act he
+would defeat the impetuous French by his "patience;" that, instead of
+attacking France, he would calmly watch the event and allow her, like
+a volcano, to bring destruction upon herself. Ferdinand of Brunswick,
+field-marshal of Prussia, was equally opposed to war. His fame as the
+greatest general of his time had been too easily gained, more by his
+manoeuvres than by his victories, not to induce a fear on his side of
+being as easily deprived of it in a fresh war; but the proposal of the
+revolutionary party in France--within whose minds the memory of
+Rossbach was still fresh--mistrustful of French skill, to nominate him
+generalissimo of the troops of the republic, conspired with the
+incessant entreaties of the emigrants to reanimate his courage; and he
+finally declared that, followed by the famous troops of the great
+Frederick, he would put a speedy termination to the French Revolution.
+
+Leopold II. was, as brother to Marie Antoinette, greatly embittered
+against the French. The disinclination of the Austrians to the reforms
+of Joseph II. appears to have chiefly confirmed him in the conviction
+of finding a sure support in the old system. He consequently strictly
+prohibited the slightest innovation and placed a power hitherto
+unknown in the hands of the police, more particularly in those of its
+secret functionaries, who listened to every word and consigned the
+suspected to the oblivion of a dungeon. This mute terrorism found many
+a victim. This system was, on the death of Leopold II., A.D. 1792,[2]
+publicly abolished by his son and successor, Francis II., but was ere
+long again carried on in secret.
+
+Catherine II., with the view of seizing the rest of Poland, employed
+every art in order to instigate Austria and Prussia to a war with
+France, and by these means fully to occupy them in the West. The
+Prussian king, although aware of her projects, deemed the French an
+easy conquest, and that in case of necessity his armies could without
+difficulty be thrown into Poland. He meanwhile secured the popular
+feeling in Poland in his favor by concluding, A.D. 1790, an alliance
+with Stanislaus and giving his consent to the improved constitution
+established in Poland, A.D. 1791. Herzberg had even counselled an
+alliance with France and Poland, the latter was to be bribed with a
+promise of the annexation of Galicia, against Austria and Russia; this
+plan was, however, merely whispered about for the purpose of blinding
+the Poles and of alarming Russia.
+
+The bursting storm was anticipated on the part of the French by a
+declaration of war, A.D. 1792, and while Austria still remained behind
+for the purpose of watching Russia, Poland, and Turkey, and the
+unwieldy empire was engaged in raising troops, Ferdinand of Brunswick
+had already led the Prussians across the Rhine. He was joined by the
+emigrants under Conde, whose army almost entirely consisted of
+officers. The well-known manifesto, published by the duke of Brunswick
+on his entrance into France, and in which he declared his intention to
+level Paris with the ground should the French refuse to submit to the
+authority of their sovereign, was composed by Renfner, the counsellor
+of the embassy at Berlin. The emperor and Frederick William, persuaded
+that fear would reduce the French to obedience, had approved of this
+manifesto, which was, on the contrary, disapproved of by the duke of
+Brunswick, on account of its barbarity and its ill-accordance with the
+rules of war.[3] He did not, however, withdraw his signature on its
+publication. The effect of this manifesto was that the French, instead
+of being struck with terror, were maddened with rage, deposed their
+king, proclaimed a republic, and flew to arms in order to defend their
+cities against the barbarians threatening them with destruction. The
+Orleans party and the Jacobins, who were in close alliance with the
+German Illuminati, were at that time first able to gain the mastery
+and to supplant the noble-spirited constitutionalists. A Prussian
+baron, Anachasis Cloots,[4] was even elected in the national
+convention of the French republic, where he appeared as the advocate
+of the whole human race. These atheistical babblers, however, talked
+to little purpose, but the national pride of the troops, hastily
+levied and sent against the invaders, effected wonders.
+
+The delusion of the Prussians was so complete that Bischofswerder said
+to the officers, "Do not purchase too many horses, the affair will
+soon be over"; and the duke of Brunswick remarked, "Gentlemen, not too
+much baggage, this is merely a military trip."
+
+The Prussians, it is true, wondered that the inhabitants did not, as
+the emigrants had alleged they would, crowd to meet and greet them as
+their saviors and liberators, but at first they met with no
+opposition. The noble-spirited Lafayette, who commanded the main body
+of the French army, had at first attempted to march upon Paris for the
+purpose of saving the king, but the troops were already too much
+republicanized and he was compelled to seek refuge in the Netherlands,
+where he was, together with his companions, seized by command of the
+emperor of Austria, and thrown into prison at Olmütz, where he
+remained during five years under the most rigorous treatment merely on
+account of the liberality of his opinions, because he wanted a
+constitutional king, and notwithstanding his having endangered his
+life and his honor in order to save his sovereign. Such was the hatred
+with which high-minded men of strict principle were at that period
+viewed, while at the same time a negotiation was carried on with
+Dumouriez,[5] a characterless Jacobin intriguant, who had succeeded
+Lafayette in the command of the French armies.
+
+Ferdinand of Brunswick now became the dupe of Dumouriez, as he had
+formerly been that of the emigrants. In the hope of a counter-
+revolution in Paris, he procrastinated his advance and lost his most
+valuable time in the siege of fortresses. Verdun fell: three beautiful
+citizens' daughters, who had presented bouquets to the king of
+Prussia, were afterward sent to the guillotine by the republicans as
+traitoresses to their country. Ferdinand, notwithstanding this
+success, still delayed his advance in the hope of gaining over the
+wily French commander and of thus securing beforehand his triumph in a
+contest in which his ancient fame might otherwise be at stake. The
+impatient king, who had accompanied the army, spurred him on, but was,
+owing to his ignorance of military matters, again pacified by the
+reasons alleged by the cautious duke. Dumouriez, consequently, gained
+time to collect considerable reinforcements and to unite his forces
+with those under Kellermann of Alsace. The two armies came within
+sight of each other at Valmy; the king gave orders for battle, and the
+Prussians were in the act of advancing against the heights occupied by
+Kellermann, when the duke suddenly gave orders to halt and drew off
+the troops under a loud _vivat_ from the French, who beheld this
+movement with astonishment. The king was at first greatly enraged, but
+was afterward persuaded by the duke of the prudence of this
+extraordinary step. Negotiations were now carried on with increased
+spirit. Dumouriez, who, like Kaunitz, said that the French, if left to
+themselves, would inevitably fall a prey to intestine convulsions,
+also contrived to accustom the king to the idea of a future alliance
+with France. The result of these intrigues was an armistice and the
+retreat of the Prussian army, which dysentery, bad weather, and bad
+roads rendered extremely destructive.
+
+Austria was now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of Brunswick and
+the credulity of Frederick William, left unprotected. As early as
+June, old Marshal Lukner invaded Flanders, but, being arrested on
+suspicion, was replaced by Dumouriez, who continued the war in the
+Netherlands and defeated the stadtholder, Albert, duke of Saxon-
+Tescheu (son-in-law to Maria Theresa, in consideration of which he had
+been endowed with the principality of Teschen and the stadtholdership
+at Brussels), at Jemappes, and the whole of the Netherlands fell into
+the hands of the Jacobins, who, on the 14th of November, entered
+Brussels, where they proclaimed liberty and equality. A few days later
+(19th of November) the national convention at Paris proclaimed liberty
+and equality to all nations, promised their aid to all those who
+asserted their liberty, and threatened to compel those who chose to
+remain in slavery to accept of liberty. As a preliminary, however, the
+Netherlands, after being declared free, were ransacked of every
+description of movable property, of which Pache, a native of Freiburg
+in Switzerland, at that time the French minister of war, received a
+large share. The fluctuations of the war, however, speedily recalled
+the Jacobins. Another French army under Custines, which had marched to
+the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in Mayence.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: To the archbishopric of Cologne belonged the bishopric of
+Strasburg, to the archbishopric of Treves, the bishoprics of Metz,
+Toul, Verdun, Nancy, St. Diez. Würtemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau,
+Pfalz-Zweibrücken, Leiningen, Salm-Salm, Hohenlohe-Bartenstein,
+Löwenstein, Wertheim, the Teutonic order, the knights of St. John, the
+immediate nobility of the empire, the bishop of Basel, etc., had,
+moreover, feudal rights within the French territory. The arch-
+chancellor, elector of Mayence, made the patriotic proposal to the
+imperial diet that the empire should, now that France had, by the
+violation of the conditions of peace, infringed the old and shameful
+treaties by which Germany had been deprived of her provinces, seize
+the opportunity also on her part to refuse to recognize those
+treaties, and to regain what she had lost. This sensible proposal,
+however, found no one capable of carrying it into effect.]
+
+[Footnote 2: His sons were the emperor Francis II., Ferdinand,
+grandduke of Tuscany, the archduke Charles, celebrated for his
+military talents, Joseph, palatine of Hungary, Antony, grand-master of
+the Teutonic order, who died at Vienna, A.D. 1835, John, a general (he
+lived for many years in Styria), the present imperial vicar-general of
+Germany, and Rayner, viceroy of Milan.--_Trans_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Gentz, who afterward wrote so many manifestoes for
+Austria, practically remarks that this celebrated manifesto was in
+perfect conformity with the intent and that the only fault committed
+was the non-fulfillment of the threats therein contained.]
+
+[Footnote 4: From Cleve. He compared himself with Anacharsis the
+Scythian, a barbarian, who visited Greece for the sake of learning. He
+sacrificed the whole of his property to the Revolution. Followed by a
+troop of men dressed in the costumes of different nations, of whom
+they were the pretended representatives, he appeared before the
+convention, from which he demanded the liberation of the whole world
+from the yoke of kings and priests. He became president of the great
+Jacobin club, and it was principally owing to his instigations that
+the French, at first merely intent upon defence, were roused to the
+attack and inspired with the desire for conquest.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Dumouriez proposed as negotiator John Müller, who was at
+that time teaching at Mayence, and who was in secret correspondence
+with him. Vide Memoirs of a Celebrated Statesman, edited by Rüder.
+Rüder remarks that John Müller is silent in his autobiography
+concerning his correspondence with the Jacobins, for which he might,
+under a change of circumstances, have had good reason.]
+
+
+
+CCXLVII. German Jacobins
+
+
+In Lorraine and Alsace, the Revolution had been hailed with delight by
+the long-oppressed people. On the 10th of July, 1789, the peasants
+destroyed the park of the bishop, Rohan, at Zabern, and killed immense
+quantities of game. The chateaux and monasteries throughout the
+country were afterward reduced to heaps of ruins, and, in Suntgau, the
+peasants took especial vengeance on the Jews, who had, in that place,
+long lived on the fat of the land. Mulhausen received a democratic
+constitution and a Jacobin club. In Strasburg, the town-house was
+assailed by the populace,[1] notwithstanding which, order was
+maintained by the mayor, Dietrich. The unpopular bishop, Rohan, was
+replaced by Brendel, against whom the people of Colmar revolted, and
+even assaulted him in the church for having taken the oath imposed by
+the French republic, and which was rejected by all good Catholics.
+Dietrich, aided by the great majority of the citizens of Strasburg,
+long succeeded in keeping the _sans culottes_ at bay, but was at
+length overcome, deprived of his office, and guillotined at Paris,
+while Eulogius Schneider, who had formerly been a professor at Bonn,
+then court preacher to the Catholic duke, Charles of Wurtemberg,[2]
+became the tyrant of Strasburg, and, in the character of public
+accuser before the revolutionary tribunal, conducted the executions.
+The national convention at Paris nominated as his colleague Monet, a
+man twenty-four years of age, totally ignorant of the German language,
+and who merely made himself remarkable for his open rapacity.[3] This
+was, however, a mere prelude to far greater horrors. Two members of
+the convention, St. Just and Lebas, unexpectedly appeared at
+Strasburg, declared that nothing had as yet been done, ordered the
+executions to take place on a larger scale, and, A.D. 1793, imposed a
+fine of nine million livres on the already plundered city. The German
+costume and mode of writing were also prohibited; every sign, written
+in German, affixed to the houses, was taken down, and, finally, the
+whole of the city council and all the officers of the national guard
+were arrested and either exiled or guillotined, notwithstanding their
+zealous advocacy of revolutionary principles, on the charge of an
+understanding with Austria, without proof, on a mere groundless
+suspicion, without being permitted to defend themselves, for the sole
+purpose of removing them out of the way in order to replace them with
+trueborn Frenchmen, a Parisian mob, who established themselves in the
+desolate houses. Schneider and Brendel continued to retain their
+places by means of the basest adulation. On the 21st of November, a
+great festival was solemnized in the Minster, which had been converted
+into a temple of Reason. The bust of Marat, the most loathsome of all
+the monsters engendered by the Revolution, was borne in solemn
+procession to the cathedral, before whose portals an immense fire was
+fed with pictures and images of the saints, crucifixes, priests'
+garments, and sacred vessels, among which Brendel hurled his mitre.
+Within the cathedral walls, Schneider delivered a discourse in
+controversion of the Christian religion, which he concluded by
+solemnly renouncing; a number of Catholic ecclesiastics followed his
+example. All the statues and ecclesiastical symbols were piled in a
+rude heap at the foot of the great tower, which it was also attempted
+to pull down for the promotion of universal equality, an attempt which
+the extraordinary strength of the building and the short reign of
+revolutionary madness fortunately frustrated. All the more wealthy
+citizens had, meanwhile, been consigned either to the guillotine or to
+prison, and their houses filled with French bandits, who revelled in
+their wealth and dishonored their wives and daughters. Eulogius
+Schneider was compelled to seek at midnight for a wife, suspicion
+having already attached to him on account of his former profession. It
+was, however, too late. On the following morning, he was seized and
+sent to Paris, where he was guillotined. All ecclesiastics, all
+schoolmasters, even the historian, Friese, were, without exception,
+declared suspected and dragged to the prisons of Besançon, where they
+suffered the harshest treatment at the hands of the commandant, Prince
+Charles of Hesse. In Strasburg, Neumann, who had succeeded Schneider
+as public accuser, raged with redoubled fury. The guillotine was ever
+at work, was illuminated during the night time, and was the scene of
+the orgies of the drunken bandits. On the advance of the French armies
+to the frontiers, the whole country was pillaged.[4]
+
+In other places, where the plundering habits of the French had not
+cooled the popular enthusiasm, it still rose high, more particularly
+at Mayence. This city, which had been rendered a seat of the Muses by
+the elector, Frederick Charles, was in a state of complete
+demoralization. On the loss of Strasburg, Mayence, although the only
+remaining bulwark of Germany, was entirely overlooked. The war had
+already burst forth; no imperial army had as yet been levied, and the
+fortifications of Mayence were in the most shameful state of neglect.
+Magazines had been established by the imperial troops on the left bank
+of the Rhine, seemingly for the mere purpose of letting them fall into
+the hands of Custine: but eight hundred Austrians garrisoned Mayence;
+the Hessians, although numerically weak, were alone sincere in their
+efforts for the defence of Germany. Custine's advanced guard no sooner
+came in sight than the elector and all the higher functionaries fled
+to Aschaffenburg. Von Gymnich, the commandant of Mayence, called a
+council of war and surrendered the city, which was unanimously
+declared untenable by all present with the exception of Eikenmaier,
+who, notwithstanding, went forthwith over to the French, and of
+Andujar, the commander of the eight hundred Austrians, with whom he
+instantly evacuated the place. The Illuminati, who were here in great
+number, triumphantly opened the gates to the French, A.D. 1792. The
+most extraordinary scenes were enacted. A society, the members of
+which preached the doctrines of liberty and equality, and at whose
+head stood the professors Blau, Wedekind, Metternich, Hoffmann,
+Forster, the eminent navigator, the doctors Böhmer and Stamm, Dorsch
+of Strasburg, etc., chiefly men who had formerly been Illuminati, was
+formed in imitation of the revolutionary Jacobin club at Paris.[5]
+These people committed unheard-of follies. At first, notwithstanding
+their doctrine of equality, they were distinguished by a particular
+ribbon; the women, insensible to shame, wore girdles with long ends,
+on which the word "liberty" was worked in front, and the word
+"equality" behind. Women, girt with sabres, danced franticly around
+tall trees of liberty, in imitation of those of France, and fired off
+pistols. The men wore monstrous mustaches in imitation of those of
+Custine, whom, notwithstanding their republican notions, they loaded
+with servile flattery. As a means of gaining over the lower orders
+among the citizens, who with plain good sense opposed their apish
+tricks, the clubbists demolished a large stone, by which the
+Archbishop Adolphus had formerly sworn, "You, citizens of Mayence,
+shall not regain your privileges until this stone shall melt." This,
+however, proved as little effective as did the production of a large
+book, in which every citizen, desirous of transforming the electorate
+of Mayence into a republic, was requested to inscribe his name.
+Notwithstanding the threat of being treated, in case of refusal, as
+slaves, the citizens and peasantry, plainly foreseeing that, instead
+of receiving the promised boon of liberty, they would but expose
+themselves to Custine's brutal tyranny, withheld their signatures, and
+the clubbists finally established a republic under the protection of
+France without the consent of the people, removed all the old
+authorities, and, at the close of 1792, elected Dorsch, a remarkably
+diminutive, ill-favored man, who had formerly been a priest,
+president.
+
+The manner in which Custine levied contributions in Frankfort on the
+Maine,[6] was still less calculated to render the French popular in
+Germany. Cowardly as this general was, he, nevertheless, told the
+citizens of Frankfort a truth that time has, up to the present period,
+confirmed. "You have beheld the coronation of the emperor of Germany?
+Well! you will not see another."
+
+Two Germans, natives of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a
+Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came
+to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city.
+They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of
+the German empire, but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence
+to declare in favor of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their
+opposition, exclaimed that he would level the city to the ground, that
+he should deem himself dishonored were he to waste another word on
+such slaves. A number of refractory persons were expelled from the
+city,[7] and, on the 17th of March, 1793, although three hundred and
+seventy of the citizens alone voted in its favor, a Teuto-Rhenish
+national convention, under the presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at
+Mayence and instantly declared in favor of the union of the new
+republic with France. Forster, in other respects a man of great
+elevation of mind, forgetful, in his enthusiasm, of all national
+pride, personally carried to Paris the scandalous documents in which
+the French were humbly entreated to accept of a province of the German
+empire. The Prussians, who had remained in Luxemburg (without aiding
+the Austrians), meanwhile advanced to the Rhine, took Coblentz, which
+Custine had neglected to garrison (a neglect for which he afterward
+lost his head), repulsed a French force under Bournonville, when on
+the point of forming a junction with Custine, at Treves, expelled
+Custine from Frankfort,[8] and closely besieged Mayence, which, after
+making a valiant defence, was compelled to capitulate in July.
+
+Numbers of the clubbists fled, or were saved by the French, when
+evacuating the city, in the disguise of soldiers. Others were arrested
+and treated with extreme cruelty. Every clubbist, or any person
+suspected of being one, received five and twenty lashes in the
+presence of Kalkreuth, the Prussian general. Metternich was, together
+with numerous others, carried off, chained fast between the horses of
+the hussars, and, whenever he sank from weariness, spurred on at the
+sabre point. Blau had his ears boxed by the Prussian minister,
+Stein.[9] A similar reaction took place at Worms,[10] Spires, etc.
+
+The German Jacobins suffered the punishment amply deserved by all
+those who look for salvation from the foreigner. Those who had barely
+escaped the vengeance of the Prussian on the Rhine were beheaded by
+their pretended good friends in France. Robespierre, an advocate, who,
+at that period, governed the convention, sent every foreigner who had
+enrolled himself as a member of the Jacobin club to the guillotine, as
+a suspicious person, a bloody but instructive lesson to all
+unpatriotic German Gallomanists.[11]
+
+The victims who fell on this occasion were, a prince of Salm-Kyrburg,
+who had voluntarily republicanized his petty territory, Anacharsis
+Cloots,[12] and the venerable Trenk, who had so long pined in
+Frederick's prisons. Adam Lux, a friend of George Forster, was also
+beheaded for expressing his admiration of Charlotte Corday, the
+murderess of Marat. Marat was a Prussian subject, being a native of
+Neufchâtel. Göbel von Bruntrut, uncle to Rengger,[13] a celebrated
+character in the subsequent Swiss revolution, vicar-general of Basel,
+a furious revolutionist, who had on that account been appointed bishop
+of Paris, presented himself on the 6th of November, 1793, at the bar
+of the convention as an associate of Cloots, Hebert, Chaumette, etc.,
+cast his mitre and other insignia of office to the ground, and placing
+the bonnet rouge on his head, solemnly renounced the Christian faith
+and proclaimed that of "liberty and equality." The rest of the
+ecclesiastics were compelled to imitate his example; the Christian
+religion was formally abolished and the worship of Reason was
+established in its stead. Half-naked women were placed upon the altars
+of the desecrated churches and worshipped as "goddesses of Reason."
+Göbel's friend, Pache, a native of Freiburg, a creature abject as
+himself, was particularly zealous, as was also Proli, a natural son of
+the Austrian minister, Kaunitz. Prince Charles of Hesse, known among
+the Jacobins as Charles Hesse, fortunately escaped. Schlaberndorf,[14]
+a Silesian count, who appears to have been a mere spectator, and
+Oelsner, a distinguished author, were equally fortunate. These two
+latter remained in Paris. Reinhard, a native of Wurtemberg, secretary
+to the celebrated Girondin, Vergniaud, whom he is said to have aided
+in the composition of his eloquent speeches, remained in the service
+of France, was afterward ennobled and raised to the ministry. Felix
+von Wimpfen, whom the faction of the Gironde (the moderates who
+opposed the savage Jacobins) elected their general, and who,
+attempting to lead a small force from Normandy against Paris, was
+defeated and compelled to seek safety by flight. The venerable Lukner,
+the associate of Lafayette, who had termed the great Revolution merely
+"a little occurrence in Paris," was beheaded. The unfortunate George
+Forster perceived his error and died of sorrow.[15] Among the other
+Rhenish Germans of distinction, who had at that time formed a
+connection with France, Joseph Görres brought himself, notwithstanding
+his extreme youth, into great note at Coblentz by his superior
+talents. He went to Paris as deputy of Treves and speedily became
+known by his works (Rubezahl and the Red Leaf). He also speedily
+discovered the immense mistake made by the Germans in resting their
+hopes upon France. It was indeed a strange delusion to suppose the
+vain and greedy Frenchman capable of being inspired with disinterested
+love for all mankind, and it was indeed a severe irony, that, after
+such repeated and cruel experience, after having for centuries seen
+the French ever in the guise of robbers and pillagers, and after
+breathing such loud complaints against the princes who had sold
+Germany to France, that the warmest friends of the people should on
+this occasion be guilty of similar treachery, and, like selecting the
+goat for a gardener, entrust the weal of their country to the French.
+
+The people in Germany too little understood the real motives and
+object of the French Revolution, and were too soon provoked by the
+predatory incursions of the French troops, to be infected with
+revolutionary principles. These merely fermented among the literati;
+the Utopian idea of universal fraternization was spread by
+Freemasonry; numbers at first cherished a hope that the Revolution
+would preserve a pure moral character, and were not a little
+astonished on beholding the monstrous crimes to which it gave birth.
+Others merely rejoiced at the fall of the old and insupportable
+system, and numerous anonymous pamphlets in this spirit appeared in
+the Rhenish provinces. Fichte, the philosopher, also published an
+anonymous work in favor of the Revolution. Others again, as, for
+instance, Reichard, Girtanner, Schirach, and Hoffmann, set themselves
+up as informers, and denounced every liberal-minded man to the princes
+as a dangerous Jacobin. A search was made for Crypto-Jacobins, and
+every honest man was exposed to the calumny of the servile newspaper
+editors. French republicanism was denounced as criminal,
+notwithstanding the favor in which the French language and French
+ideas were held at all the courts of Germany. Liberal opinions were
+denounced as criminal, notwithstanding the example first set by the
+courts in ridiculing religion, in mocking all that was venerable and
+sacred. Nor was this reaction by any means occasioned by a burst of
+German patriotism against the tyranny of France, for the treaty of
+Basel speedily reconciled the self-same newspaper editors with France.
+It was mere servility; and the hatred which, it may easily be
+conceived, was naturally excited against the French as a nation, was
+vented in this mode upon the patient Germans,[16] who were,
+unfortunately, ever doomed, whenever their neighbors were visited with
+some political chronic convulsion, to taste the bitter remedy. But few
+of the writers of the day took a historical view of the Revolution and
+weighed its irremediable results in regard to Germany, besides Gentz,
+Rehberg, and the Baron von Gagern, who published an "Address to his
+Countrymen," in which he started the painful question, "Why are we
+Germans disunited?" The whole of these contending opinions of the
+learned were, however, equally erroneous. It was as little possible to
+preserve the Revolution from blood and immorality, and to extend the
+boon of liberty to the whole world, as it was to suppress it by force,
+and, as far as Germany was concerned, her affairs were too complicated
+and her interests too scattered for any attempt of the kind to
+succeed. A Doctor Faust, at Buckeburg, sent a learned treatise upon
+the origin of trousers to the national convention at Paris, by which
+Sansculottism had been introduced; an incident alone sufficient to
+show the state of feeling in Germany at that time.
+
+The revolutionary principles of France merely infected the people in
+those parts of Germany where their sufferings had ever been the
+greatest, as, for instance, in Saxony, where the peasantry, oppressed
+by the game laws and the rights of the nobility, rose, after a dry
+summer by which their misery had been greatly increased, to the number
+of eighteen thousand, and sent one of their class to lay their
+complaints before the elector, A.D. 1790. The unfortunate messenger
+was instantly consigned to a madhouse, where he remained until 1809,
+and the peasantry were dispersed by the military. A similar revolt of
+the peasantry against the tyrannical nuns of Wormelen, in Westphalia,
+merely deserves mention as being characteristic of the times. A revolt
+of the peasantry, of equal unimportance, also took place in Buckeburg,
+on account of the expulsion of three revolutionary priests, Froriep,
+Meyer, and Rauschenbusch. In Breslau, a great émeute, which was put
+down by means of artillery, was occasioned by the expulsion of a
+tailor's apprentice, A.D. 1793.
+
+In Austria, one Hebenstreit formed a conspiracy, which brought him to
+the gallows, A.D. 1793. That formed by Martinowits, for the
+establishment of the sovereignty of the people in Hungary and for the
+expulsion of the magnates, was of a more dangerous character.
+Martinowits was beheaded, A.D. 1793, with four of his associates.[17]
+These attempts so greatly excited the apprehensions of the government
+that the reaction, already begun on the death of Joseph II., was
+brought at once to a climax; Thugut, the minister, established an
+extremely active secret police and a system of surveillance, which
+spread terror throughout Austria and was utterly uncalled for, no one,
+with the exception of a few crack-brained individuals, being in the
+slightest degree infected with the revolutionary mania.[18]
+
+It may be recorded as a matter of curiosity that, during the
+bloodstained year of 1793, the petty prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt
+held, as though in the most undisturbed time of peace, a magnificent
+tournament, and the fetes customary on such an occasion.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Oberlin, the celebrated philologist, an ornament to
+German learning, a professor at Strasburg, rescued, at the risk of his
+life, a great portion of the ancient city archives, which had been
+thrown out of the windows, by re-collecting the documents with the aid
+of the students. On account of this sample of old German pedantry he
+pined, until 1793, in durance vile at Metz, and narrowly escaped being
+guillotined.]
+
+[Footnote 2: At Bonn he had the impudence to say to the elector, "I
+cannot pay you a higher compliment than by asserting you to be no
+Catholic."--_Van Alpen_, _History of Rhenish Franconia_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: He mulcted the brewers to the amount of 255,000 livres,
+"on account of their well-known avarice," the bakers and millers to
+that of 314,000, a publican to that of 40,000, a baker to that of
+30,000, "because he was an enemy of mankind," etc.--_Vide Friese's
+History of Strasburg_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: It was asserted that the Jacobins had formed a plan to
+depopulate the whole of Alsace, and to partition the country among the
+bravest soldiers belonging to the republican armies.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John Müller played a remarkable part. This thoroughly
+deceptive person had, by his commendation of the ancient Swiss in his
+affectedly written History of Switzerland, gained the favor of the
+friends of liberty, and, at the same time, that of the nobility by his
+encomium on the degenerate Swiss aristocracy. While with sentimental
+phrases and fine words he pretended to be one of the noblest of
+mankind, he was addicted to the lowest and most monstrous vices. His
+immorality brought him into trouble in Switzerland, and the man, who
+had been, apparently, solely inspired with the love of republican
+liberty, now paid court, for the sake of gain, to foreign princes; the
+adulation that had succeeded so well with all the lordlings of
+Switzerland was poured into the ears of all the potentates of Europe.
+He even rose to great favor at Rome by his flattery of the pope in a
+work entitled "The Travels of the Popes." He published the most
+virulent sophisms against the beneficial reforms of the emperor
+Joseph, and cried up the League, for which he was well paid. He
+contrived, at the same time, to creep into favor with the Illuminati.
+He was employed by the elector of Mayence to carry on negotiations
+with Dumouriez, got into office under the French republic, and
+afterward revisited Mayence for the express purpose of calling upon
+the citizens, at that time highly dissatisfied with the conduct of the
+French, to unite themselves with France. Vide Forster's
+Correspondence. Dumouriez shortly afterward went over to the
+Austrians, and Müller suddenly appeared at Vienna, adorned with a
+title and in the character of an Aulic councillor.]
+
+[Footnote 6: While in his proclamations he swore by all that was
+sacred (what was so to a Frenchman?) to respect the property of the
+citizens and that France coveted no extension of territory.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Forster was so blinded at that time by his enthusiasm
+that he wrote, "all of those among us who refuse the citizenship of
+France are to be expelled the city, even if complete depopulation
+should be the result." He relates: "I summoned, at Grunstadt, the
+Counts von Leiningen to acknowledge themselves citizens of France.
+They protested against it, caballed, instigated the citizens peasantry
+to revolt; one of my soldiers was attacked and wounded. I demanded a
+reinforcement, took possession of both the castles, and placed the
+counts under guard. To-day I sent them with an escort to Landau. This
+has been a disagreeable duty, but we must reduce every opponent of the
+good cause to obedience."]
+
+[Footnote 8: Where the weak garrison left by the French was disarmed
+by the workmen.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Either the Prussian minister who afterward gained such
+celebrity or one of his relations.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Here Skekuly forced the German clubbists, with the lash,
+to cut down the tree of liberty.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Forster wrote from Paris, "Suspicion hangs over every
+foreigner, and the essential distinctions which ought to be made in
+this respect are of no avail." Thus did nature, by whom nations are
+eternally separated, avenge herself on the fools who had dreamed of
+universal equality.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Cloots had incessantly preached war, threatened all the
+kings of the earth with destruction, and, in his vanity, had even set
+a price upon the head of the Prussian monarch. His object was the
+union of the whole of mankind, the abolition of nationality. The
+French were to receive a new name, that of "Universel." He preached in
+the convention: "I have struggled during the whole of my existence
+against the powers of heaven and earth. There is but one God, Nature,
+and but one sovereign, mankind, the people, united by reason in one
+universal republic. Religion is the last obstacle, but the time has
+arrived for its destruction. J'occupe la tribune de l'univers. Je le
+repète, le genre humain est Dieu, le _Peuple Dieu_. Quiconque a la
+débilité de croire en Dieu ne sauroit avoir la sagacité de connaitre
+le genre humain, le souverain unique," etc.--_Moniteur of_ 1793, No.
+120. He also subscribed himself the "personal enemy of JeĞus of
+Nazareth."]
+
+[Footnote 13: Whose nephew, the celebrated traveller, Rengger, was,
+with Bonpland, so long imprisoned in Paraguay.]
+
+[Footnote 14: He had been already imprisoned and was ordered to the
+guillotine, but not being able to find his boots quickly enough, his
+execution was put off until the morrow. During the night, Robespierre
+fell, and his life was saved. He continued to reside at Paris, where
+he never quitted his apartment, cherished his beard, and associated
+solely with ecclesiastics.]
+
+[Footnote 15: After an interview with his wife, Theresa (daughter to
+the great philologist, Heyne of Grottingen), on the French frontier,
+he returned to Paris and killed himself by drinking aquafortis. Vide
+Crome's Autobiography. Theresa entered into association with Huber,
+the journalist, whom she shortly afterward married. She gained great
+celebrity by her numerous romances.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The popular work "Huergelmer" relates, among other
+things, the conduct of the Margrave of Baden toward Lauchsenring, his
+private physician, whom he, on account of the liberality of his
+opinions, delivered over to the Austrian general, who sentenced him to
+the bastinado.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Schnelter says: "The first great conspiracy was formed
+in the vicinity of the throne, A.D. 1793. The chief conspirator was
+Hebenstreit, the commandant, who held, by his office, the keys to the
+arsenal, and had every place of importance in his power. His fellow
+conspirators were Prandstätter, the magistrate and poet, who, by his
+superior talents, led the whole of the magistracy, and possessed great
+influence in the metropolis, Professor Riedl, who possessed the
+confidence of the court, which he frequented for the purpose of
+instructing some of the principal personages, and Häckel, the
+merchant, who had the management of its pecuniary affairs. The rest of
+the conspirators belonged to every class of society and were spread
+throughout every province of the empire. The plan consisted in the
+establishment of a democratic constitution, the first step to which
+appears to have been an attempt against the life of the imperial
+family. The signal for insurrection was to be given by firing the
+immense wood-yards. The hearts of the people were to be gained by the
+destruction of the government accounts. The discovery was made through
+a conspiracy formed in Denmark. The chief conspirator was seized and
+sent to the gallows. The rest were exiled to Munkatch, where several
+of them had succumbed to the severity of their treatment and of the
+climate when their release was effected by Bonaparte by the peace of
+Campo Formio, which gave rise to the supposition that the Hebenstreit
+conspiracy was connected with the French republicans and Jacobins. The
+second conspiracy was laid in Hungary, by the bishop and abbot,
+Josephus Ignatius Martinowits, a man whom the emperors Joseph,
+Leopold, and Francis had, on account of his talent and energy, loaded
+with favors. The plan was an _actionalis conspiratio_, for the purpose
+of contriving an attempt against the sacred person of his Majesty the
+king, the destruction of the power of the privileged classes in
+Hungary, the subversion of the administration, and the establishment
+of a democracy. The means for the execution of this project were
+furnished by two secret societies." Huergelmer relates: "A certain Dr.
+Plank somewhat thoughtlessly ridiculed the institution of the jubilee;
+in order to convince him of its utility, he was sent as a recruit to
+the Italian army, an act that was highly praised by the newspapers."
+On the 22d of July, 1795, a Baron von Riedel was placed in the pillory
+at Vienna for some political crime, and was afterward consigned to the
+oblivion of a dungeon; the same fate, some days later, befell
+Brand-Btetter, Fellesneck, Billeck, Ruschitiski (Ephemeridae of 1796).
+A Baron Taufner was hanged at Vienna as a traitor to his country (E.
+of 1796).]
+
+[Footnote 18: "The increase of crime occasioned by the artifices of
+the police, who thereby gained their livelihood, rendered an especial
+statute, prohibitory of such measures, necessary in the new
+legislature. Even the passing stranger perceived the disastrous effect
+of their intrigues upon the open, honest character and the social
+habits of the Viennese. The police began gradually to be considered as
+a necessary part of the machine of government, a counterbalance to or
+a remedy for the faults committed by other branches of the
+administration. Large sums, the want of which was heavily felt in the
+national education and in the army, were expended on this arsenal of
+poisoned weapons."--_Hormayr's Pocket-Book_, 1832. Thugut is described
+as a diminutive, hunchbacked old man, with a face resembling the mask
+of a fawn and with an almost satanic expression.]
+
+
+
+CCXLVIII. Loss of the Left Bank of the Rhine
+
+
+The object of the Prussian king was either to extend his conquests
+westward or, at all events, to prevent the advance of Austria. The war
+with France claimed his utmost attention, and, in order to guard his
+rear, he again attempted to convert Poland into a bulwark against
+Russia.
+
+His ambassador, Lucchesini, drove Stackelberg, the Russian envoy, out
+of Warsaw, and promised mountains of gold to the Poles, who dissolved
+the perpetual council associated by Russia with the sovereign, freed
+themselves from the Russian guarantee; aided by Prussia, compelled the
+Russian troops to evacuate the country; devised a constitution, which
+they laid before the cabinets of London and Berlin; concluded an
+offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March,
+1790, and, on the 3d of May, 1791, carried into effect the new
+constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and approved of by the
+emperor Leopold. During the conference, held at Pilnitz, the
+indivisibility of Poland was expressly mentioned. The constitution was
+monarchical. Poland was, for the future, to be a hereditary instead of
+an elective monarchy, and, on the death of Poniatowsky, the crown was
+to fall to Saxony. The modification of the peasants' dues and the
+power conceded to the serf of making a private agreement with his lord
+also gave the monarchy a support against the aristocracy.
+
+Catherine of Russia, however, no sooner beheld Prussia and Austria
+engaged in a war with France, than she commenced her operations
+against Poland, declared the new Polish constitution French and
+Jacobinical, notwithstanding its abolition of the _liberum veto_ and
+its extension of the prerogatives of the crown, and, taking advantage
+of the king's absence from Prussia, speedily regained possession of
+the country. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma? He
+was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw himself at
+the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and to set a limit to
+the insolence of the autocrat; but--he feared, should he abandon the
+Rhine, the extension of the power of Austria in that quarter, and--
+calculating that Catherine, in order to retain his friendship, would
+cede to him a portion of her booty,[1] unhesitatingly broke the faith
+he had just plighted with the Poles, suddenly took up Catherine's
+tone, declared the constitution he had so lately ratified Jacobinical,
+and despatched a force under Mollendorf into Poland in order to secure
+possession of his stipulated prey. By the second partition of Poland,
+which took place as rapidly, as violently, and, on account of the
+assurances of the Prussian monarch, far more unexpectedly than the
+first, Russia received the whole of Lithuania, Podolia, and the
+Ukraine, and Prussia, Thorn and Dantzig, besides Southern Prussia
+(Posen and Calisch). Austria, at that time fully occupied with France,
+had no participation in this robbery, which was, as it were, committed
+behind her back.
+
+Affairs had worn a remarkably worse aspect since the campaign of 1792.
+The French had armed themselves with all the terrors of offended
+nationalism and of unbounded, intoxicating liberty. All the enemies of
+the Revolution within the French territory were mercilessly
+exterminated, and hundreds of thousands were sacrificed by the
+guillotine, a machine invented for the purpose of accelerating the
+mode of execution. The king was beheaded in this manner in the January
+of 1793, and the queen shared a similar fate in the ensuing
+October.[2] While Robespierre directed the executions, Carnot
+undertook to make preparations for war, and, in the very midst of this
+immense fermentation, calmly converted France into an enormous camp,
+and more than a million Frenchmen, as if summoned by magic from the
+clod, were placed under arms.
+
+The sovereigns of Europe also prepared for war, and, A.D. 1793, formed
+the first great coalition, at whose head stood England, intent upon
+the destruction of the French navy. The English, aided by a large
+portion of the French population devoted to the ancient monarchy,
+attacked France by sea, and made a simultaneous descent on the
+northern and southern coasts. The Spanish and Portuguese troops
+crossed the Pyrenees; the Italian princes invaded the Alpine boundary;
+Austria, Prussia, Holland, and the German empire threatened the
+Rhenish frontier, while Sweden and Russia stood frowning in the
+background. The whole of Christian Europe took up arms against France,
+and enormous armies hovered, like vultures, around their prey.
+
+The duke of Coburg commanded the main body of the Austrians in the
+Netherlands, where he was at first merely opposed by the old French
+army, whose general, Dumouriez, after unsuccessfully grasping at the
+supreme power, entered into a secret agreement with the coalition,
+allowed himself to be defeated at Aldenhovenl[3] and Neerwinden, and
+finally deserted to the Austrians. At this moment, when the French
+army was dispirited by defeat and without a leader, Coburg, who had
+been reinforced by the English and Dutch under the duke of York,
+might, by a hasty advance, have taken Paris by surprise, but both the
+English and Austrian generals solely owed the command, for which they
+were totally unfit, to their high birth, and Colonel Mack, the most
+prominent character among the officers of the staff, was a mere
+theoretician, who could cleverly enough conduct a campaign--upon
+paper. Clairfait, the Austrian general, beat the disbanded French army
+under Dampiere at Famars, but temporized instead of following up his
+victory. Coburg, in the hope of the triumph of the moderate party, the
+Girondins, published an extremely mild and peaceable proclamation,
+which, on the fall of the Gironde, was instantly succeeded by one of a
+more threatening character, which his want of energy and decision in
+action merely rendered ridiculous. No vigorous attack was made, nor
+was even a vigorous defence calculated upon, not one of the frontier
+forts in the Netherlands, demolished by Joseph II., having been
+rebuilt. The coalition foolishly trusted that the French would be
+annihilated by their inward convulsions, while they were in reality
+seizing the opportunity granted by the tardiness of their foes to levy
+raw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal error, however,
+lay in the system of conquest pursued by both Austria and England.
+Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns within the French territory taken
+by Coburg, were compelled to take a formal oath of allegiance to
+Austria, and England made, as the condition of her aid, that of the
+Austrians for the conquest of Dunkirk. The siege of this place, which
+was merely of importance to England in a mercantile point of view,
+retained the armies of Coburg and York, and the French were
+consequently enabled, in the meantime, to concentrate their scattered
+forces and to act on the offensive. Ere long, Houchard and Jourdan
+pushed forward with their wild masses, which, at first undisciplined
+and unsteady, were merely able to screen themselves from the rapid and
+sustained fire of the British by acting as tirailleurs (a mode of
+warfare successfully practiced by the North Americans against the
+serried ranks of the English), became gradually bolder, and finally,
+by their numerical strength and republican fury, gained a complete
+triumph. Houchard, in this manner, defeated the English at Hondscoten
+(September 8th), and Jourdan drove the Austrians off the field at
+Wattignies on the 16th of October, the day on which the French queen
+was beheaded. Coburg, although the Austrians had maintained their
+ground on every other point, resolved to retreat, notwithstanding the
+urgent remonstrances of the youthful archduke, Charles, who had
+greatly distinguished himself. During the retreat, an unimportant
+victory was gained at Menin by Beaulieu, the imperial general.[4] His
+colleague, Wurmser, nevertheless maintained with extreme difficulty
+the line extending from Basel to Luxemburg, which formed the Prussian
+outposts. A French troop under Delange advanced as far as
+Aix-la-Chapelle, where they crowned the statue of Charlemagne with a
+bonnet rouge.
+
+Mayence was, during the first six months of this year, besieged by the
+main body of the Prussian army under the command of Ferdinand, duke of
+Brunswick. The Austrians, when on their way past Mayence to
+Valenciennes with a quantity of heavy artillery destined for the
+reduction of the latter place (which they afterward compelled to do
+homage to the emperor), refusing the request of the king of Prussia
+for its use _en passant_ for the reduction of Mayence, greatly
+displeased that monarch, who clearly perceived the common intention of
+England and Austria to conquer the north of France to the exclusion of
+Prussia, and consequently revenged himself by privately partitioning
+Poland with Russia, and refusing his assistance to General Wurmser in
+the Vosges country. The dissensions between the allies again rendered
+their successes null. The Prussians, after the conquest of Mayence,
+A.D. 1793, advanced and beat the fresh masses led against them by
+Moreau at Pirmasens, but Frederick William, disgusted with Austria and
+secretly far from disinclined to peace with France, quitted the army
+(which he maintained in the field, merely from motives of honor, but
+allowed to remain in a state of inactivity), in order to visit his
+newly acquired territory in Poland.
+
+The gallant old Wurmser was a native of Alsace, where he had some
+property, and fought meritoriously for the German cause, while so many
+of his countrymen at that time ranged themselves on the side of the
+French.[5] His position on the celebrated Weissenburg line was, owing
+to the non-assistance of the Prussians, replete with danger, and he
+consequently endeavored to supply his want of strength by striking his
+opponents with terror. His Croats, the notorious _Rothmantler_, are
+charged with the commission of fearful deeds of cruelty. Owing to his
+system of paying a piece of gold for every Frenchman's head, they
+would rush, when no legitimate enemy could be encountered, into the
+first large village at hand, knock at the windows and strike off the
+heads of the inhabitants as they peeped out. The petty principalities
+on the German side of the Rhine also complained of the treatment they
+received from the Austrians. But how could it be otherwise? The empire
+slothfully cast the whole burden of the war upon Austria. Many of the
+princes were terror-stricken by the French, while others meditated an
+alliance with that power, like that formerly concluded between them
+and Louis XIV. against the empire. Bavaria alone was, but with great
+difficulty, induced to furnish a contingent. The weak imperial free
+towns met with most unceremonious treatment at the hands of Austria.
+They were deprived of their artillery and treated with the utmost
+contempt. It often happened that the aristocratic magistracy, as, for
+instance, at Ulm, sided with the soldiery against the citizens. The
+slothful bishops and abbots of the empire were, on the other hand,
+treated with the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The
+infringement of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the
+French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Maret, the French
+ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers on neutral
+ground, in the Valtelline, by Austria, created a far greater
+sensation.
+
+The duke of Brunswick, who had received no orders to retreat, was
+compelled, _bongre-malgre_, to hazard another engagement with the
+French, who rushed to the attack. He was once more victorious, at
+Kaiserslautern, over Hoche, whose untrained masses were unable to
+withstand the superior discipline of the Prussian troops. Wurmser took
+advantage of the moment when success seemed to restore the good humor
+of the allies to coalesce with the Prussians, dragging the unwilling
+Bavarians in his train. This junction, however, merely had the effect
+of disclosing the jealousy rankling on every side. The greatest
+military blunders were committed and each blamed the other. Landau
+ought to and might have been rescued from the French, but this step
+was procrastinated until the convention had charged Generals Hoche and
+Pichegru, "Landau or death." These two generals brought a fresh and
+numerous army into the field, and, in the very first engagements, at
+Worth and Froschweiler, the Bavarians ran away and the Austrians and
+Prussians were signally defeated. The retreat of Wurmser, in high
+displeasure, across the Rhine afforded a welcome pretext to the duke
+of Brunswick to follow his example and even to resign the command of
+the army to Mollendorf. In this shameful manner was the left bank of
+the Rhine lost to Germany.
+
+In the spring of the ensuing year, 1794, the emperor Francis II.
+visited the Netherlands in person, with the intent of pushing straight
+upon Paris. This project, practicable enough during the preceding
+campaign, was, however, now utterly out of the question, the more so
+on account of the retreat of the Prussians. The French observed on
+this occasion with well-merited scorn: "The allies are ever an idea, a
+year and an army behindhand." The Austrians, nevertheless, attacked
+the whole French line in March and were at first victorious on every
+side, at Catillon, where Kray and Wernek distinguished themselves, and
+at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at
+the head of the cavalry. Landrecis was taken. But this was all.
+Clairfait, whose example might have animated the inactive duke of
+York, being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at
+Courtray by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. Coburg
+fought an extremely bloody but indecisive battle at Doornik (Tournay),
+where Pichegru ever opposed fresh masses to the Austrian artillery.
+Twenty thousand dead strewed the field. The youthful emperor,
+discouraged by the coldness displayed by the Dutch, whom he had
+expected to rise _en masse_ in his cause, returned to Vienna. His
+departure and the inactivity of the British commander completely
+dispirited the Austrian troops, and on the 26th of June, 1794,[6] the
+duke of Coburg was defeated at Fleurus by Jourdan, the general of the
+republic. This success was immediately followed by that of Pichegru,
+not far from Breda, over the inefficient English general,[7] who
+consequently evacuated the Netherlands, which were instantly overrun
+by the pillaging French. And thus had the German powers,
+notwithstanding their well-disciplined armies and their great plans,
+not only forfeited their military honor, but also drawn the enemy,
+and, in his train, anarchy with its concomitant horrors, into the
+empire. The Austrians had rendered themselves universally unpopular by
+their arbitrary measures, and each province remained stupidly
+indifferent to the threatened pillage of its neighbor by the
+victorious French. Jourdan but slowly tracked the retreating forces of
+Coburg, whom he again beat at Sprimont, where he drove him from the
+Maese, and at Aldenhoven, where he drove him from the Roer. Frederick,
+Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, capitulated at Maestricht, with ten
+thousand men, to Kleber; and the Austrians, with the exception of a
+small corps under the Count von Erbach, stationed at Düsseldorf,
+completely abandoned the Lower Rhine.
+
+The disasters suffered by the Austrians seem at that time to have
+flattered the ambition of the Prussians, for Mollendorf suddenly
+recrossed the Rhine and gained an advantage at Kaiserslautern, but
+was, in July, 1794, again repulsed at Trippstadt, notwithstanding
+which he once more crossed the Rhine in September, and a battle was
+won by the Prince von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at Fischbach, but, on the
+junction of Jourdan with Hoche, who had until then singly opposed him,
+Mollendorf again, and for the last time, retreated across the Rhine.
+The whole of the left bank of the Rhine, Luxemburg and Mayence alone
+excepted, were now in the hands of the French. Resius, the Hessian
+general, abandoned the Rheinfels with the whole garrison, without
+striking a blow in its defence. He was, in reward, condemned to
+perpetual imprisonment.[8] Jourdan converted the fortress into a
+ruined heap. The whole of the fortifications on the Rhine were yielded
+for the sake of saving Mannheim from bombardment.
+
+In the Austrian Netherlands, the old government had already been
+abolished, and the whole country been transformed into a Belgian
+republic by Dumouriez. The reform of all the ancient evils, so vainly
+attempted but a few years before by the noble-spirited emperor, Joseph
+II., was successfully executed by this insolent Frenchman, who also
+abolished with them all that was good in the ancient system. The city
+deputies, it is true, made an energetic but futile resistance.[9]
+After the flight of Dumouriez, fresh depredations were, with every
+fresh success, committed by the French. Liege was reduced to the most
+deplorable state of desolation, the cathedral and thirty splendid
+churches were levelled with the ground by the ancient enemies of the
+bishop. Treves was also mercilessly sacked and converted into a French
+fortress.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Prussia chiefly coveted the possession of Dantzig, which
+the Poles refused to give or the English to grant to him, and which he
+could only seize by the aid of Russia.]
+
+[Footnote 2: After having been long retained in prison, ill fed and
+ill clothed, after supporting, with unbending dignity, the unmanly
+insults of the republican mob before whose tribunal she was dragged.
+The young dauphin expired under the ill-treatment he received from his
+guardian, a shoemaker. His sister, the present Duchess d'Angouleme,
+was spared.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Where the peasantry, infuriated at the depredations of
+the French, cast the wounded and the dead indiscriminately into a
+trench.--_Benzenberg's Letters._ ]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Hanoverian general, Hammerstein, and his adjutant
+Scharnhorst, who afterward became so noted, made a gallant defence.
+When the city became no longer tenable, they boldly sallied forth at
+the head of the garrison and escaped.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Rewbel, one of the five directors of the great French
+republic, and several of the most celebrated French generals,
+Germany's unwearied foes, were natives of Alsace, as, for instance,
+the gallant Westermann, one of the first leaders of the republican
+armies; the intrepid Kellermann, the soldiers' father; the immortal
+Kleber, generalissimo of the French forces in Egypt, who fell by the
+dagger of a fanatical Mussulman; and the undaunted Rapp, the hero of
+Dantzig. The lion-hearted Ney, justly designated by the French as the
+bravest of the brave, was a native of Lorraine. These were, one and
+all, men of tried metal, but whose German names induce the demand,
+"Why did they fight for France?" Wurmser belonged to the same old
+Strasburg family which had given birth to Wurmser, the celebrated
+court-painter of the emperor, Charles IV. ]
+
+[Footnote 6: The Austrian generals Beaulieu, Quosdanowich, and the
+Archduke Charles, who, at that period, laid the foundation to his
+future fame, had pushed victoriously forward and taken Fleurus, when
+the ill-tuned orders, as they are deemed, of the generalissimo Coburg
+compelled them to retreat. Quosdanowich dashed his sabre furiously on
+the ground and exclaimed, "The army is betrayed, the victory is ours,
+and yet we must resign it. Adieu, thou glorious land, thou garden of
+Europe, the house of Austria bids thee eternally adieu!" The French
+had, before and during the action, made use of a balloon for the
+purpose of watching the movements of the enemy.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The worst spirit prevailed among the British troops; the
+officers were wealthy young men, who had purchased their posts and
+were, in the highest degree, licentious. Vide Dietfurth's Hessian
+Campaigns.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Peter Hammer, in his "Description of the Imperial Army,"
+published, A.D. 1796, at Cologne, graphically depictures the sad state
+of the empire. The imperial troops consisted of the dregs of the
+populace, so variously arranged as to justify the remark of Colonel
+Sandberg of Baden that the only thing wanting was their regular
+equipment as jack-puddings. A monastery furnished two men; a petty
+barony, the ensign; a city, the captain. The arms of each man differed
+in calibre. No patriotic spirit animated these defenders of the
+empire. An anonymous author remarks: "For love of one's country to be
+felt, there must, first of all, be a country; but Germany is split
+into petty useless monarchies, chiefly characterized by their
+oppression of their subjects, by pride, slavery, and unutterable
+weakness. Formerly, when Germany was attacked, each of her sons made
+ready for battle, her princes were patriotic and brave. Now, may
+Heaven have pity on the land; the princes, the counts, and nobles
+march hence and leave their country to its fate. The Margrave of
+Baden--I do not speak of the prince bishop of Spires and of other
+spiritual lords whose profession forbids their laying hand to
+sword--the Landgrave of Darmstadt and other nobles fled on the mere
+report of an intended visit from the French, by which they plainly
+intimated that they merely held sovereign rule for the purpose of
+being fattened by their subjects in time of peace. Danger no sooner
+appears than the miserable subject is left to his own resources.
+_Germany is divided into too many petty states._ How can an elector of
+the Pfalz, or indeed any of the still lesser nobility, protect the
+country? Unity, moreover, is utterly wanting. The Bavarian regards the
+Hessian as a stranger, not as his countryman. Each petty territory has
+a different tariff, administration, and laws. The subject of one petty
+state cannot travel half a mile into a neighboring one without leaving
+behind him great part of his property. The bishop of Spires strictly
+forbids his subjects to intermarry with those of any other state. And
+patriotism is expected to result from these measures! The subject of a
+despot, whose revenues exceed those of his neighbors by a few thousand
+florins, looks down with contempt on the slave of a poorer prince.
+Hence the boundless hatred between the German courts and their petty
+brethren, hence the malicious joy caused by the mishaps of a
+neighboring dynasty." Hence the wretchedness of the troops. "With the
+exception of the troops belonging to the circle there were none to
+defend the frontiers of the empire. Grandes battues, balls, operas,
+and mistresses, swallowed up the revenue, not a farthing remained for
+the erection of fortresses, the want of which was so deeply felt for
+the defence of the frontiers."]
+
+[Footnote 9: "How can France, with her solemn assurances of liberty,
+arbitrarily interfere with the government of a country already
+possessing a representative elected by the people? How can she
+proclaim us as a free nation, and, at the same moment, deprive us of
+our liberty? Will she establish a new mythology of nations, and divide
+the different peoples on the face of the earth, according to their
+strength, into nations and demi-nations?"--_Protest of the Provisional
+Council of the City of Brussels. The President, Theodore Dotrenge._
+"Every free nation gives to itself laws, does not receive them from
+another."--_Protest of the City of Antwerp, President of the Council,
+Van Dun._ "You confiscate alike public and private property. That have
+even our former tyrants never ventured to do when declaring us rebels,
+and you say that you bring to us liberty."--_Protest of the Hennegau._
+The most copious account of the revolutionizing of the Netherlands is
+contained in Rau's History of the Germans in France, and of the French
+in Germany. Frankfort on the Maine, 1794 and 1795.]
+
+
+
+CCXLIX. The Defection of Prussia--The Archduke Charles
+
+
+Frederick William's advisers, who imagined the violation of every
+principle of justice and truth an indubitable proof of instinctive and
+consummate prudence, unwittingly played a high and hazardous game.
+Their diplomatic absurdity, which weighed the fate of nations against
+a dinner, found a confusion of all the solid principles on which
+states rest as stimulating as the piquant ragouts of the great Ude.
+Lucchesini, under his almost intolerable airs of sapience, as artfully
+veiled his incapacity in the cabinet as Ferdinand of Brunswick did his
+in the field, and to this may be ascribed the measures which but
+momentarily and seemingly aggrandized Prussia and prepared her deeper
+fall. Each petty advantage gained by Prussia but served to raise
+against her some powerful foe, and finally, when placed by her policy
+at enmity with every sovereign of Europe, she was induced to trust to
+the shallow friendship of the French republic.
+
+The Poles, taken unawares by the second partition of their country,
+speedily recovered from their surprise and collected all their
+strength for an energetic opposition. Kosciuszko, who had, together
+with Lafayette, fought in North America in the cause of liberty, armed
+his countrymen with scythes, put every Russian who fell into his hands
+to death, and attempted the restoration of ancient Poland. How easily
+might not Prussia, backed by the enthusiasm of the patriotic Poles,
+have repelled the Russian colossus, already threatening Europe! But
+the Berlin diplomatists had yet to learn the homely truth, that
+"honesty is the best policy." They aided in the aggrandizement of
+Russia, drew down a nation's curse upon their heads for the sake of an
+addition to the territory of Prussia, the maintenance of which cost
+more than its revenue, and violated the Divine commands during a
+period of storm and convulsion, when the aid of Heaven was indeed
+required. The ministers of Frederick William II. were externally
+religious, but those of Frederick William I., by whom the Polish
+question had been so justly decided, were so in reality.
+
+The king led his troops in person into Poland. In June, 1794, he
+defeated Kosciuszko's scythemen at Szczekociny, but met with such
+strenuous opposition in his attack upon Warsaw as to be compelled to
+retire in September.[1] On the retreat of the Prussian troops, the
+Russians, who had purposely awaited their departure in order to secure
+the triumph for themselves, invaded the country in great force under
+their bold general, Suwarow, who defeated Kosciuszko, took him
+prisoner, and besieged Warsaw, which he carried by storm. On this
+occasion, termed by Reichardt "a peaceful and merciful entry of the
+clement victor," eighteen thousand of the inhabitants of every age and
+sex were cruelly put to the sword. The result of this success was the
+third partition or utter annihilation of Poland. Russia took
+possession of the whole of Lithuania and Volhynia, as far as the
+Riemen and the Bug; Prussia, of the whole country west of the Riemen,
+including Warsaw; Austria, of the whole country south of the Bug, A.D.
+1795. An army of German officials, who earned for themselves not the
+best of reputations, settled in the Prussian division: they were
+ignorant of the language of the country, and enriched themselves by
+tyranny and oppression. Von Treibenfeld, the counsellor to the
+forest-board, one of Bischofswerder's friends, bestowed a number of
+confiscated lands upon his adherents.
+
+The ancient Polish feof of Courland was, in consequence of the
+annihilation of Poland, incorporated with the Russian empire, Peter,
+the last duke, the son of Biron, being compelled to abdicate, A.D.
+1795.
+
+Pichegru invaded Holland late in the autumn of 1794. The duke of York
+had already returned to England. A line of defence was, nevertheless,
+taken up by the British under Wallmoden, by the Dutch under their
+hereditary stadtholder, William V. of Orange, and by an Austrian corps
+under Alvinzi; the Dutch were, however, panic-struck, and negotiated a
+separate treaty with Pichegru,[2] who, at that moment, solely aimed at
+separating the Dutch from their allies; but when, in December, all the
+rivers and canals were suddenly frozen, and nature no longer threw
+insurmountable obstacles in his path, regardless of the negotiations
+then pending in Paris, he unexpectedly took up arms, marched across
+the icebound waters, and carried Holland by storm. With him marched
+the anti-Orangemen, the exiled Dutch patriots, under General Daendels
+and Admiral de Winter, with the pretended view of restoring ancient
+republican liberty to Holland and of expelling the tyrannical Orange
+dynasty.
+
+The British (and some Hessian troops) were defeated at Thiel on the
+Waal; Alvinzi met with a similar fate at Pondern, and was compelled to
+retreat into Westphalia. Some English ships, which lay frozen up in
+the harbor, were captured by the French hussars. A most manly
+resistance was made; but no aid was sent from any quarter. Prussia,
+who so shortly before had ranged herself on the side of the
+stadtholder against the people, was now an indifferent spectator.
+William V. was compelled to flee to England. Holland was transformed
+into a Batavian republic. Hahn, Hoof, etc., were the first furious
+Jacobins by whom everything was there formed upon the French model.
+The Dutch were compelled to cede Maestricht, Venloo, and Vliessingen;
+to pay a hundred millions to France, and, moreover, to allow their
+country to be plundered, to be stripped of all the splendid works of
+art, pictures, etc. (as was also the case in the Netherlands and on
+the Rhine), and even of the valuable museum of natural curiosities
+collected by them with such assiduity in every quarter of the globe.
+These depredations were succeeded by a more systematic mode of
+plunder. Holland was mercilessly drained of her enormous wealth. All
+the gold and silver bullion was first of all collected; this was
+followed by the imposition of an income-tax of six per cent, which was
+afterward repeated, and was succeeded by an income-tax on a sliding
+scale from three to thirty per cent. The British, at the same time,
+destroyed the Dutch fleet in the Texel commanded by de Winter, in
+order to prevent its capture by the French, and seized all the Dutch
+colonies, Java alone excepted. The flag of Holland had vanished from
+the seas.
+
+In August, 1794, the reign of terror in France reached its close. The
+moderate party which came into power gave hopes of a general peace,
+and Frederick William II without loss of time negotiated a separate
+treaty, suddenly abandoned the monarchical cause which he had formerly
+so zealously upheld, and offered his friendship to the revolutionary
+nation, against which he had so lately hurled a violent manifesto. The
+French, with equal inconsistency on their part, abandoned the popular
+cause, and, after having murdered their own sovereign and threatened
+every European throne with destruction, accepted the alliance of a
+foreign king. Both parties, notwithstanding the contrariety of their
+principles and their mutual animosity, were conciliated by their
+political interest. The French, solely bent upon conquest, cared not
+for the liberty of other nations; Prussia, intent upon self-
+aggrandizement, was indifferent to the fate of her brother sovereigns.
+Peace was concluded between France and Prussia at Basel, April 5,
+1795. By a secret article of this treaty, Prussia confirmed the French
+republic in the possession of the whole of the left bank of the Rhine,
+while France in return richly indemnified Prussia at the expense of
+the petty German states. This peace, notwithstanding its manifest
+disadvantages, was also acceded to by Austria, which, on this
+occasion, received the unfortunate daughter of Louis XVI. in exchange
+for Semonville and Maret, the captive ambassadors of the republic, and
+the members of the Convention seized by Dumouriez. Hanover[3] and
+Hesse-Cassel participated in the treaty and were included within the
+line of demarcation, which France, on her side, bound herself not to
+transgress.
+
+The countries lying beyond this line of demarcation, the Netherlands,
+Holland, and Pfalz-Juliers, were now abandoned to France, and Austria,
+kept in check on the Upper Rhine, was powerless in their defence. In
+this manner fell Luxemburg and Düsseldorf. All the Lower Rhenish
+provinces were systematically plundered by the French under pretext of
+establishing liberty and equality.[4] The Batavian republic was
+permitted to subsist, but dependent upon France; Belgium was annexed
+to France, A.D. 1795.
+
+On the retreat of the Prussians, Mannheim was surrendered without a
+blow by the electoral minister, Oberndorf, to the French. Wurmser
+arrived too late to the relief of the city. Quosdanowich, his
+lieutenant-general, nevertheless, succeeded in saving Heidelberg by
+sheltering himself behind a great abatis at Handschuchsheion, whence
+he repulsed the enemy, who were afterward almost entirely cut to
+pieces by General Klenau, whom he sent in pursuit with the light
+cavalry. General Boros led another Austrian corps across Nassau to
+Ehrenbreitstein, at that time besieged by the French under their
+youthful general, Marceau, who instantly retired. Wurmser no sooner
+arrived in person than, attacking the French before Mannheim, he
+completely put them to the rout and took General Oudinot prisoner.
+Clairfait, at the same time, advanced unperceived upon Mayence, and
+unexpectedly attacking the besieging French force, carried off one
+hundred and thirty-eight pieces of heavy artillery. Pichegru, who had
+been called from Holland to take the command on the Upper Rhine, was
+driven back to the Vosges. Jourdan advanced to his aid from the Lower
+Rhine, but his vanguard under Marceau was defeated at Kreuznach and
+again at Meissenheim. Mannheim also capitulated to the Austrians. The
+winter was now far advanced; both sides were weary of the campaign,
+and an armistice was concluded. Austria, notwithstanding her late
+success, was, owing to the desertion of Prussia, in a critical
+position. The imperial troops also refused to act. The princes of
+Southern Germany longed for peace. Even Spain followed the example of
+Prussia and concluded a treaty with the French republic.
+
+The consequent dissolution of the coalition between the German powers
+had at least the effect of preventing the formation of a coalition of
+nations against them by the French. Had the alliance between the
+sovereigns continued, the French would, from political motives, have
+used their utmost endeavors to revolutionize Germany; this project was
+rendered needless by the treaty of Basel, which broke up the coalition
+and confirmed France in the undisturbed possession of her liberties;
+and thus it happened that Prussia unwittingly aided the monarchical
+cause by involuntarily preventing the promulgation of the
+revolutionary principles of France.
+
+Austria remained unshaken, and refused either to betray the
+monarchical cause by the recognition of a revolutionary democratical
+government, or to cede the frontiers of the empire to the youthful and
+insolent generals of the republic. Conscious of the righteousness of
+the cause she upheld, she intrepidly stood her ground and ventured her
+single strength in the mighty contest, which the campaign of 1796 was
+to decide. The Austrian forces in Germany were commanded by the
+emperor's brother, the Archduke Charles; those in Italy, by Beaulieu.
+The French, on the other hand, sent Jourdan to the Lower Rhine, Moreau
+to the Upper Rhine, Bonaparte to Italy, and commenced the attack on
+every point with their wonted impetuosity.
+
+The Austrians had again extended their lines as far as the Lower
+Rhine. A corps under Prince Ferdinand of Würtemberg was stationed in
+the Bergland, in the narrow corner still left between the Rhine and
+the Prussian line of demarcation. Marceau forced him to retire as far
+as Altenkirchen, but the Archduke Charles hastening to his assistance
+encountered Jourdan's entire force on the Lahn near Kloster Altenberg,
+and, after a short contest, compelled it to give way. A great part of
+the Austrian army of the Rhine under Wurmser having been, meanwhile,
+drawn off and sent into Italy, the archduke was compelled to turn
+hastily from Jourdan against Moreau, who had just despatched General
+Ferino across the Lake of Constance, while he advanced upon Strasburg.
+A small Swabian corps under Colonel Raglowich made an extraordinary
+defence in Kehl (the first instance of extreme bravery given by the
+imperial troops at that time), but was forced to yield to numbers. The
+Austrian general, Sztarray, was, notwithstanding the gallantry
+displayed on the occasion, also repulsed at Sasbach; the Wurtemberg
+battalion was also driven from the steep pass of the Kniebes,[5]
+across which Moreau penetrated through the Black Forest into the heart
+of Swabia, and had already reached Freudenstadt, when the Austrian
+general, Latour, marched up the Murg. He was, however, also repulsed.
+The Archduke Charles now arrived in person in the country around
+Pforzheim (on the skirts of the Black Forest), and sent forward his
+columns to attack the French in the mountains, but in vain; the French
+were victorious at Rothensol and at Wildbad. The archduke retired
+behind the Neckar to Cannstadt; his rearguard was pursued through the
+city of Stuttgard by the vanguard of the French. After a short
+cannonade, the archduke also abandoned his position at Cannstadt. The
+whole of the Swabian circle submitted to the French. Wurtemberg was
+now compelled to make a formal cession of Mumpelgard, which had been
+for some time garrisoned by the French,[6] and, moreover, to pay a
+contribution of four million livres; Baden was also mulcted two
+millions, the other states of the Swabian circle twelve millions, the
+clergy seven millions, altogether twenty-five million livres, without
+reckoning the enormous requisition of provisions, horses, clothes,
+etc. The archduke, in the meantime, deprived the troops belonging to
+the Swabian circle of their arms at Biberach, on account of the peace
+concluded by their princes with the French, and retired behind the
+Danube by Donauwoerth. Ferino had, meanwhile, also advanced from
+Huningen into the Breisgau and to the Lake of Constance, had beaten
+the small corps under General Frġhlick at Herbolsheim and the remnant
+of the French emigrants under Oonde at Mindelheim,[7] and joined
+Moreau in pursuit of the archduke. His troops committed great havoc
+wherever they appeared.[8]
+
+Jourdan had also again pushed forward. The archduke had merely been
+able to oppose to him on the Lower Rhine thirty thousand men under the
+Count von Wartensleben, who, owing to Jourdan's numerical superiority,
+had been repulsed across both the Lahn and Maine. Jourdan took
+Frankfort by bombardment and imposed upon that city a contribution of
+six millions. The Franconian circle also submitted and paid sixteen
+millions, without reckoning the requisition of natural productions and
+the merciless pillage.[9]
+
+The Archduke Charles, too weak singly to encounter the armies of
+Moreau and Jourdan, had, meanwhile, boldly resolved to keep his
+opponents as long as possible separate, and, on the first favorable
+opportunity, to attack one with the whole of his forces, while he kept
+the other at bay with a small division of his army. In pursuance of
+this plan, he sent Wartensleben against Jourdan, and, meanwhile, drew
+Moreau after him into Bavaria, where, leaving General Latour with a
+small corps to keep him in check at Rain on the Lech, he recrossed the
+Danube at Ingolstadt with the flower of his army and hastily advanced
+against Jourdan, who was thus taken unawares. At Teiningen, he
+surprised the French avant-garde under Bernadotte, which he compelled
+to retire. At Amberg, he encountered Jourdan, whom he completely
+routed, A.D. 1796. The French retreated through the city, on the other
+side of which they formed an immense square against the imperial
+cavalry under Wernek; it was broken on the third charge, and a
+terrible slaughter took place, three thousand of the French being
+killed and one thousand taken prisoner. The peasantry had already
+flown to arms, and assisted in cutting down the fugitives. Jourdan
+again made a stand at Wurzburg, where Wernek stormed his batteries at
+the head of his grenadiers and a complete rout ensued, September 3.
+The French lost six thousand dead and two thousand prisoners. The
+peasantry rose _en masse_, and hunted down the fugitives.[10] On the
+Upper Rhone, Dr. Röder placed himself at the head of the peasantry,
+but, encountering a superior French corps at Mellrichstadt, was
+defeated and killed. The French suffered most in the Spessart, called
+by them, on that account, La petite Vendee. The peasantry were here
+headed by an aged forester named Philip Witt, and, protected by their
+forests, exterminated numbers of the flying foe. The imperial troops
+were also unremitting in their pursuit, again defeated Bernadotte at
+Aschaffenburg and chased Jourdan through Nassau across the Rhine.
+Marceau, who had vainly besieged Mayence, again made stand at
+Allerheim, where he was defeated and killed.[11]
+
+Moreau, completely deceived by the archduke, had, meanwhile, remained
+in Bavaria. After defeating General Latour at Lechhausen, instead of
+setting off in pursuit of the archduke and to Jourdan's aid, he was,
+as the archduke had foreseen, attracted by the prospect of gaining a
+rich booty, in an opposite direction, toward Munich. Bavaria submitted
+to the French, paid ten millions, and ceded twenty of the most
+valuable pictures belonging to the Dusseldorf and Munich galleries.
+The news of Jourdan's defeat now compelled Moreau to beat a rapid
+retreat in order to avoid being cut off by the victorious archduke.
+Latour set off vigorously in pursuit, came up with him at Ulm and
+again at Ravensberg, but was both times repulsed, owing to his
+numerical inferiority. A similar fate awaited the still smaller
+imperial corps led against the French by Nauendorf at Rothweil and by
+Petrosch at Villingen, and Moreau led the main body of his army in
+safety through the deep narrow gorges of the Hollenthal in the Black
+Forest to Freiburg in the Breisgau, where he came upon the archduke,
+who, amid the acclamations of the armed peasantry (by whom the
+retreating French[12] were, as in the Spessart, continually harassed
+in their passage through the Black Forest), had hurried, but too late,
+to his encounter. Moreau had already sent two divisions of his army,
+under Ferino and Desaix, across the Rhine at Huningen and Breisach,
+and covered their retreat with the third by taking up a strong
+position at Schliesgen, not far from Freiburg, whence, after braving a
+first attack, he escaped during the night to Huningen. This retreat,
+in which he had saved his army with comparatively little loss, excited
+general admiration, but in Italy there was a young man who scornfully
+exclaimed, "It was, after all, merely a retreat!"
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The following trait proves the complete stagnation of
+chivalric feeling in the army. Szekuli, colonel of the Prussian
+hussars, condemned several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest
+Polish families at Znawrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in
+momentary expectation of death, until it, at length, pleased him to
+grant a reprieve, couched in the most offensive and indecent terms.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A most disgraceful treaty. William's enemies, the
+fugitive patriots, had promised the French, in return for their aid,
+sixty million florins of the spoil of their country. William, upon
+this, promised to pay to France a subsidy of eighty millions, in order
+to guarantee the security of his frontier, but was instantly outbid by
+the base and self-denominated patriots, who offered to France a
+hundred million florins in order to induce her to invade their
+country.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Von Berlepsch, the councillor of administration, proposed
+to the Calemberg diet to declare their neutrality in defiance of
+England, and, in case of necessity, to place "the Calemberg Nation"
+under the protection of France.--Havemomn.]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Wherever these locusts appear, everything, men, cattle,
+food, property, etc., is carried off. These thieves seize everything
+convertible into money. Nothing is safe from them. At Cologne, they
+filled a church with coffee and sugar. At Aix-la-Chapelle, they
+carried off the finest pictures of Rubens and Van Dyck, the pillars
+from the altar, and the marble-slab from the tomb of Charlemagne, all
+of which they sold to some Dutch Jews."--_Posselt's Annals of 1796_.
+At Cologne, the nuns were instantly emancipated from their vows, and
+one of the youngest and most beautiful afterward gained great
+notoriety as a barmaid at an inn. This scandalous story is related by
+Klebe in his Travels on the Rhine. In Bonn, Gleich, a man who had
+formerly been a priest, placed himself at the head of the French
+rabble and planted trees of liberty. He also gave to the world a
+decade, as he termed his publication.--_Müller_, _History of Bonn_.
+"The French proclaimed war against the palaces and peace to the huts,
+but no hut was too mean to escape the rapacity of these birds of prey.
+The first-fruits of liberty was the pillage of every corner."--
+_Schwaben's History of Siegburg_. The brothers Boisserée'e afterward
+collected a good many of the church pictures, at that period carried
+away from Cologne and more particularly from the Lower Rhine. They now
+adorn Munich and form the best collection of old German paintings now
+existing.]
+
+[Footnote 5: "Had Würtemberg possessed but six thousand well-organized
+troops, the position on the Roszbuhl might have been maintained, and
+the country have been saved. The millions since paid by Würtemberg,
+and which she may still have to pay, would have been spared."--
+_Appendix to the History of the Campaign of 1796._]
+
+[Footnote 6: The duke, Charles, had, in 1791, visited Paris, donned
+the national cockade, and bribed Mirabeau with a large sum of money to
+induce the French government to purchase Mümpelgard from him. The
+French, however, were quite as well aware as the duke that they would
+ere long possess it gratis.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Moreau generously allowed all his prisoners, who, as
+ex-nobles, were destined to the guillotine, to escape.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Armbruster's "Register of French Crime" contains as
+follows: "Here and there, in the neighboring towns, there were
+certainly symptoms of an extremely favorable disposition toward the
+French, which would ill deserve a place in the annals of German
+patriotism and of German good sense. This disposition was fortunately
+far from general. The appearance of the French in their real
+character, and the barbarous excesses and heavy contributions by which
+they rendered the people sensible of their presence, speedily effected
+their conversion." The French, it is true, neither murdered the
+inhabitants nor burned the villages as they had during the previous
+century in the Pfalz, but they pillaged the country to a greater
+extent, shamefully abused the women, and desecrated the churches.
+Their license and the art with which they extorted the last penny from
+the wretched people surpassed all belief. "Not satisfied with robbing
+the churches, they especially gloried in giving utterance to the most
+fearful blasphemies, in destroying and profaning the altars, in
+overthrowing the statues of saints, in treading the host beneath their
+feet or casting it to dogs.--At the village of Berg in Weingarten,
+they set up in the holy of holies the image of the devil, which they
+had taken from the representation of the temptation of the Saviour in
+the wilderness. In the village of Boos, they roasted a crucifix before
+a fire."--_Vide Hurter's Memorabilia, concerning the French allies in
+Swabia, who attempted to found an Alemannic Republic. Schaffhausen,
+1840_. Moreau reduced them to silence by declaring, "I have no need of
+a revolution to the rear of my army."]
+
+[Footnote 9: Notwithstanding Jourdan's proclamation, promising
+protection to all private property, Würzburg, Schweinfurt, Bamberg,
+etc., were completely pillaged. The young girls fled in hundreds to
+the woods. The churches were shamelessly desecrated. When mercy in
+God's name was demanded, the plunderers replied, "God! we are God!"
+They would dance at night-time around a bowl of burning brandy, whose
+blue flames they called their être suprème.--_The French in Franconia,
+by Count Soden._]
+
+[Footnote 10: "They deemed the assassination of a foreigner a
+meritorious work."--_Ephemeridae of 1797._ "The peasantry, roused to
+fury by the disorderly and cruel French, whose excesses exceeded all
+belief, did not even extend mercy to the wounded; and the French, with
+equal barbarity, set whole villages on fire."--_Appendix to the
+Campaign of 1796_].
+
+[Footnote 11: When scarcely in his twenty-seventh year. He was one of
+the most distinguished heroes of the Revolution, and as remarkable for
+his generosity to his weaker foes as for his moral and chivalric
+principles. The Archduke Charles sent his private physicians to attend
+upon him, and, on the occasion of his burial, fired a salvo
+simultaneously with that of the French stationed on the opposite bank
+of the Rhine.--_Mussinan_.]
+
+[Footnote 12: The peasants of the Artenau and the Kinzigthal were
+commanded by a wealthy farmer, named John Baader. Besides several
+French generals, Hausmann, the commissary of the government, who
+accompanied Moreau's army, was taken prisoner.--_Mussinan, History of
+the French War of 1796_ etc. A decree, published on the 18th of
+September by Frederick Eugene, Duke of Würtemberg, in which he
+prohibited his subjects from taking part in the pursuit of the French,
+is worthy of remark.]
+
+
+CCL. Bonaparte
+
+
+This youth was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a lawyer in the island
+of Corsica, a man of military genius, who, when a mere lieutenant, had
+raised the siege of Toulon, had afterward served the Directory by
+dispersing the old Jacobins with his artillery in the streets of
+Paris, and had been intrusted with the command of the army in Italy.
+Talents, that under a monarchy would have been doomed to obscurity,
+were, under the French republic, called into notice, and men of
+decided genius could, amid the general competition, alone attain to
+power or retain the reins of government.
+
+Bonaparte was the first to take the field. In the April of 1796, he
+pushed across the Alps and attacked the Austrians. Beaulieu, a good
+general, but too old for service (he was then seventy-two, Napoleon
+but twenty-seven), had incautiously extended his lines too far, in
+order to preserve a communication with the English fleet in the
+Mediterranean. Bonaparte defeated his scattered forces at Montenotte
+and Millesimo, between the 10th and 15th of April, and, turning
+sharply upon the equally scattered Sardinian force, beat it in several
+engagements, the principal of which took place at Mondovi, between the
+19th and 22d of April. An armistice was concluded with Sardinia, and
+Beaulieu, who vainly attempted to defend the Po, was defeated on the
+7th and 8th of May, at Fombio. The bridge over the Adda at Lodi, three
+hundred paces in length, extremely narrow and to all appearance
+impregnable, defended by his lieutenant Sebottendorf, was carried by
+storm, and, on the 15th of May, Bonaparte entered Milan. Beaulieu took
+up a position behind the Mincio, notwithstanding which, Bonaparte
+carried the again ill-defended bridge at Borghetto by storm. While in
+this part of the country, he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by
+a party of skirmishers, and was compelled to fly half-naked, with but
+one foot booted, from his night quarters at St. Georgio.
+
+Beaulieu now withdrew into the Tyrol. Sardinia made peace, and terms
+were offered by the pope and by Naples. Leghorn was garrisoned with
+French troops; all the English goods lying in this harbor, to the
+value of twelve million pounds, were confiscated. The strongly
+fortified city of Mantua, defended by the Austrians under their
+gallant leader, Canto d'Irles, was besieged by Bonaparte. A fresh body
+of Austrian troops under Wurmser crossed the mountains to their
+relief; but Wurmser, instead of advancing with his whole force,
+incautiously pressed forward with thirty-two thousand men through the
+valley of the Adige, while Quosdanowich led eighteen thousand along
+the western shore of the Lake of Garda. Bonaparte instantly perceived
+his advantage, and, attacking the latter, defeated him on the 3d of
+August, at Lonato. Wurmser had entered Mantua unopposed on the 1st,
+but, setting out in search of the enemy, was unexpectedly attacked, on
+the 5th of August, by the whole of Bonaparte's forces at Castiglione,
+and compelled, like Quosdanowich, to seek shelter in the Tyrol. This
+senseless mode of attack had been planned by Weirotter, a colonel
+belonging to the general staff. Wurmser now received reinforcements,
+and Laner, the general of the engineers, was intrusted with the
+projection of a better plan. He again weakened the army by dividing
+his forces. In the beginning of September, Davidowich penetrated with
+twenty thousand men through the valley of the Adige and was defeated
+at Roveredo, and Wurmser, who had, meanwhile, advanced with an army of
+twenty-six thousand men through the valley of the Brenta, met with a
+similar fate at Bassano. He, nevertheless, escaped the pursuit of the
+victorious French by making a circuit, and threw himself by a forced
+march into Mantua, where he was, however, unable to make a lengthy
+resistance, the city being over-populated and provisions scarce. A
+fresh army of twenty-eight thousand men, under Alvinzi, sent to his
+relief[1] through the valley of the Brenta, was attacked in a strong
+position at Arcole, on the river Alpon. Two dams protected the bank
+and a narrow bridge, which was, on the 15th of November, vainly
+stormed by the French, although General Augereau and Bonaparte, with
+the colors in his hand, led the attack. On the following day, Alvinzi
+foolishly crossed the bridge and took up an exposed position, in which
+he was beaten, and, on the third day, he retreated. Davidowich,
+meanwhile, again advanced from the Tyrol and gained an advantage at
+Rivoli, but was also forced to retreat before Bonaparte. Wurmser, when
+too late, made a sally, which was, consequently, useless. The campaign
+was, nevertheless, for the fifth time, renewed. Alvinzi collected
+reinforcements and again pushed forward into the valley of the Adige,
+but speedily lost courage and suffered a fearful defeat, in which
+twenty thousand of his men were taken prisoners, on the 14th and 15th
+of January, A.D. 1797, at Rivoli. Provera, on whom he had relied for
+assistance from Padua, was cut off and taken prisoner with his entire
+corps. Wurmser capitulated at Mantua with twenty-one thousand men.
+
+The spring of 1797 had scarcely commenced when Bonaparte was already
+pushing across the Alps toward Vienna. Hoche, at the same time, again
+attacked the Lower and Moreau the Upper Rhine. Bonaparte, the nearest
+and most dangerous foe, was opposed by the archduke, whose army,
+composed of the remains of Alvinzi's disbanded and discouraged troops,
+called forth the observation from Bonaparte, "Hitherto I have defeated
+armies without generals, now I am about to attack a general without an
+army!" A battle took place at Tarvis, amid the highest mountains,
+whence it was afterward known as "the battle above the clouds." The
+archduke, with a handful of Hungarian hussars, valiantly defended the
+pass against sixteen thousand French under Massena, nor turned to fly
+until eight only of his men remained. Generals Bayalich and Ocskay,
+instead of supporting him, had yielded. The archduke again collected
+five thousand men around him at Glogau and opposed the advance of the
+immensely superior French force until two hundred and fifty of his men
+alone remained. The conqueror of Italy rapidly advanced through Styria
+upon Vienna. Another French corps under Joubert had penetrated into
+the Tyrol, but had been so vigorously assailed at Spinges by the brave
+peasantry[2] as to be forced to retire upon Bonaparte's main body,
+with which he came up at Villach, after losing between six and eight
+thousand men during his retreat through the Pusterthal. The rashness
+with which Bonaparte, leaving the Alps to his rear and regardless of
+his distance from France, penetrated into the enemy's country, had
+placed him in a position affording every facility for the Austrians,
+by a bold and vigorous stroke, to cut him off and take him prisoner.
+They had garrisoned Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic and formed an
+alliance with the republic of Venice, at that time well supplied with
+men, arms, and gold. A great insurrection of the peasantry, infuriated
+by the pillage of the French troops, had broken out at Bergamo. The
+gallant Tyrolese, headed by Count Lehrbach, and the Hungarians, had
+risen en masse. The victorious troops of the Archduke Charles were en
+route from the Rhine, and Mack had armed the Viennese and the
+inhabitants of the thickly-populated neighborhood of the metropolis.
+Bonaparte was lost should the archduke's plan of operations meet with
+the approbation of the Viennese cabinet, and, perfectly aware of the
+fact, he made proposals of peace under pretence of sparing unnecessary
+bloodshed. The imperial court, stupefied by the late discomfiture in
+Italy, instead of regarding the proposals of the wily Frenchman as a
+confession of embarrassment, and of assailing him with redoubled
+vigor, acceded to them, and, on the 18th of April, Count Cobenzl,
+Thugut's successor, concluded the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, by
+which the French, besides being liberated from their dangerous
+position, were recognized as victors. The negotiations of peace were
+continued at the chateau of Campo Formio, where the Austrians somewhat
+regained courage, and Count Cobenzl[3] even ventured to refuse some of
+the articles proposed. Bonaparte, irritated by opposition, dashed a
+valuable cup, the gift of the Russian empress, violently to the
+ground, exclaiming, "You wish for war? Well! you shall have it, and
+your monarchy shall be shattered like that cup." The armistice was not
+interrupted. Hostilities were even suspended on the Rhine. The
+archduke had, before quitting that river, gained the _tétes de pont_
+of Strasburg (Kehl) and of Huningen, besides completely clearing the
+right bank of the Rhine of the enemy. The whole of these advantages
+were again lost on his recall to take the field against Napoleon. The
+Saxon troops, which had, up to this period, steadily sided with
+Austria, were recalled by the elector. Swabia, Franconia, and Bavaria
+were intent upon making peace with France. Baron von Fahnenberg, the
+imperial envoy at Ratisbon, bitterly reproached the Protestant estates
+for their evident inclination to follow the example of Prussia by
+siding with the French and betraying their fatherland to their common
+foe, but, on applying more particularly for aid to the spiritual
+princes, who were exposed to the greatest danger, he found them
+equally lukewarm. Each and all refused to furnish troops or to pay a
+war tax. The imperial troops were, consequently, compelled to enforce
+their maintenance, and naturally became the objects of popular hatred.
+In this wretched manner was the empire defended! The petty imperial
+corps on the Rhine were, meanwhile, compelled to retreat before an
+enemy vastly their superior in number. Wernek, attempting with merely
+twenty-two thousand men to obstruct the advance of an army of
+sixty-five thousand French under Hoche, was defeated at Neuwied and
+deprived of his command.[4] Sztarray, who charged seven times at the
+head of his men, was also beaten by Moreau at Kehl and Diersheim. At
+this conjuncture, the armistice of Leoben was published.
+
+A peace, based on the terms proposed at Leoben, was formally concluded
+at Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. The triumph of the French republic
+was confirmed, and ancient Europe received a new form. The object for
+which the sovereigns of France had for centuries vainly striven was
+won by the monarchless nation; France gained the preponderance in
+Europe. Italy and the whole of the left bank of the Rhine were
+abandoned to her arbitrary rule, and this fearful loss, far from
+acting as a warning to Germany and promoting her unity, merely
+increased her internal dissensions and offered to the French republic
+an opportunity for intervention, of which it took advantage for
+purposes of gain and pillage.
+
+The principal object of the policy of Bonaparte and of the French
+Directory, at that period, was, by rousing the ancient feelings of
+enmity between Austria and Prussia, to eternalize the disunion between
+those two monarchies. Bonaparte, after effectuating the peace by means
+of terror, loaded Austria with flattery. He flattered her religious
+feelings by the moderation of his conduct in Italy toward the pope,
+notwithstanding the disapprobation manifested by the genuine French
+republicans, and her interests by the offer of Venice in compensation
+for the loss of the Netherlands, and, making a slight side-movement
+against that once powerful and still wealthy republic, reduced it at
+the first blow, nay, by mere threats, to submission; so deeply was the
+ancient aristocracy here also fallen. The cession of Venice to the
+emperor was displeasing to the French republicans. They were, however,
+pacified by the delivery of Lafayette, who had been still detained a
+prisoner in Austria after the treaty of Basel. Napoleon said in
+vindication of his policy, "I have merely lent Venice to the emperor,
+he will not keep her long." He, moreover, gratified Austria by the
+extension of her western frontier, so long the object of her ambition,
+by the possession of the archbishopric of Salzburg and of a part of
+Bavaria with the town of Wasserburg.[5] The sole object of these
+concessions was provisionally to dispose Austria in favor of
+France,[6] and to render Prussia's ancient jealousy of Austria
+implacable.[7] Hence the secret articles of peace by which France and
+Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to Prussia.
+Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to be the loser, and,
+in the summer of 1797, took forcible possession of the imperial free
+town of Nuremberg, notwithstanding her declaration made just three
+years previously through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that
+the king had never harbored the design of seeking a compensation at
+the expense of the empire, whose constitution had ever been sacred in
+his eyes!" and to the empire, "He deemed it beneath his dignity to
+refute the reports concerning Prussia's schemes of aggrandizement,
+oppression, and secularization." Prussia also extended her possessions
+in Franconia[8] and Westphalia, and Hesse-Cassel imitated her example
+by the seizure of a part of Schaumburg-Lippe. The diet energetically
+remonstrated, but in vain. Pamphlets spoke of the Prussian reunion-
+chambers opened by Hardenberg in Franconia. An attempt was, however,
+made to console the circle of Franconia by depicturing the far worse
+sufferings of that of Swabia under the imperial contributions. The
+petty Estates of the empire stumbled, under these circumstances, upon
+the unfortunate idea "that the intercession of the Russian court
+should be requested for the maintenance of the integrity of the German
+empire and for that of her constitution"; the intercession of the
+Russian court, which had so lately annihilated Poland!
+
+Shortly after this, A.D. 1797, Frederick William II., who had, on his
+accession to the throne, found seventy-two millions of dollars in the
+treasury, expired, leaving twenty-eight millions of debts. His son,
+Frederick William III., placed the Countess Lichtenau under arrest,
+banished Wollner, and abolished the unpopular monopoly in tobacco, but
+retained his father's ministers and continued the alliance, so
+pregnant with mischief, with France.--This monarch, well-meaning and
+destined to the severest trials, educated by a peevish valetudinarian
+and ignorant of affairs, was first taught by bitter experience the
+utter incapacity of the men at that time at the head of the
+government, and after, as will be seen, completely reforming the
+court, the government, and the army, surrounded himself with men, who
+gloriously delivered Prussia and Germany from all the miseries and
+avenged all the disgrace, which it is the historian's sad office to
+record.
+
+Austria, as Prussia had already done by the treaty of Basel, also
+sacrificed, by the peace of Campo Formio, the whole of the left bank
+of the Rhine and abandoned it to France, the loss thereby suffered by
+the Estates of the empire being indemnified by the secularization of
+the ecclesiastical property in the interior of Germany and by the
+prospect of the seizure of the imperial free towns. Mayence was ceded
+without a blow to France. Holland was forgotten. The English, under
+pretext of opposing France, destroyed, A.D. 1797, the last Dutch
+fleet, in the Texel, though not without a heroic and determined
+resistance on the part of the admirals de Winter and Reintjes, both of
+whom were severely wounded, and the latter died in captivity in
+England. Holland was formed into a Batavian, Genoa into a Ligurian,
+Milan with the Valtelline (from which the Grisons was severed) into a
+Cisalpine, republic. Intrigues were, moreover, set on foot for the
+formation of a Roman and Neapolitan republic in Italy and of a Rhenish
+and Swabian one in Germany, all of which were to be subordinate to the
+mother republic in France. The proclamation of a still-born Cisrhenish
+republic (it not having as yet been constituted when it was swallowed
+up in the great French republic), in the masterless Lower Rhenish
+provinces in the territory of Treves, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne,
+under the influence of the French Jacobins and soldiery, was, however,
+all that could at first be done openly.
+
+The hauteur with which Bonaparte, backed by his devoted soldiery, had
+treated the republicans, and the contempt manifested by him toward the
+citizens, had not failed to rouse the jealous suspicions of the
+Directory, the envy of the less successful generals, and the hatred of
+the old friends of liberty, by whom he was already designated as a
+tyrant. The republican party was still possessed of considerable
+power, and the majority of the French troops under Moreau, Jourdan,
+Bernadotte, etc., were still ready to shed their blood in the cause of
+liberty. Bonaparte, compelled to veil his ambitious projects, judged
+it more politic, after sowing the seed of discord at Campo Formio, to
+withdraw a while, in order to await the ripening of the plot and to
+return to reap the result. He, accordingly, went meantime, A.D. 1798,
+with a small but well-picked army to Egypt, for the ostensible purpose
+of opening a route overland to India, the sea-passage having been
+closed against France by the British, but, in reality, for the purpose
+of awaiting there a turn in continental affairs, and, moreover, by his
+victories over the Turks in the ancient land of fable to add to the
+wonder it was ever his object to inspire. On his way thither he seized
+the island of Malta and compelled Baron Hompesch, the grand-master of
+the order of the Knights of Malta, to resign his dignity, the fortress
+being betrayed into his hands by the French knights.
+
+At Rastadt, near Baden, where the compensation mentioned in the treaty
+of Campo Formio was to be taken into consideration, the terrified
+Estates of the empire assembled for the purpose of suing the French
+ambassadors for the lenity they had not met with at the hands of
+Austria and Prussia.--The events that took place at Rastadt are of a
+description little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the
+German historian. The soul of the congress was Charles Maurice
+Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present period
+minister of the French republic. His colloquy with the German
+ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the geese, and he attuned
+their discords with truly diabolical art. While holding Austria and
+Prussia apart, instigating them one against the other, flattering both
+with the friendship of the republic and with the prospect of a rich
+booty by the secularization of the ecclesiastical lands, he encouraged
+some of the petty states with the hope of aggrandizement by an
+alliance with France,[9] and, with cruel contempt, allowed others a
+while to gasp for life before consigning them to destruction. The
+petty princes, moreover, who had been deprived of their territory on
+the other side of the Rhine, demanded lands on this side in
+compensation; all the petty princes on this side consequently trembled
+lest they should be called upon to make compensation, and each
+endeavored, by bribing the members of the congress, Talleyrand in
+particular, to render himself an exception. The French minister was
+bribed not by gold alone; a considerable number of ladies gained great
+notoriety by their liaison with the insolent republican, from whom
+they received nothing, the object for which they sued being sold by
+him sometimes even two or three times. Momus, a satirical production
+of this period, relates numerous instances of crime and folly that are
+perfectly incredible. The avarice manifested by the French throughout
+the whole of the negotiations was only surpassed by the brutality of
+their language and behavior. Roberjot, Bonnier, and Jean de Bry, the
+dregs of the French nation, treated the whole of the German empire on
+this occasion _en canaille_, and, while picking the pockets of the
+Germans, were studiously coarse and brutal; still the trifling
+opposition they encountered, and the total want of spirit in the
+representatives of the great German empire, whom it must, in fact,
+have struck them as ridiculous to see thus humbled at their feet,
+forms an ample excuse for their demeanor.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus IV., who mounted the throne of Sweden in 1796,
+distinguished himself at that time among the Estates of the empire,
+when Duke of Pomerania and Prince of Rugen, by his solemn protest
+against the depredations committed by France, and by his summons to
+every member of the German empire to take the field against their
+common foe. Hesse-Cassel was also remarkable for the warlike demeanor
+and decidedly anti-Gallic feeling of her population; and Wurtemberg,
+for being the first of the German states that gave the example of
+making concessions more in accordance with the spirit of the times. By
+the abolition of ancient abuses alone could the princes meet the
+threats used on every occasion by the French at Rastadt to
+revolutionize the people unless their demands were fully complied
+with. In Wurtemberg, the duke, Charles, had been succeeded, A.D. 1793,
+by his brother, Louis Eugène, who banished license from his court,
+but, a foe to enlightenment, closed the Charles college, placed monks
+around his person, was extremely bigoted, and a zealous but impotent
+friend to France. He expired, A.D. 1795, and was succeeded by the
+third brother, Frederick Eugène, who had been during his youth a canon
+at Salzburg, but afterward became a general in the Prussian service,
+married a princess of Brandenburg, and educated his children in the
+Protestant faith in order to assimilate the religion of the reigning
+family with that of the people. His mild government terminated in
+1797. Frederick, his talented son and successor, mainly frustrated the
+projected establishment of a Swabian republic, which was strongly
+supported by the French, by his treatment of the provincial Estates,
+the modification of the rights of chase, etc., on which occasion he
+took the following oath: "I repeat the solemn vow, ever to hold the
+constitution of this country sacred and to make the weal of my
+subjects the aim of my life." He nevertheless appears, by the
+magnificent fetes, masquerades, and pastoral festivals given by him,
+as if in a time of the deepest peace, at Hohenheim, to have trusted
+more to his connection with England, by his marriage with the princess
+royal, Matilda,[10] with Russia, and with Austria (the emperor Paul,
+Catherine's successor, having married the princess Maria of
+Wurtemberg, and the emperor Francis II., her sister Elisabeth), than
+to the constitution, which he afterward annihilated.
+
+The weakness displayed by the empire and the increasing disunion
+between Austria and Prussia encouraged the French to further
+insolence. Not satisfied with garrisoning every fortification on the
+left bank of the Rhine, they boldly attacked, starved to submission,
+and razed to the ground, during peace time, the once impregnable
+fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite
+Coblentz.[11] Not content with laying the Netherlands and Holland
+completely waste, they compelled the Hanse towns to grant them a loan
+of eighteen million livres. Lubeck refused, but Hamburg and Bremen,
+more nearly threatened and hopeless of aid from Prussia, were
+constrained to satisfy the demands of the French brigands. In the
+Netherlands, the German faction once more rose in open insurrection;
+in 1798, the young men, infuriated by the conscription and by their
+enrolment into French regiments, flew to arms, and torrents of blood
+were shed in the struggle, in which they were unaided by their German
+brethren, before they were again reduced to submission. The English
+also landed at Ostend, but for the sole purpose of destroying the
+sluices of the canal at Bruges.
+
+The French divided the beautiful Rhenish provinces, yielded to them
+almost without a blow by Germany, into four departments: First, Roer,
+capital Aix-la-Chapelle; besides Cologne and Cleves. Secondly,
+Donnersberg, capital Mayence; besides Spires and Zweibrucken. Thirdly,
+Saar, capital Treves. Fourthly, Rhine and Moselle, capital Coblentz;
+besides Bonn. Each department was subdivided into cantons, each canton
+into communes. The department was governed by a perfect, the canton by
+a sub-prefect, the commune by a mayor. All distinction of rank,
+nobility, and all feudal rights were abolished. Each individual was a
+citizen, free and equal. All ecclesiastical establishments were
+abandoned to plunder, the churches alone excepted, they being still
+granted as places of worship to believers, notwithstanding the
+contempt and ridicule into which the clergy had fallen. The
+monasteries were closed. The peasantry, more particularly in Treves,
+nevertheless, still manifested great attachment to Popery. Guilds and
+corporations were also abolished. The introduction of the ancient
+German oral law formerly in use throughout the empire, the institution
+of trial by jury, which, to the disgrace of Germany, the Rhenish
+princes, after the lapse of a thousand years, learned from their
+Gallic foe, was a great and signal benefit.
+
+Liberty, equality, and justice were, at that period, in all other
+respects, mere fictions. The most arbitrary rule in reality existed,
+and the new provinces were systematically drained by taxes of every
+description, as, for instance, register, stamp, patent, window, door,
+and land taxes: there was also a tax upon furniture and upon luxuries
+of every sort; a poll-tax, a percentage on the whole assessment, etc.;
+besides extortion, confiscation, and forced sales. And woe to the new
+citizen of the great French republic if he failed in paying more
+servile homage to its officers, from the prefect down to the lowest
+underling, than had ever been exacted by the princes![12] Such was the
+liberty bestowed by republican France! Thus were her promises
+fulfilled! The German Illuminati were fearfully undeceived,
+particularly on perceiving how completely their hopes of universally
+revolutionizing Germany were frustrated by the treaty of Basel. The
+French, who had proclaimed liberty to all the nations of the earth,
+now offered it for sale. The French character was in every respect the
+same as during the reign of Louis XIV. The only principle to which
+they remained ever faithful was that of robbery.--Switzerland was now,
+in her turn, attacked, and vengeance thus overtook every province that
+had severed itself from the empire, and every part of the once
+magnificent empire of Germany was miserably punished for its want of
+unity.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Clausewitz demands, with great justice, why the Austrians
+so greatly divided their forces on this occasion for the sake of
+saving Italy, as they had only to follow up their successes vigorously
+on the Rhine in order to gain, in that quarter, far more than they
+could lose on the Po.]
+
+[Footnote 2: At Absom, in the valley of the Inn, a peasant girl had,
+at that time, discovered a figure of the Virgin in one of the panes of
+glass in her chamber window. This appearance being deemed miraculous
+by the simple peasantry, the authorities of the place investigated the
+matter, had the glass cleaned and scraped, etc., and at length
+pronounced the indelible figure to be simply the outline of an old
+colored painting. The peasantry, however, excited by the appearance of
+the infidel French, persisted in giving credence to the miracle and
+set up the piece of glass in a church, which was afterward annually
+visited by thousands of pilgrims. In 1407, the celebrated pilgrimage
+to Waldrast, in the Tyrol, had been founded in a similar manner by the
+discovery of a portrait of the Virgin which had been grown up in a
+tree, by two shepherd lads.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cobenzl was a favorite of Kaunitz and a thorough
+courtier. At an earlier period, when ambassador at Petersburg, he
+wrote French comedies, which were performed at the Hermitage in the
+presence of the empress Catherine. The arrival of an unpleasant
+despatch being ever followed by the production of some amusing piece
+as an antidote to care, the empress jestingly observed, "that he was
+no doubt keeping his best piece until the news arrived of the French
+being in Vienna." He expired in the February of 1809, a year pregnant
+with fate for Austria.]
+
+[Footnote 4: He indignantly refused the stipend offered to him on this
+occasion and protested against the injustice of his condemnation.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Bavaria regarded these forced concessions as a bad reward
+for her fidelity to Austria. Napoleon appears to have calculated upon
+relighting by this means the flames of discord, whence he well knew
+how to draw an advantage, between Bavaria and Austria.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "Thus the emperor also now abandoned the empire by merely
+bargaining with the enemy to quit his territories, and leaving the
+wretched provinces of the empire a prey to war and pillage. And if the
+assurances of friendship, of confidence, and of affection between
+Austria and Venice are but recalled to mind, the contrast was indeed
+laughable when the emperor was pleased to allow that loyal city to be
+ceded to him. The best friend was in this case the cloth from which
+the emperor cut himself an equivalent."--_Huergelmer_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: A curious private memoir of Talleyrand says: "J'ai la
+certitude que Berlin est le lieu, où le traité du 26 Vendémiaire (the
+reconciliation of Austria with France at Campo Formio), aura jetté le
+plus d'etonnement, d'embarras et de orainte." He then explains that,
+now that the Netherlands no longer belong to Austria, and that Austria
+and France no longer come into collision, both powers would be
+transformed from natural foes into natural friends and would have an
+equal interest in weakening Prussia. Should Russia stir, the Poles
+could be roused to insurrection, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Exactly at this period, when the empire's common foe was
+plundering the Franconian circle, when deeds of blood and horror, when
+misery and want had reached a fearful height, the troops of the
+Elector of Brandenburg overran the cities and villages. The
+inhabitants were constrained to take the oath of fealty, the public
+officers, who refused, were dragged away captive, etc. Ellingen,
+Stopfenheim, Absperg, Eschenbach, Nüremberg, Postbaur, Virnsperg,
+Oettingen, Dinkelspühl, Ritzenhausen, Gelchsheim, were scenes of
+brutal outrage."--_The History of the Usurpation of Brandenburg, A.D.
+1797_, with the original Documents, published by the Teutonic Order.]
+
+[Footnote 9: His secret memoirs, even at that period, designate Baden,
+Würtemberg, and Darmstadt as states securely within the grasp of
+France.]
+
+[Footnote 10: He fled on Moreau's invasion to England, where he formed
+this alliance. There was at one time a project of creating him elector
+of Hanover and of partitioning Würtemberg between Bavaria and Baden.]
+
+[Footnote 11: The commandant, Faber, defended the place for fourteen
+months with a garrison of 2,000 men. During the siege, the
+badly-disciplined French soldiery secretly sold provisions at an
+exorbitant price to the starving garrison.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Klebe gave an extremely detailed account of the French
+government: "It is, for instance, well known that a pastry cook was
+nominated lord high warden of the forest! over a whole department, and
+a jeweller was raised to the same office in another.--The documents
+proving the cheating and underselling carried on by Pioc, the lord
+high warden of the forests, and by his assistant, Gauthier, in all the
+forests in the department of the Rhine and Moselle, are detailed at
+full length in 'Rübezahl,' a sort of monthly magazine. It is
+astonishing to see with what boundless impudence these people have
+robbed the country.--Still greater rascalities were carried on on the
+right bank of the Rhine. Gauthier robbed from Coblentz down to the
+Prussian frontiers." These allegations are confirmed by Görres in a
+pamphlet, "Results of my Mission to Paris," in which he says, "The
+Directory had treated the four departments like so many Paschalics,
+which it abandoned to its Janissaries and colonized with its
+favorites. Every petition sent by the inhabitants was thrown aside
+with revolting contempt; everything was done that could most deeply
+wound their feelings in regard to themselves or to their country."
+"The secret history of the government of the country between the Rhine
+and the Moselle," sums up as follows: "All cheated, all thieved, all
+robbed. The cheating, thieving, and robbing were perfectly terrible,
+and not one of the cheats, thieves, or robbers seemed to have an idea
+that this country formed, by the decree of union, a part of France." A
+naïve confession! The French, at all events, acted as if conscious
+that the land was not theirs. The Rhenish Jews, who, as early as the
+times of Louis XIV., had aided the French in plundering Germany, again
+acted as their bloodhounds, and, by accepting bills in exchange for
+their real or supposed loans, at double the amount, on wealthy
+proprietors, speedily placed themselves in possession of the finest
+estates. Vide Reichardt's Letters from Paris.]
+
+
+
+CCLI. The Pillage of Switzerland
+
+
+Peace had reigned throughout Switzerland since the battle of
+Villmergen, A.D. 1712, which had given to Zurich and Berne the
+ascendency in the confederation. The popular discontent caused by the
+increasing despotism of the aristocracy had merely displayed itself in
+petty conspiracies, as, for instance, that of Henzi, in 1749, and in
+partial insurrections. In all the cantons, even in those in which the
+democratic spirit was most prevalent, the chief authority had been
+seized by the wealthier and more ancient families. All the offices
+were in their hands, the higher posts in the Swiss regiments raised
+for the service of France were monopolized by the younger sons of the
+more powerful families, who introduced the social vices of France into
+their own country, where they formed a strange medley in conjunction
+with the pedantry of the ancient oligarchical form of government. In
+the great canton of Berne, the council of two hundred, which had
+unlimited sway, was solely composed of seventy-six reigning families.
+In Zurich, the one thousand nine hundred townsmen had unlimited power
+over the country. For one hundred and fifty years no citizen had been
+enrolled among them, and no son of a peasant had been allowed to study
+for, or been nominated to, any office, even to that of preacher. In
+Solothurn, but one-half of the eight hundred townsmen were able to
+carry on the government. Lucerne was governed by a council of one
+hundred, so completely monopolized by the more powerful families that
+boys of twenty succeeded their fathers as councillors. Basel was
+governed by a council of two hundred and eighty, which was entirely
+formed out of seventy wealthy mercantile families. Seventy-one
+families had usurped the authority at Freiburg: similar oligarchical
+government prevailed at St. Gall and Schaffhausen. The _Junker_, in
+the latter place, rendered themselves especially ridiculous by the
+innumerable offices and chambers in which they transacted their
+useless and prolix affairs. In all these aristocratic cantons, the
+peasantry were cruelly harassed, oppressed, and, in some parts, kept
+in servitude, by the provincial governors. The wealthy provincial
+governments were monopolized by the great aristocratic families.[1]
+Even in the pure democracies, the provincial communes were governed by
+powerful peasant families, as, for instance, in Glarus, and the
+tyranny exercised by these peasants over the territory beneath their
+sway far exceeded that of the aristocratic burgesses in their
+provincial governments. The Italian valleys groaned beneath the yoke
+of the original cantons, particularly under that of Uri,[2] the seven
+provincial governments in Unterwallis under that of Oberwallis, the
+countship of Werdenberg under that of the Glarner, the Valtelline
+under that of the Grisons.[3] The princely abbot of St. Gall was
+unlimited sovereign over his territory. Separate monasteries, for
+instance, Engelberg, had feudal sway over their vassals.
+
+Enlightenment and liberal opinions spread also gradually over
+Switzerland, and twenty years after Henzi's melancholy death, a
+disposition was again shown to oppose the tyranny of the oligarchies.
+In 1792, Lavater and Fuszli were banished Zurich for venturing to
+complain of the arbitrary conduct of one of the provincial
+governors;[4] in 1779, a curate named Waser, a man of talent and a foe
+to the aristocracy, was beheaded on a false charge of falsifying the
+archives;[5] in 1794, the oppressed peasantry of Lucerne revolted
+against the aristocracy; in the same year, the peasantry in Schwyz,
+roused by the insolence of the French recruiting officers, revolted,
+and, in the public provincial assembly, enforced the recall of all the
+people of Schwyz in the French service, besides imposing a heavy fine
+upon General Reding on his return. In 1781, a revolt of the Freiburg
+peasantry, occasioned by the tyranny of the aristocracy, was quelled
+with the aid of Berne; in 1784, Suter, the noble-spirited _Landammann_
+of Appenzell, fell a sacrifice to envy. His mental and moral
+superiority to the rest of his countrymen inspired his rival, Geiger,
+with the most deadly hatred, and he persecuted him with the utmost
+rancor. He was accused of being a freethinker; documents and protocols
+were falsified; the stupid populace was excited against him, and,
+after having been exposed on the pillory, publicly whipped, and
+tortured on the rack, he was beheaded, and all intercession on his
+behalf was prohibited under pain of death. Solothurn, on the other
+hand, was freed from feudal servitude in 1785. The popular feeling at
+that time prevalent throughout Switzerland was, however, of far
+greater import than these petty events. The oligarchies had everywhere
+suppressed public opinion; the long peace had slackened the martial
+ardor of the people; the ridiculous affectation of ancient heroic
+language brought into vogue by John Muller rendered the contrast yet
+more striking, and, on the outburst of the French Revolution, the
+tyrannized Swiss peasantry naturally threw themselves into the arms of
+the French, the aristocracy into those of the Austrians.
+
+The oppressed peasantry revolted as early as 1790 against the ruling
+cities, the vassal against the aristocrat, in Schaffhausen, on account
+of the tithes; in Lower Valais, on account of the tyranny of one of
+the provincial governors. These petty outbreaks and an attempt made by
+Laharpe to render the Vaud independent of Berne[6] were suppressed,
+A.D. 1791. The people remained, nevertheless, in a high state of
+fermentation. The new French republic at first quarrelled with the
+ancient confederation for having, unmindful of their origin, descended
+to servility. The Swiss guard had, on the 16th of August, 1792,
+courageously defended the palace of the unfortunate French king and
+been cut to pieces by the Parisian mob. At a later period, the
+Austrians had seized the ambassadors of the French republic,
+Semonville and Maret, in the Valtelline, in the territory of the
+Grisons. The Swiss patriots, as they were called, however, gradually
+fomented an insurrection against the aristocrats and called the French
+to their aid. In 1793, the vassals of the bishop of Basel at Pruntrut
+had already planted trees of liberty and placed the bishopric, under
+the name of a Rauracian republic, under the protection of France,
+chiefly at the instigation of Gobel, who was, in reward, appointed
+bishop of Paris, and whose nephew, Rengger, shortly afterward became a
+member of the revolutionary government in Berne. In Geneva, during the
+preceding year, the French faction had gained the upper hand. The
+fickleness of the war kept the rest of the patriots in a state of
+suspense, but, on the seizure of the left bank of the Rhine by the
+French, the movements in Switzerland assumed a more serious character.
+The abbot, Beda, of St. Gall, 1795, pacified his subjects by
+concessions, which his successor, Pancras, refusing to recognize, he
+was, in consequence, expelled. The unrelenting aristocracy of Zurich,
+upon this, took the field against the restless peasantry, surrounded
+the patriots in Stäfa, threw the venerable Bodmer and a number of his
+adherents into prison, and inflicted upon them heavy fines or severe
+corporeal chastisement.
+
+The campaign of 1796 had fully disclosed to Bonaparte the advantage of
+occupying Switzerland with his troops, whose passage to Italy or
+Germany would be thereby facilitated, while the line of communication
+would be secured, and the danger to which he and Moreau had been
+exposed through want of co-operation would at once be remedied. He
+first of all took advantage of the dissensions in the Grisons to
+deprive that republic of the beautiful Valtelline,[7] and, even at
+that time, demanded permission from the people of Valais to build the
+road across the Simplon, which he was, however, only able to execute
+at a later period. On his return to Paris from the Italian expedition,
+he passed through Basel,[8] where he was met by Talleyrand. Peter
+Ochs, the chief master of the corporation, was, on this occasion, as
+he himself relates in his History of Basel, won over, as the
+acknowledged chief of the patriots, to revolutionize Switzerland and
+to enter into a close alliance with France. The base characters, at
+that time the tools of the French Directory, merely acceded to the
+political plans of Bonaparte and Talleyrand in the hope of reaping a
+rich harvest by the plunder of the federal cantons, and the Swiss
+expedition was, consequently, determined upon. The people of Valais,
+whose state of oppression served as a pretext for interference,
+revolted, under Laharpe, against Berne, 1798, and demanded the
+intervention of the French republic, as heir to the dukes of Savoy, on
+the strength of an ancient treaty, which had, for that purpose, been
+raked up from the ashes of the past. Nothing could exceed the
+miserable conduct of the diet at that conjuncture. After having
+already conceded to France her demand for the expulsion of the
+emigrants and having exposed its weakness by this open violation of
+the rights of hospitality, it discussed the number of troops to be
+furnished by each of the cantons, when the enemy was already in this
+country. Even the once haughty Bernese, who had set an army, thirty
+thousand strong, on foot, withdrew, under General Wysz, from Valais to
+their metropolis, where they awaited the attack of the enemy. There
+was neither plan[9] nor order; the patriots rose in every quarter and
+struck terror into the aristocrats, most of whom were now rather
+inclined to yield and impeded by their indecision the measures of the
+more spirited party. In Basel, Ochs deposed the oligarchy; in Zurich,
+the government was induced, by intimidation, to restore Bodmer and his
+fellow-prisoners to liberty. In Freiburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, and
+St. Gall the oligarchies resigned their authority; Constance asserted
+its independence.
+
+Within Berne itself, tranquillity was with difficulty preserved by
+Steiger, the venerable mayor, a man of extreme firmness of character.
+A French force under Brune had already overrun Vaud, which, under
+pretext of being delivered from oppression, was laid under a heavy
+contribution; the ancient charnel-house at Murten was also destroyed,
+because the French had formerly been beaten on this spot by the
+Germans. But few of the Swiss marched to the aid of Berne; two hundred
+of the people of Uri, arrayed in the armor of their ancestors, some of
+the peasantry of Glarus, St. Gall, and Freiburg.[10] A second French
+force under Schauenburg entered Switzerland by Basel, defeated the
+small troops of Bernese sent to oppose it at Dornach and Langnau, and
+took Solothurn, where it liberated one hundred and eighty self-styled
+patriots imprisoned in that place. The patriots, at this conjuncture,
+also rose in open insurrection in Berne, threw everything into
+confusion, deposed the old council, formed a provisional government,
+and checked all the preparations for defence. The brave peasantry,
+basely betrayed by the cities, were roused to fury. Colonels Ryhiner,
+Stettler, Crusy, and Goumores were murdered by them upon mere
+suspicion (their innocence was afterward proved), and boldly following
+their leader, Grafenried, against the French, they defeated and
+repulsed the whole of Brune's army and captured eighteen guns at the
+bridge of Neuenegg. But a smaller Bernese corps, which, under Steiger,
+the mayor, opposed the army of Schauenburg in the _Grauen Holz_, was
+routed after a bloody struggle, and, before Erlach, the newly-
+nominated generalissimo, could hurry back to Berne with the victors of
+Neuenegg, the patriots, who had long been in the pay of France, threw
+wide the gates to Schauenburg. All was now lost. Erlach fled to Thun,
+in order to place himself at the head of the people of the Oberland,
+who descended in thick masses from the mountains; but, on his
+addressing the brave Senn peasantry in French, according to the
+malpractice of the Bernese, they mistook him for a French spy and
+struck him dead in his carriage. The loss of Berne greatly dispirited
+them and they desisted from further and futile opposition. Steiger
+escaped. Hotze, a gallant Austrian general, who, mindful of his Swiss
+origin, had attempted to place himself at the head of his countrymen,
+was compelled to retrace his steps. In Berne, the French meanwhile
+pillaged the treasures of the republic.[11] Besides the treasury and
+the arsenal, estimated at twenty-nine million livres, they levied a
+contribution of sixteen million. Bruno planted a tree of liberty, and
+Frisching, the president of the provisional government, had the folly
+to say, "Here it stands! may it bear good fruit! Amen!"
+
+Further bloodshed was prevented by the intervention of the patriots.
+The whole of Switzerland, Schwyz, Upper Valais, and Unterwalden alone
+excepted, submitted, and, on the 12th of April, the federal diet at
+Aarau established, in the stead of the ancient federative and
+oligarchical government, a single and indivisible Helvetian republic,
+in a strictly democratic form, with five directors, on the French
+model. Four new cantons, Aargau, Leman (Vaud), the Bernese Oberland,
+and Constance, were annexed to the ancient ones. Schwyz, Uri,
+Unterwalden, and Zug were, on the other hand, to form but one canton.
+Rapinat, a bold bad man, Rewbel's brother-in-law, who was at that time
+absolute in Switzerland, seized everything that had escaped the
+pillage of the soldiery in Berne and Zurich, sacked Solothurn,
+Lucerne, Freiburg, etc., and hunted out the hidden treasures of the
+confederation, which he sent to France. The protestations of the
+directors, Bay and Pfyffer, were unheeded; Rapinat deposed them by
+virtue of a French warrant and nominated Ochs and Dolder in their
+stead. The patriotic feelings of the Swiss revolted at this tyranny;
+Schwyz rose in open insurrection; the peasantry, headed by Aloys
+Reding, seized and garrisoned Lucerne and called the whole country to
+arms against the French invader. The peasantry of the free cantons
+also marched against Aarau, but were defeated by Schauenburg at
+Häcklingen; two hundred of their number fell, among others a priest
+bearing the colors. Schauenburg then attacked the people of Schwyz at
+Richtenschwyl, where, after a desperate combat that lasted a whole
+day, he at length compelled them to give way. They, nevertheless,
+speedily rallied, and two engagements of equal obstinacy took place on
+the Schindeleggy and on the mountain of Etzel. The flight of Herzog,
+the pastor of Einsiedeln, was the sole cause of the discomfiture of
+the Swiss. Reding, however, reassembling his forces at the Red Tower,
+in the vicinity of the old battlefield of Morgarten, the French,
+unable to withstand their fury, were repulsed with immense loss. They
+also suffered a second defeat at Arth, at the foot of the Rigi. The
+Swiss, on their part, on numbering their forces after the battle,
+found their strength so terribly reduced that, although victors, they
+were unable to continue the contest, and voluntarily recognized the
+Helvetian republic. The rich monastery of Einsiedeln was plundered and
+burned; the miraculous picture of the Virgin was, however, preserved.
+Upper Valais also submitted, after Sion and the whole of the valley
+had been plundered and laid waste. The peasantry defended themselves
+here for several weeks at the precipice of the Dala. Unterwalden
+offered the most obstinate resistance. The peasantry of this canton
+were headed by Lüssi. The French invaded the country simultaneously on
+different sides, by water, across the lake of the four cantons, and
+across the Brünig from the Haslithal; in the Kernwald they were
+victorious over the masses of peasantry, but a body of three or four
+thousand French, which had penetrated further down the vale, was
+picked off by the peasantry concealed in the woods and behind the
+rocks. A rifleman, stationed upon a projecting rock, shot more than a
+hundred of the enemy one after another, his wife and children,
+meanwhile, loading his guns. Both of the French corps coalesced at
+Stanz, but met with such obstinate resistance from the old men, women
+and girls left there, that, after butchering four hundred of them,
+they set the place in flames.[12] The sturdy mountaineers, although
+numerically weak, proved themselves worthy of their ancient fame.--The
+four _Waldstätte_ were thrown into one canton, Waldstätten; Glarus and
+Toggenburg into another, Linth; Appenzell and St. Gall into that of
+Säntis. The old Italian prefectures, with the exception of the
+Valtelline, were formed into two cantons, Lugano and Bellinzona
+(afterward the canton of Tessin). The canton of Vaud also finally
+acceded to this arrangement, but was shortly afterward, as well as the
+former bishopric of Basel, Pruntrut,[13] and the city and republic of
+Genoa, incorporated with France.
+
+The levy of eighteen thousand men (the Helvetlers, Galloschwyzers or
+eighteen batzmen) for the service of the Helvetian republic occasioned
+fresh disturbances in the beginning of 1799. The opposition was so
+great that the recruits were carried in chains to Berne. The Bernese
+Oberland, the peasantry of Basel, Solothurn, Toggenburg, Appenzell,
+and Glarus rose in open insurrection, but were again reduced to
+submission by the military. The spirit of the mountaineers was,
+however, less easily tamed. In April, 1799, the people of Schwyz took
+four hundred French prisoners; those of Uri, under their leader,
+Vincenz Schmid, stormed and burned Altorf, the seat of the French and
+their adherents; those of Valais, under the youthful Count Courten,
+drove the French from their valleys, and those of the Grisons
+surprised and cut to pieces a French squadron at Dissentis. General
+Soult took the field with a strong force against them in May and
+reduced them one after the other, but with great loss on his side, to
+submission. Twelve hundred French fell in Valais, which was completely
+laid waste by fire and sword; in Uri, stones and rocks were hurled
+upon them by the infuriated peasantry as they defiled through the
+narrow gorges; Schmid was, however, taken and shot; Schwyz was also
+reduced to obedience; in the Grisons, upward of a thousand French fell
+in a bloody engagement at Coire, and the magnificent monastery of
+Dissentis was, in revenge, burned to the ground. The beautiful
+Bergland was reduced to an indescribable state of misery. The villages
+lay in ashes; the people, who had escaped the general massacre, fell
+victims to famine. In this extremity, Zschokke, at that time Helvetic
+governor of the Waldstatte, proposed the complete expulsion of the
+ancient inhabitants and the settlement of French colonists in the
+fatherland of William Tell.[14]
+
+The imperial free town of Muhlhausen in the Suntgau, the ancient ally
+of Switzerland, fell, like her, into the hands of the French. Unable
+to preserve her independence, she committed a singular political
+suicide. The whole of the town property was divided among the
+citizens. A girl, attired in the ancient Swiss costume, delivered the
+town keys to the French commissioner; the city banner and arms were
+buried with great solemnity.[15]
+
+The French had also shown as little lenity in their treatment of
+Italy. Rome was entered and garrisoned with French troops; the
+handsome and now venerable puppet, Pope Pius VI., was seized, robbed,
+and personally maltreated (his ring was even torn from his hand), and
+dragged a prisoner to France, where he expired in the August of 1799.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: "The peasant, when summoned into the presence of a
+governor, lord of the council, head of a guild, or preacher, stood
+there, not as a free Swiss, but as a criminal trembling before his
+judge."--_Lehmann on the imaginary Freedom of the Swiss. 1799._]
+
+[Footnote 2: "The important office of provincial secretary was, in
+this manner, hereditary in the family of the Beroldingen of
+Uri."--_Lehmann_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: "In the Grisons, the constitution was extremely
+complicated. The lordships of Meyenfeld and Aspermont were, for
+instance, subject to the three confederated cantons and under the
+control of the provincial governors nominated by them; they were at
+the same time members of the whole free state, and, as such, had a
+right of lordship over the subject provinces, over which, they, in
+their turn, appointed a governor."--_Meyer von Knonau's Geography._]
+
+[Footnote 4: The best information concerning the authority held by the
+provincial governors, who enjoyed almost unlimited sway over their
+districts, is to be met with in the excellent biography of Solomon
+Landolt, the provincial governor of Zurich, by David Hesz. Landolt was
+the model of an able but extremely tyrannical governor (he ruled over
+Greisensee and Eglisau) and gained great note by his salomonic
+judgments and by his quaint humor. He founded the Swiss rifle clubs
+and introduced that national weapon into modern warfare. He was also a
+painter and had the whim, notwithstanding the constant triumph of the
+French, ever to represent them in his pictures as the vanquished
+party.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Hirzel wrote at that time, in his "Glimpses into the
+History of the Confederation," that Captain Henzl had been deprived of
+his head because he was the only man in the country who had one.
+Zimmerman says in his "National Pride," "A foreign philosopher visited
+Switzerland for the purpose of settling in a country where thought was
+free; he remained ten days at Zurich and then went to--Portugal." In
+1774, the clocks at Basel, which, since the siege of Rudolph of
+Habsburg, had remained one hour behindhand, were, after immense
+opposition, regulated like those in the rest of the world. Two
+factions sprang up on this occasion, that of the Spieszburghers or
+Lalleburghers (the ancient one), and that of the Francemen or
+new-modellers (the modern one).]
+
+[Footnote 6: Laharpe was at the same time a demagogue in the Vaud and
+tutor to the emperor Alexander at Petersburg.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Valtelline with Chiavenna and Bormio (Cleves and Worms)
+were ill-treated by the people of the Grisons. Offices and justice
+were regularly jobbed and sold to the highest bidder. The people of
+Valtelline hastily entered into alliance with France, while the
+oppressed peasantry in the Grisons rebelled against the ruling family
+of Salis, which had long been in the pay of the French kings, and had,
+since the revolution, sided with Austria. John Müller appeared at
+Basel as Thugut's agent for the purpose of inciting the confederation
+against France.--_Ochs's History of Basel._]
+
+[Footnote 8: While here, he gave Fesch, the pastry-cook, whose
+brother, a Swiss lieutenant, was the second husband of Bonaparte's
+maternal grandmother, a very friendly reception. The offspring of this
+second marriage was the future Cardinal Fesch, Letitia's half-brother
+and Napoleon's uncle, whom Napoleon attempted to create primate of
+Germany and to raise to the pontifical throne.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Some of the cantons imagined that France merely aspired
+to the possession of Valais, and, jealous of the prosperity and power
+of Berne, willingly permitted her to suffer this humiliation.-_Meyer
+von Knonau_].
+
+[Footnote 10: Two Bernese, condemned to work in the trenches at
+Yferten, on being liberated by the French, returned voluntarily to
+Berne, in order to aid in the defense of the city. A rare trait, in
+those times, of ancient Swiss fidelity.]
+
+[Footnote 11: A good deal of it was spent by Bonaparte during his
+expedition into Egypt, and, even at the present day, the Bernese bear
+is to be seen on coins still in circulation on the banks of the
+Nile.--_Meyer von Knonau._]
+
+[Footnote 12: The venerable Pestalozzi assembled the orphans and
+founded his celebrated model academy at Stanz. Seventy-nine women and
+girls were found among the slain. A story is told of a girl who, being
+attacked, in a lonely house, by two Frenchmen, knocked their heads
+together with such force that they dropped down dead.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Not far from Pruntrut is the hill of Terri, said to have
+been formerly occupied by one of Cĉsar's camps. The French named it
+_Mont Terrible_ and created a _department du Mont Terrible_. Vide
+Meyer von Knonau's Geography.]
+
+[Footnote 14: In his "Political Remarks touching the Canton of
+Waldstatten," dated the 23d of June, 1799, he says: "Let us imitate
+the political maxims of the conquerors of old, who drove the
+inhabitants most inimical to them into foreign countries and
+established colonies, composed of families of their own kin, in the
+heart of the conquered provinces." His proposal remaining unseconded,
+he sought to obliterate the bad impression it had made, by publishing
+a proclamation, calling upon the charitably inclined to raise a
+subscription for the unfortunate inhabitants of the Waldstatte.]
+
+
+[Footnote 15: Vide Graf's History of Muhlhausen.]
+
+
+
+CCLII. The Second Coalition
+
+
+Prussia looked calmly on, with a view of increasing her power by peace
+while other states ruined themselves by war, and of offering her
+arbitration at a moment when she could turn their mutual losses to
+advantage. Austria, exposed to immediate danger by the occupation of
+Switzerland by the French, remained less tranquil and hastily formed a
+fresh coalition with England and Russia. Catherine II. had expired,
+1796. Her son, Paul I., cherished the most ambitious views. His
+election as grand-master of the Maltese order dispersed by Napoleon
+had furnished him with a sort of right of interference in the affairs
+of the Levant and of Italy. On the 1st of March, 1799, the Ionian
+Islands, Corfu, etc., were occupied by Russian troops, and a Russian
+army, under the terrible Suwarow, moved, in conjunction with the
+troops of Austria, upon Italy. The project of the Russian czar was, by
+securing his footing on the Mediterranean and at the same time
+encircling Turkey, to attack Constantinople on both sides, on the
+earliest opportunity. Austria was merely to serve as a blind tool for
+the attainment of his schemes. Mack was despatched to Naples for the
+purpose of bringing about a general rising in Southern Italy against
+the French, and England lavished gold. The absence of Bonaparte
+probably inspired several of the allied generals with greater courage,
+not the French, but he, being the object of their dread. The conduct
+of the French at Rastadt had revolted every German and had justly
+raised their most implacable hatred, which burst forth during a
+popular tumult at Vienna, when the tricolor, floating from the palace
+of General Bernadotte, the French ambassador, was torn down and
+burned. The infamous assassination of the French ambassadors at
+Rastadt also took place during this agitated period. Bonnier,
+Roberjot, and Jean de Bry quitted Rastadt on the breaking out of war,
+and were attacked and cut to pieces by some Austrian hussars in a wood
+close to the city gate. Jean de Bry alone escaped, although
+dangerously wounded, with his life. This atrocious act was generally
+believed to have been committed through private revenge, or, what is
+far more probable, for the purpose of discovering by the papers of the
+ambassadors the truth of the reports at that time in circulation
+concerning the existence of a conspiracy and projects for the
+establishment of republics throughout Germany. The real motive was,
+however, not long ago,[1] unveiled. Austria had revived her ancient
+projects against Bavaria, and, as early as 1798, had treated with the
+French Directory for the possession of that electorate in return for
+her toleration of the occupatign of Switzerland by the troops of the
+republic. The venerable elector, Charles Theodore, who had been
+already persuaded to cede Bavaria and to content himself with
+Franconia, dying suddenly of apoplexy while at the card-table, was
+succeeded by his cousin, Maximilian Joseph of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, from
+whom, on account of his numerous family, no voluntary cession was to
+be expected either for the present or future. Thugut and Lehr-bach,
+the rulers of the Viennese cabinet, in the hope of compromising and
+excluding him, as a traitor to the empire, from the Bavarian
+succession, by the production of proofs of his being the secret ally
+of France, hastily resolved upon the assassination of the French
+ambassadors at Rastadt, on the bare supposition of their having in
+their possession documents in the handwriting of the elector. None
+were, however, discovered, the French envoys having either taken the
+precaution of destroying them or of committing them to the
+safe-keeping of the Prussian ambassador. This crime was, as Hormayr
+observes, at the same time, a political blunder. This horrible act was
+perpetrated on the 28th of April, 1799.
+
+The campaign had, a month anterior to this event, been opened by the
+French, who had attacked the Austrians in their still scattered
+positions. Disunion prevailed as usual in the Austrian military
+council. The Archduke Charles proposed the invasion of France from the
+side of Swabia. The occupation of Switzerland by the troops of Austria
+was, nevertheless, resolved upon, and General Auffenberg, accordingly,
+entered the Grisons. The French instantly perceived and hastened to
+anticipate the designs of the Austrian cabinet. Auffenberg was
+defeated by Massena on the St. Luciensteig and expelled the Grisons,
+while Hotze on the Vorarlberg and Bellegarde in the Tyrol looked
+calmly on at the head of fifteen thousand men. The simultaneous
+invasion of Swabia by Jourdan now induced the military council at
+Vienna to accede to the proposal formerly made by the Archduke
+Charles, who was despatched with the main body of the army to Swabia,
+where, on the 25th of March, 1799, he gained a complete victory over
+Jourdan at Ostrach and Stockach.[2] The Grisons were retaken in May by
+Hotze, and, in June, the archduke joining him, Massena was defeated at
+Zurich, and the steep passes of Mont St. Gothard were occupied by
+Haddik. Massena was, however, notwithstanding the immense numerical
+superiority of the archduke's forces, which could easily have driven
+him far into France, allowed to remain undisturbed at Bremgarten. The
+French, under Scherer, in Italy, had, meanwhile, been defeated, in
+April, by Kray, at Magnano. This success was followed by the arrival
+of Melas from Vienna, of Bellegarde from the Tyrol, and lastly, by
+that of the Russian vanguard under Suwarow, who took the chief command
+and beat the whole of the French forces in Italy; Moreau, at Cassano
+and Marengo, in May; Macdonald, on his advance from Lower Italy, on
+the Trebbia, in June; and finally, Joubert, in the great battle of
+Novi, in which Joubert was killed, August the 15th, 1799. Dissensions
+now broke out among the victors. A fourth of the forces in Italy
+belonged to Austria, merely one-fifth to Russia; the Austrians,
+consequently, imagined that the war was merely carried on on their
+account. The Austrian forces were, against Suwarow's advice, divided,
+for the purpose of reducing Mantua and Alessandria and of occupying
+Tuscany. The king of Sardinia, whom Suwarow desired to restore to his
+throne, was forbidden to enter his states by the Austrians, who
+intended to retain possession of them for some time longer. The whole
+of Italy, as far as Ancona and Genoa, was now freed from the French,
+whom the Italians, embittered by their predatory habits, had aided to
+expel, and Suwarow received orders to join his forces with those under
+Korsakow, who was then on the Upper Rhine with thirty thousand men.
+The archduke might, even without this fresh reinforcement, have
+already annihilated Massena had he not remained during three months,
+from June to August, in a state of complete inactivity; at the very
+moment of Suwarow's expected arrival he allowed the important passes
+of the St. Gothard to be again carried by a coup de main by the French
+under General Lecourbe, who drove the Austrians from the Simplon, the
+Furca, the Grimsel, and the Devil's bridge. The archduke, after an
+unsuccessful attempt to push across the Aar at Dettingen, suddenly
+quitted the scene of war and advanced down the Rhine for the purpose
+of supporting the English expedition under the Duke of York against
+Holland. This unexpected turn in affairs proceeded from Vienna. The
+Viennese cabinet was jealous of Russia. Suwarow played the master in
+Italy, favored Sardinia at the expense of the house of Habsburg, and
+deprived the Austrians of the laurels and of the advantages they had
+won. The archduke, accordingly, received orders to remain inactive, to
+abandon the Russians, and finally to withdraw to the north; by this
+movement Suwarow's triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled
+to cross the Alps to the aid of Korsakow, and to involve himself in a
+mountain warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.[3]
+Korsakow, whom Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to furnish
+with a corps one thousand strong, was solely supported by Kray and
+Hotze with twenty thousand men. Massena, taking advantage of the
+departure of the archduke and the non-arrival of Suwarow, crossed the
+Limmat at Dietikon and shut Korsakow, who had imprudently stationed
+himself with his whole army in Zurich, so closely in, that, after an
+engagement that lasted two days, from the 15th to the 17th of
+September, the Russian general was compelled to abandon his artillery
+and to force his way through the enemy. Ten thousand men were all that
+escaped.[4] Hotze, who had advanced from the Grisons to Schwyz to
+Suwarow's rencounter, was, at the same time, defeated and killed at
+Schannis. Suwarow, although aware that the road across the St. Gothard
+was blocked by the lake of the four cantons, on which there were no
+boats, had the folly to attempt the passage. In Airolo, he was
+obstinately opposed by the French under Lecourbe, and, although
+Schweikowski contrived to turn this strong position by scaling the
+pathless rocks, numbers of the men were, owing to Suwarow's
+impatience, sacrificed before it. On the 24th of September, 1799, he
+at length climbed the St. Gothard, and a bloody engagement, in which
+the French were worsted, took place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew
+up the Devil's bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians
+pushed through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming
+Reuss, scaled the opposite rocks and drove the French from their
+position behind the Devil's bridge. Altorf on the lake was reached in
+safety by the Russian general, who was compelled, owing to the want of
+boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Shachen and Muotta,
+across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains
+rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to
+the badness of the road, speedily became barefoot; the provisions were
+also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the 29th
+of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakow's defeat.
+Massena had already set off in the hope of cutting off Suwarow, but
+had missed his way. He reached Altorf, where he joined Lecourbe on the
+29th, when Suwarow was already at Muotta, whence Massena found on his
+arrival he had again retired across the Bragelberg, through the
+Klonthal. He was opposed on the lake of Klonthal by Molitor, who was,
+however, forced to retire by Auffenberg, who had joined Suwarow at
+Altorf and formed his advanced guard, Rosen, at the same time, beating
+off Massena with the rear-guard, taking five cannons and one thousand
+of his men prisoners. On the 1st of October, Suwarow entered Glarus,
+where he rested until the 4th, when he crossed the Panixer mountains
+through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he
+reached on the 10th, after losing the whole of his beasts of burden
+and two hundred of his men down the precipices; and here ended his
+extraordinary march, which had cost him the whole of his artillery,
+almost all his horses, and a third of his men.
+
+The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had taken
+Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent the defeat
+of the English expedition under the Duke of York by General Brune at
+Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke now, for the first
+time, made a retrograde movement, and approached Korsakow and Suwarow.
+The different leaders, however, merely reproached each other, and the
+czar, perceiving his project frustrated, suddenly recalled his troops
+and the campaign came to a close. The archduke's rearguard was
+defeated in a succession of petty skirmishes at Heidelberg and on the
+Neckar by the French, who again pressed forward.[5] These disasters
+were counterbalanced by the splendid victory gained by Melas in Italy,
+at Savigliano, over Championnet, who attempted to save Genoa.
+
+Austria was no sooner deprived in Suwarow of the most efficient of her
+allies than she was attacked by her most dangerous foe. Bonaparte
+returned from Egypt. The news of the great disasters of the French in
+Italy no sooner arrived, than he abandoned his army and hastened,
+completely unattended, to France, through the midst of the English
+fleet, then stationed in the Mediterranean. His arrival in Paris was
+instantly followed by his public nomination as generalissimo. He alone
+had the power of restoring victory to the standard of the republic.
+The ill success of his rivals had greatly increased his popularity; he
+had become indispensable to his countrymen. His power was alone
+obnoxious to the weak government, which, aided by the soldiery, he
+dissolved on the 9th of November (the 18th Brumaire, by the modern
+French calendar); he then bestowed a new constitution upon France and
+placed himself, under the title of First Consul, at the head of the
+republic.
+
+In the following year, 1800, Bonaparte made preparations for a fresh
+campaign against Austria, under circumstances similar to those of the
+first. But this time he was more rapid in his movements and performed
+more astonishing feats. Suddenly crossing the St. Bernard, he fell
+upon the Austrian flank. Genoa, garrisoned by Massena, had just been
+forced by famine to capitulate. Ten days afterward, on the 14th of
+June, Bonaparte gained such a decisive victory over Melas, the
+Austrian general, at Marengo,[6] that he and the remainder of his army
+capitulated on the ensuing day. The whole of Italy fell once more into
+the hands of the French. Moreau had, at the same time, invaded Germany
+and defeated the Austrians under Kray in several engagements,
+principally at Stockach and Moskirch,[7] and again at Biberach and
+Hochstadt, laid Swabia and Bavaria under contribution, and taken
+Ratisbon, the seat of the diet. An armistice, negotiated by Kray, was
+not recognized by the emperor, and he was replaced in his command by
+the Archduke John (not Charles), who was, on the 3d of December,
+totally routed by Moreau's manoeuvres during a violent snowstorm, at
+Hohenlinden. A second Austrian army, despatched into Italy, was also
+defeated by Brune on the Mincio. These disasters once more inclined
+Austria to peace, which was concluded at Luneville, on the 9th of
+February, 1801. The Archduke Charles seized this opportunity to
+propose the most beneficial reforms in the war administration, but was
+again treated with contempt. In the ensuing year, 1802, England also
+concluded peace at Amiens.
+
+The whole of the left bank of the Rhine was, on this occasion, ceded
+to the French republic. The petty republics, formerly established by
+France in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, were also renewed and were
+recognized by the allied powers. The Cisalpine republic was enlarged
+by the possessions of the grandduke of Tuscany and of the duke of
+Modena, to whom compensation in Germany was guaranteed. Suwarow's
+victories had, in the autumn of 1799, rendered a conclave, on the
+death of the captive pope, Pius VI., in France, possible, for the
+purpose of electing his successor, Pius VII., who was acknowledged as
+such by Bonaparte, whose favor he purchased by expressing his
+approbation of the seizure of the property of the church during the
+French Revolution, and by declaring his readiness to agree to the
+secularization of church property, already determined upon, in
+Germany.
+
+The Helvetian Directory fell, like that of France, and was replaced by
+an administrative council, composed of seven members, in 1800. The
+upholders of ancient cantonal liberty, now known under the
+denomination of Federalists, gained the upper hand, and Aloys Reding,
+who had, shortly before, been denounced as a rebel, became Landammann
+of Switzerland. Bonaparte even invited him to Paris in order to settle
+with him the future fate of Switzerland. Reding, however, showing an
+unexpected degree of firmness, and, unmoved by either promises or
+threats, obstinately refusing to permit the annexation of Valais to
+France, Bonaparte withdrew his support and again favored the
+Helvetlers. Dolder and Savari, who had long been the creatures of
+France, failing in their election, were seated by Verninac, the French
+ambassador, in the senate of the Helvetian republic, and Reding, who
+was at that moment absent, was divested of his office as Landammann.
+Reding protested against this arbitrary conduct and convoked a federal
+diet to Schwyz.
+
+Andermatt, general of the Helvetian republic, attempted to seize
+Zurich, which had joined the federalists, but was compelled to
+withdraw, covered with disgrace. An army of federalists under General
+Bachmann repulsed the Helvetlers in every direction and drove them,
+together with the French envoys, across the frontier. Bonaparte, upon
+this, sent a body of thirty to forty thousand men, under Ney, into
+Switzerland, which met with no opposition, the federalists being
+desirous of avoiding useless bloodshed and being already acquainted
+with Bonaparte's secret projects. He would not tolerate opposition on
+their part, like that of Reding: he had resolved upon getting
+possession of Valais at any price, on account of the road across the
+Simplon, so important to him as affording the nearest communication
+between Paris and Milan: in all other points, he perfectly coincided
+with the federalists and was willing to grant its ancient independence
+to every canton in Switzerland, where disunion and petty feuds placed
+the country the more securely in his hands. With feigned commiseration
+for the ineptitude of the Swiss to settle their own disputes, he
+invited deputies belonging to the various factions and cantons to
+Paris, lectured them like schoolboys, and compelled them by the Act of
+Mediation, under his intervention, to give a new constitution to
+Switzerland. Valais was annexed to France in exchange for the Austrian
+Frickthal. Nineteen cantons were created.[8] Each canton again
+administered its internal affairs. Bonaparte was never weary of
+painting the happy lot of petty states and the delights of petty
+citizenship. "But ye are too weak, too helpless, to defend yourselves;
+cast yourselves therefore into the arms of France, ready to protect
+you while, free from taxation, and from the burdensome maintenance of
+an army, ye dwell free and independent in your native vales." The
+Swiss, although no longer to have a national army, were, nevertheless,
+compelled to furnish a contingent of eighteen thousand men to that of
+France, and, while deluded by the idea of their freedom from taxation,
+the fifteen millions of French _bons_ given in exchange for the
+numerous Swiss loans were cashiered by Bonaparte, under pretext of the
+Swiss having been already sufficiently paid by their deliverance from
+their enemies by the French.[9] The real Swiss patriots implored the
+German powers to protect their country, the bulwark of Germany against
+France; but Austria was too much weakened by her own losses, and
+Prussia handed the letters addressed to her from Switzerland over to
+the First Consul.
+
+The melancholy business, commenced by the empire at the congress of
+Rastadt, and which had been broken off by the outbreak of war, had now
+to be recommenced. Fresh compensations had been rendered necessary by
+the robberies committed upon the Italian princes. The church property
+no longer sufficed to satisfy all demands, and fresh seizures had
+become requisite. A committee of the diet was intrusted with the
+settlement of the question of compensation, which was decided on the
+25th of February, 1803, by a decree of the imperial diet. All the
+great powers of Germany had not suffered; all had not, consequently, a
+right to demand compensation, but, in order to appease their jealousy,
+all were to receive a portion of the booty. The three spiritual
+electorates, Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, were abolished, their
+position on the other side of the Rhine including them within the
+French territory. The archbishop of Mayence alone retained his
+dignity, and was transferred to Ratisbon. The whole of the imperial
+free cities were moreover deprived of their privileges, six alone
+excepted, Lubeck, Hamburg,[10] Bremen, Frankfort, Augsburg, and
+Nuremberg. The unsecularized bishoprics and abbeys were abolished. The
+petty princes, counts and barons, and the Teutonic order, were still
+allowed to exist, in order ere long to be included in the general
+ruin.
+
+Prussia retained the bishoprics of Hildesheim and Paderborn, a part of
+Munster, numerous abbeys and imperial free towns in Westphalia and
+Thuringia, more particularly Erfurt. Bavaria had ever suffered on the
+conclusion of peace between France and Austria; in 1797, she had ceded
+the Rhenish Pfalz to France and a province on the Inn to Austria; by
+the treaty of Luneville she had been, moreover, compelled to raze the
+fortress of Ingolstadt.[11] The inclination for French innovations
+displayed by the reigning duke, Maximilian Joseph, who surrounded
+himself with the old Illuminati, caused her, on this occasion, by
+Bonaparte's aid, to be richly compensated by the annexation of the
+bishoprics of Bamberg, Wurzburg, Augsburg, and Freisingen, with
+several small towns, etc.; all the monasteries were abolished. Bavaria
+had formerly supported the institutions of the ancient church of Rome
+more firmly than Austria, where reforms had already been begun in the
+church by Joseph II. Hanover received Osnabruck; Baden, the portion of
+the Pfalz on this side the Rhine, the greatest part of the bishoprics
+of Constance, Basel, Strasburg, and Spires, also on this side the
+Rhine; Wurtemberg, both Hesses (Cassel and Darmstadt); and Nassau, all
+the lands in the vicinity formerly belonging to the bishopric of
+Mayence, to imperial free towns and petty lordships. Ferdinand,
+grandduke of Tuscany, younger brother to the emperor Francis II., was
+compelled to relinquish his hereditary possessions in Italy,[12] and
+received in exchange Salzburg, Eichstädt, and Passau. Ferdinand, duke
+of Modena, uncle to the emperor Francis II. and younger brother to the
+emperors Leopold II. and Joseph II., also resigned his duchy,[13] for
+which he received the Breisgau in exchange. William V., hereditary
+stadtholder of Holland, who had been expelled his states, also
+received, on this occasion, in compensation for his son of like name
+(he was himself already far advanced in years), the rich abbey of
+Fulda, which was created the principality of Orange-Fulda.[14] The
+electoral dignity was at the same time bestowed upon the Archduke
+Ferdinand, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of Wurtemberg, and
+the Margrave of Baden.
+
+Submission, although painful, produced no opposition. The power of the
+imperial free cities had long passed away,[15] and the spiritual
+princes no longer wielded the sword. The manner in which the officers
+of the princes took possession, the insolence with which they treated
+the subject people, the fraud and embezzlement that were openly
+practiced, are merely excusable on account of the fact that Germany
+was, notwithstanding the peace, still in a state of war. The decree of
+the imperial diet can scarcely be regarded as the ignominious close of
+a good old time, but rather as a violent but beneficial incisure in an
+old and rankling sore. With the petty states, a mass of vanity and
+pedantry disappeared on the one side, pusillanimity and servility on
+the other; the ideas of the subjects of a large state have naturally a
+wider range; the monasteries, those dens of superstition, the petty
+princely residences, those hotbeds of French vice and degeneracy, the
+imperial free towns, those abodes of petty burgher prejudice, no
+longer existed. The extension of the limits of the states rendered the
+gradual introduction of a better administration, the laying of roads,
+the foundation of public institutions of every description, and social
+improvement, possible. The example of France, the ever-renewed
+warfare, and the conscriptions, created, moreover, a martial spirit
+among the people, which, although far removed from patriotism, might
+still, when compared with the spirit formerly pervading the imperial
+army, be regarded as a first step from effeminacy, cowardice, and
+sloth, toward true, unflinching, manly courage.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Scenes during the War of Liberation.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jourdan might easily have been annihilated during his
+retreat by the imperial cavalry, twenty-seven thousand strong, had his
+strength and position been better known to his pursuers.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Scenes during the War of Liberation.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The celebrated Lavater was, on this occasion, mortally
+wounded by a French soldier. The people of Zurich were heavily mulcted
+by Massena for having aided the Austrians to the utmost in their
+power. Zschokke, who was at that time in the pay of France, wrote
+against the "Imperialism" of the Swiss. Vide Haller and Landolt's Life
+by Hess.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Concerning the wretched provision for the Austrian army,
+the embezzlement of the supplies, the bad management of the magazines
+and hospitals, see "Representation of the Causes of the Disasters
+suffered by the Austrians," etc. 1802.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The contest lasted the whole day: the French already gave
+way on every side, when Desaix led the French centre with such fury to
+the charge that the Austrians, surprised by the suddenness of the
+movement, were driven back and thrown into confusion, and the French,
+rallying at that moment, made another furious onset and tore the
+victory from their grasp.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The impregnable fortress of Hohentwiel, formerly so
+gallantly defended by Widerhold, was surrendered without a blow by the
+cowardly commandant, Bilfinger. Rotenburg on the Tauber, on the
+contrary, wiped off the disgrace with which she had covered herself
+during the thirty years' war. A small French skirmishing party
+demanded a contribution from this city; the council yielded, but the
+citizens drove off the enemy with pitchforks.]
+
+[Footnote 8: The ancient ones, Berne, Zurich, Basel, Solothurn,
+Freiburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen; the re-established ones, Uri, Schwyz,
+Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus, Appenzell, St. Gall (instead of Waldstätten,
+Linth, and Säntis), Valais (instead of Leman), Aargau, Constance,
+Grisons, Tessin (instead of Lugano and Bellinzona). The Bernese
+Oberland again fell to Berne. The ambassador, attempting to preserve
+its independence, was asked by Napoleon: "Where do you take your
+cattle, your cheese, etc.?" "À Berne," was the reply. "Whence do you
+get your grain, cloth, iron, etc.?" "De Berne." "Well," continued
+Napoleon, "de Berne, à Berne, you consequently belong to Berne."--The
+Bernese were highly delighted at the restoration of their
+independence, and the re-erection of the ancient arms of Berne became
+a joyous fête. A gigantic black bear that was painted on the broad
+walls of the castle of Trachselwald was visible far down the valley.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Murald, in his life of Reinhard, records an instance of
+shameless fraud, the attempt made during a farewell banquet at Paris
+to cozen the Swiss deputies out of a million. After plying them well
+with wine, an altered document was offered them for signature;
+Reinhard, the only one who perceived the fraud, frustrated the
+scheme.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Hamburg was, however, compelled to pay to the French
+1,700,000 marcs banco, and to allow Rumbold, the English agent, to be
+arrested by them within the city walls.]
+
+[Footnote 11: The university had been removed, in 1800, to Landshut.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Bonaparte transformed them into a kingdom of Etruria,
+which he bestowed upon a Spanish prince, Louis of Parma, who shortly
+afterward died and his kingdom was annexed to France.]
+
+[Footnote 13: He was son-in-law to Hercules, the last duke of Modena,
+who still lived, but had resigned his claims in his favor. This duke
+expired in 1805.]
+
+[Footnote 14: Which he speedily lost by rejoining Napoleon's
+adversaries. Adalbert von Harstall, the last princely abbot of Fulda,
+was an extremely noble character; he is almost the only one among the
+princes who remained firmly by his subjects when all the rest fled and
+abandoned theirs to the French. After the edict of secularization he
+remained firmly at his post until compelled to resign it by the
+Prussian soldiery.]
+
+[Footnote 15: The citizens of Esalingen were shortly before at law
+with their magistrate on account of his nepotism and tyranny without
+being able to get a decision from the supreme court of judicature.--
+Quedlinburg had also not long before sent envoys to Vienna with heavy
+complaints of the insolence of the magistrate, and the envoys had been
+sent home without a reply being vouchsafed and were threatened with
+the house of correction in case they ventured to return. Vide Hess's
+Flight through Germany, 1793.--Wimpfen also carried on a suit against
+its magistrate. In 1784, imperial decrees were issued against the
+aristocracy of Ulm. In 1786, the people of Aix-la-Chapelle rose
+against their magistrate. Nuremberg repeatedly demanded the production
+of the public accounts from the aristocratic town-council. The people
+of Hildesheim also revolted against their council. Vide Schlözer,
+State Archives.]
+
+
+
+CCLIII. Fall of the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire
+
+
+A great change had, meanwhile, taken place in France. The republic
+existed merely in name. The first consul, Bonaparte, already possessed
+regal power. The world beheld with astonishment a nation that had so
+lately and so virulently persecuted royalty, so dearly bought and so
+strictly enforced its boasted liberty, suddenly forget its triumph and
+restore monarchy. Liberty had ceased to be in vogue, and had yielded
+to a general desire for the acquisition of fame. The equality enforced
+by liberty was offensive to individual vanity, and the love of gain
+and luxury opposed republican poverty. Fame and wealth were alone to
+be procured by war and conquest. France was to be enriched by the
+plunder of her neighbors. Bonaparte, moreover, promoted the prosperity
+and dignity of the country by the establishment of manufactures,
+public institutions, and excellent laws. The awe with which he
+inspired his subjects insured their obedience; he was universally
+feared and reverenced. In whatever age this extraordinary man had
+lived, he must have taken the lead and have reduced nations to
+submission. Even his adversaries, even those he most deeply injured,
+owned his influence. His presence converted the wisdom of the
+statesman, the knowledge of the most experienced general, into folly
+and ignorance; the bravest armies fled panic-struck before his eagles;
+the proudest sovereigns of Europe bowed their crowned heads before the
+little hat of the Corsican. He was long regarded as a new savior, sent
+to impart happiness to his people, and, as though by magic, bent the
+blind and pliant mass to his will. But philanthropy, Christian wisdom,
+the virtues of the Prince of peace, were not his. If he bestowed
+excellent laws upon his people, it was merely with the view of
+increasing the power of the state for military purposes. He was ever
+possessed and tormented by the demon of war.
+
+On the 18th of May, 1804, Bonaparte abolished the French republic and
+was elected hereditary emperor of France. On the 2d of December, he
+was solemnly anointed and crowned by the pope, Pius VII., who visited
+Paris for that purpose. The ceremonies used at the coronation of
+Charlemagne were revived on this occasion. On the 15th of March, 1805,
+he abolished the Ligurian and Cisalpine republics, and set the ancient
+iron crown of Lombardy on his head, with his own hand, as king of
+Italy. He made a distinction between _la France_ and _l'empire_, the
+latter of which was, by conquest, to be gradually extended over the
+whole of Europe, and to be raised by him above that of Germany, in the
+same manner that the western Roman-Germanic empire had formerly been
+raised by Charlemagne above the eastern Byzantine one.
+
+The erection of France into an empire was viewed with distrust by
+Austria, whose displeasure had been, moreover, roused by the arbitrary
+conduct of Napoleon in Italy. Fresh disputes had also arisen between
+him and England; he had occupied the whole of Hanover, which
+Wallmoden's[1] army had been powerless to defend, with his troops, and
+violated the Baden territory by the seizure of the unfortunate Duc
+d'Enghien, a prince of the house of Bourbon, who was carried into
+France and there shot. Prussia offered no interference, in the hope of
+receiving Hanover in reward for her neutrality.[2] Austria, on her
+part, formed a third coalition with England, Russia, and Sweden.[3]
+Austria acted, undeniably, on this occasion, with impolitic haste; she
+ought rather to have waited until Prussia and public opinion
+throughout Germany had been ranged on her side, as sooner or later
+must have been the case, by the brutal encroachments of Napoleon.
+Austria, unaided by Prussia, could scarcely dream of success.[4] But
+England, at that time fearful of Napoleon's landing on her coast,
+lavished her all-persuasive gold.
+
+The Archduke Ferdinand was placed at the head of the Austrian troops
+in Germany; the Archduke Charles, of those in Italy. Ferdinand
+commanded the main body and was guided by Mack, who, without awaiting
+the arrival of the Russians, advanced as far as Ulm, pushed a corps,
+under Jellachich, forward to Lindau, and left the whole of his right
+flank exposed. He, nevertheless, looked upon Napoleon's defeat and the
+invasion of France by his troops as close at hand. He was in
+ill-health and highly irritable. Napoleon, in order to move with
+greater celerity, sent a part of his troops by carriage through
+Strasburg, declared to the Margrave of Baden, the duke of Wurtemberg,
+and the elector of Bavaria, his intention not to recognize them as
+neutral powers, that they must be either against him or with him, and
+made them such brilliant promises (they were, moreover, actuated by
+distrust of Austria), that they ranged themselves on his side.
+Napoleon instantly sent orders to General Bernadotte, who was at that
+time stationed in Hanover, to cross the neutral Prussian territory of
+Anspach,[5] without demanding the permission of Prussia, to Mack's
+rear, in order to form a junction with the Bavarian troops. Other
+corps were at the same time directed by circuitous routes upon the
+flanks of the Austrian army, which was attacked at Memmingen by Soult,
+and was cut off to the north by Ney, who carried the bridge of
+Elchingen[6] by storm. Mack had drawn his troops together, but had,
+notwithstanding the entreaties of his generals, refused to attack the
+separate French corps before they could unite and surround him. The
+Archduke Ferdinand alone succeeded in fighting his way with a part of
+the cavalry through the enemy.[7] Mack lost his senses and capitulated
+on the 17th of October, 1805. With him fell sixty thousand Austrians,
+the elite of the army, into the hands of the enemy. Napoleon could
+scarcely spare a sufficient number of men to escort this enormous
+crowd of prisoners to France. Wernek's corps, which had already been
+cut off, was also compelled to yield itself prisoner at
+Trochtelfingen, not far from Heidenheim.
+
+Napoleon, while following up his success with his customary rapidity
+and advancing with his main body straight upon Vienna, despatched Ney
+into the Tyrol, where the peasantry, headed by the Archduke John, made
+a heroic defence. The advanced guard of the French, composed of the
+Bavarians under Deroy, were defeated at the Strub pass, but,
+notwithstanding this disaster, Ney carried the Schaarnitz by storm and
+reached Innsbruck. The Archduke John was compelled to retire into
+Carinthia in order to form a junction with his brother Charles, who,
+after beating Massena at Caldiero, had been necessitated by Mack's
+defeat to hasten from Italy for the purpose of covering Austria. Two
+corps, left in the hurry of retreat too far westward, were cut off and
+taken prisoner, that under Prince Rohan at Castellfranco, after having
+found its way from Meran into the Venetian territory, and that under
+Jellachich on the Lake of Constance; Kinsky's and Wartenleben's
+cavalry threw themselves boldly into Swabia and Franconia, seized the
+couriers and convoys to the French rear, and escaped unhurt to
+Bohemia.
+
+Davoust had, in the meanwhile, invaded Styria and defeated a corps
+under Meerveldt at Mariazell. In November, Napoleon had reached
+Vienna, neither Linz nor any other point having been fortified by the
+Austrians. The great Russian army under Kutusow appeared at this
+conjuncture in Moravia. The czar, Alexander I., accompanied it in
+person, and the emperor, Francis II., joined him with his remaining
+forces. A bloody engagement took place between Kutusow and the French
+at Durrenstein on the Danube, but, on the loss of Vienna, the Russians
+retired to Moravia. The sovereigns of Austria and Russia loudly called
+upon Prussia to renounce her alliance with France, and, in this
+decisive moment, to aid in the annihilation of a foe, for whose false
+friendship she would one day dearly pay. The violation of the Prussian
+territory by Bernadotte had furnished the Prussian king with a pretext
+for suddenly declaring against Napoleon. The Prussian army was also in
+full force. The British and the Hanoverian legion had landed at Bremen
+and twenty thousand Russians on Rugen; ten thousand Swedes entered
+Hanover; electoral Hesse was also ready for action. The king of
+Prussia, nevertheless, merely confined himself to threats, in the hope
+of selling his neutrality to Napoleon for Hanover, and deceived the
+coalition.[8] The emperor Alexander visited Berlin in person for the
+purpose of rousing Prussia to war, but had no sooner returned to
+Austria in order to rejoin his army than Count Haugwitz, the Prussian
+minister, was despatched to Napoleon's camp with express instructions
+not to declare war. The famous battle, in which the three emperors of
+Christendom were present, took place, meanwhile, at Austerlitz, not
+far from Brunn, on the 2d of December, 1805, and terminated in one of
+Napoleon's most glorious victories.[9] This battle decided the policy
+of Prussia, and Haugwitz confirmed her alliance with France by a
+treaty, by which Prussia ceded Cleves, Anspach, and Neufchâtel to
+France in exchange for Hanover.[10] This treaty was published with a
+precipitation equalling that with which it had been concluded, and
+seven hundred Prussian vessels, whose captains were ignorant of the
+event, were seized by the enraged English either in British harbors or
+on the sea. The peace concluded by Austria, on the 26th of December,
+at Presburg, was purchased by her at an enormous sacrifice. Napoleon
+had, in the opening of the campaign, when pressing onward toward
+Austria, compelled Charles Frederick, elector of Baden,[11] Frederick,
+elector of Wurtemberg, and Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria (in
+whose mind the memory of the assassination of the ambassadors at
+Rastadt, the loss of Wasserburg, the demolition of Ingolstadt, etc.,
+still rankled), to enter into his alliance; to which they remained
+zealously true on account of the immense private advantages thereby
+gained by them, and of the dread of being deprived by the haughty
+victor of the whole of their possessions on the first symptom of
+opposition on their part. Napoleon, with a view of binding them still
+more closely to his interests by motives of gratitude, gave them on
+the present occasion an ample share in the booty. Bavaria was erected
+into a kingdom,[12] and received, from Prussia, Anspach and Baireuth;
+from Austria, the whole of the Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Lindau, the
+Margraviate of Burgau, the dioceses of Passau, Eichstädt, Trent, and
+Brixen, besides several petty lordships. Wurtemberg was raised to a
+monarchy and enriched with the bordering Austrian lordships in Swabia.
+Baden was rewarded with the Breisgau, the Ortenau, Constance, and the
+title of grandduke. Venice was included by Napoleon in his kingdom of
+Italy, and, for all these losses, Austria was merely indemnified by
+the possession of Salzburg. Ferdinand, elector of Salzburg, the former
+grandduke of Tuscany, was transferred to Wurzburg. Ferdinand of Modena
+lost the whole of his possessions.
+
+The imperial crown, so well maintained by Napoleon, now shone with
+redoubled lustre. The petty republics and the provinces dependent upon
+the French empire were erected into kingdoms and principalities and
+bestowed upon his relatives and favorites. His brother Joseph was
+created king of Naples; his brother Louis, king of Holland; his
+stepson Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy; his brother-in-law
+Murat, formerly a common horse-soldier, now his best general of
+cavalry, grandduke of Berg; his first adjutant, Berthier, prince of
+Neufchâtel; his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, was nominated successor to the
+elector of Mayence, then resident at Ratisbon. In order to remove the
+stigma attached to him as a parvenu, Napoleon also began to form
+matrimonial alliances between his family and the most ancient houses
+of Europe. His handsome stepson, Eugene, married the Princess Augusta,
+daughter to the king of Bavaria; his brother Jerome, Catherine,
+daughter to the king of Wurtemberg; and his niece, Stephanie, Charles,
+hereditary prince of Baden. All the new princes were vassals of the
+emperor Napoleon, and, by a family decree, subject to his supremacy.
+All belonged to the great empire. Switzerland was also included, and
+but one step more was wanting to complete the incorporation of half
+the German empire with that of France.
+
+On the 12th of July, 1806, sixteen princes of Western Germany
+concluded, under Napoleon's direction, a treaty, according to which
+they separated themselves from the German empire and founded the
+so-called Rhenish Alliance, which it was their intention to render
+subject to the supremacy of the emperor of the French.[13] On the 1st
+of August, Napoleon declared that he no longer recognized the empire
+of Germany! No one ventured to oppose his omnipotent voice. On the 6th
+of August, 1806, the emperor, Francis II., abdicated the imperial
+crown of Germany and announced the dissolution of the empire in a
+touching address, full of calm dignity and sorrow. The last of the
+German emperors had shown himself, throughout the contest, worthy of
+his great ancestors, and had, almost alone, sacrificed all in order to
+preserve the honor of Germany, until, abandoned by the greater part of
+the German princes, he was compelled to yield to a power superior to
+his. The fall of the empire that had stood the storms of a thousand
+years, was, however, not without dignity. A meaner hand might have
+levelled the decayed fabric with the dust, but fate, that seemed to
+honor even the faded majesty of the ancient Caesars, selected Napoleon
+as the executioner of her decrees. The standard of Charlemagne, the
+greatest hero of the first Christian age, was to be profaned by no
+hand save that of the greatest hero of modern times.
+
+Ancient names, long venerated, now disappeared. The holy Roman-German
+emperor was converted into an emperor of Austria, the electors into
+kings or granddukes, all of whom enjoyed unlimited sovereign power and
+were free from subjection to the supremacy of the emperor. Every bond
+of union was dissolved with the diet of the empire and with the
+imperial chamber. The barons and counts of the empire and the petty
+princes were mediatized; the princes of Hohenlohe, Oettingen,
+Schwarzenberg, Thurn and Taxis, the Truchsess von Waldburg,
+Furstenberg, Fugger, Leiningen, Lowenstein, Solms, Hesse-Homburg,
+Wied-Runkel, and Orange-Fulda became subject to the neighboring
+Rhenish confederated princes. Of the remaining six imperial free
+cities, Augsburg and Nuremberg fell to Bavaria; Frankfort, under the
+title of grandduchy, to the ancient elector of Mayence, who was again
+transferred thither from Ratisbon. The ancient Hanse towns, Hamburg,
+Lubeck and Bremen, alone retained their freedom.
+
+The Rhenish confederation now began its wretched existence. It was
+established on the basis of the Helvetian republic. The sixteen
+confederated princes were to be completely independent and to exercise
+sovereign power over the internal affairs of their states, like the
+Swiss cantons, but were, in all foreign affairs, dependent upon
+Napoleon as their protector.[14] The whole Rhenish confederation
+became a part of the French empire. The federal assembly was to sit at
+Frankfort, and Dalberg, the former elector of Mayence, now grandduke
+of Frankfort, was nominated by Napoleon, under the title of Prince
+Primate, president. Napoleon's uncle, and afterward his stepson,
+Eugene Beauharnais, were his destined successors, by which means the
+control was placed entirely in the hands of France. To this
+confederation there belonged two kings, those of Bavaria and
+Wurtemberg, five granddukes, those of Frankfort, Wurzburg, Baden,
+Darmstadt, and Berg, and ten princes, two of Nassau, two of
+Hohenzollern, two of Salm, besides those of Aremberg, Isenburg,
+Lichtenstein and Leyen. Every trace of the ancient free constitution
+of Germany, her provincial Estates, was studiously annihilated. The
+Wurtemberg Estates, with a spirit worthy of their ancient fame, alone
+made an energetic protest, by which they merely succeeded in saving
+their honor, the king, Frederick, dissolving them by force and closing
+their chamber.[15] An absolute, despotic form of government, similar
+to that existing in France under Napoleon, was established in all the
+confederated states. The murder of the unfortunate bookseller, Palm of
+Nuremberg, who was, on the 25th of August, 1806, shot by Napoleon's
+order, at Braunau, for nobly refusing to give up the author of a
+patriotic work published by him, directed against the rule of France,
+and entitled, "Germany in her deepest Degradation," furnished
+convincing proof, were any wanting, of Napoleon's supremacy.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: He capitulated at Suhlingen on honorable terms, but was
+deceived by Mortier, the French general, and Napoleon took advantage
+of a clause not to recognize all the terms of capitulation. The
+Hanoverian troops, whom it was intended to force to an unconditional
+surrender to the French, sailed secretly and in separate divisions to
+England, where they were formed into the German Legion.]
+
+[Footnote 2: England offered the Netherlands instead of Hanover to
+Prussia; to this Russia, however, refused to accede. Prussia listened
+to both sides, and acted with such duplicity that Austria was led, by
+the false hope of being seconded by her, to a too early declaration of
+war.--_Scenes during the War of liberation._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had wedded a
+princess of Baden, was at Carlsruhe at the very moment that the Duc
+d'Enghien was seized as it were before his eyes. This circumstance and
+the ridicule heaped upon him by Napoleon, who mockingly termed him the
+Quixote of the North, roused his bitter hatred.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Bulow wrote in his remarkable criticism upon this war:
+"The hot coalition party--that of the ladies--of the empress and the
+queen of Naples--removed Prince Charles from the army and called Mack
+from oblivion to daylight; Mack, whose name in the books of the
+prophets in the Hebrew tongue signifies defeat."]
+
+[Footnote 5: Napoleon gained almost all his victories either by
+skilfully separating his opponents and defeating them singly with
+forces vastly superior in number, or by creeping round the
+concentrated forces of the enemy and placing them between two fires.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Ney was, for this action, created Duke of Elchingen.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Klein, the French general, also a German, allowed himself
+to be kept in conversation by Prince, afterward field-marshal
+Schwarzenberg, who had been sent to negotiate terms with him, until
+the Austrians had reached a place of safety.--_Prokesch.
+Schwarzeriberg's Memorabilia._]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Prussia made use of the offers made by England (and
+Russia) to stipulate terms with France exactly subversive of the
+object of the negotiations of England (and Russia)."--_The Manifest of
+England against Prussia. Attgemeine Zeitung, No. 132._]
+
+[Footnote 9: On the 4th of December, Napoleon met the emperor Francis
+in the open street in the village of Nahedlowitz. That the impression
+made by the former upon the latter was far from favorable is proved by
+the emperor's observation, "Now that I have seen him, I shall never be
+able to endure him!" On the 5th of December, the Bavarians under Wrede
+were signally defeated at Iglau by the Archduke Ferdinand.]
+
+[Footnote 10: "After the commission of such numerous mistakes, I must
+nevertheless praise the minister, Von Haugwitz, for having, in the
+first place, evaded a war unskilfully managed, and, in the second, for
+having annexed Hanover to Prussia, although its possession, it must be
+confessed, is somewhat precarious. Here, however, I hear it said that
+the commission of a robbery at another's suggestion is, in the first
+place, the deepest of degradations, and, in the second place,
+unparalleled in history."--_Von Bulow, The Campaign of 1805._ It has
+been asserted that Haugwitz had, prior to the battle of Austerlitz,
+been instructed to declare war against Napoleon in case the
+intervention of Prussia should be rejected by him. Still, had Haugwitz
+overstepped instructions of such immense importance, he would not
+immediately afterward, on the 12th of January, 1806, have received, as
+was actually the case, fresh instructions, in proof that he had in no
+degree abused the confidence of his sovereign. Haugwitz, by not
+declaring war, husbanded the strength of Prussia and gained Hanover;
+and, by so doing, he fulfilled his instructions, which were to gain
+Hanover without making any sacrifice. His success gained for him the
+applause of his sovereign, who intrusted him, on account of his skill
+as a diplomatist, with the management of other negotiations. Prussia
+at that time still pursued the system of the treaty of Basel, was
+unwilling to break with France, and was simply bent upon selling her
+neutrality to the best advantage. Instead, however, of being able to
+prescribe terms to Napoleon, she was compelled to accede to his.
+Napoleon said to Haugwitz, "Jamais on n'obtiendra de moi ce qui
+pourrait blesser ma gloire." Haugwitz had been instructed through the
+duke of Brunswick: "Pour le cas que vos soins pour rétablir la paix
+échouent, pour le cas où l'apparition de la Prusse sur le théâtre de
+la guerre soit jugée inévitable, mettez tous vos soins pour conserver
+à la Prusse l'épée dans le fourreau jusqu'au 22 Décembre, et s'il se
+peut jusqu'à un terme plus reculé encore."--_Extract from the Memoirs
+of the Count von Haugwitz._]
+
+[Footnote 11: He married a Mademoiselle von Geyer. His children had
+merely the title of Counts von Hochberg, but came, in 1830, on the
+extinction of the Agnati, to the government.]
+
+[Footnote 12: On the 1st of January, 1806; the Bavarian state
+newspaper announced it at New Year with the words, "Long live
+Napoleon, the restorer of the kingdom of Bavaria!" Bavarian authors,
+more particularly Pallhausen, attempted to prove that the Bavarians
+had originally been a Gallic tribe under the Gallic kings. It was
+considered a dishonor to belong to Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 13: In 1797, the anonymous statesman, in the dedication "to
+the congress of Rastadt," foretold the formation of the Rhenish
+alliance as a necessary result of the treaty of Basel. "The electors
+of Brandenburg, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and all the princes, who
+defended themselves behind the line of demarcation against their
+obligations to the empire, and tranquilly awaited the issue of the
+contest between France and that part of the empire that had taken up
+arms; all those princes to whom their private interests were dearer
+than those of the empire, who, devoid of patriotism, formed a separate
+party against Austria and Southern Germany, from which they severed
+and isolated themselves, could, none of them, arrogate to themselves a
+voice in the matter, if Southern Germany, abandoned by them, concluded
+treaties for herself as her present and future interests demanded."]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Oldenburg affords a glaring proof of the insecurity and
+meanness characteristic of the Rhenish alliance. The relation even
+with Bavaria was not always the purest, and I have sometimes caught a
+near glimpse of the claws."--_Gagern's Share in Politics._]
+
+[Footnote 15: No diet had, since 1770, been held in Wurtemberg, only
+the committee had continued to treat secretly with the duke. In 1797,
+Frederick convoked a fresh diet and swore to hold the constitution
+sacred. Some modern elements appeared in this diet; the old opposition
+was strengthened by men of the French school. Disputes, consequently,
+ere long arose between it and the duke, a man of an extremely
+arbitrary disposition. The Estates discovered little zeal for the war
+with France, attempted to economize in the preparations, etc., while
+the duke made great show of patriotism as a prince of the German
+empire, nor gave the slightest symptom of his one day becoming an
+enemy to his country, a member of the Rhenish alliance, and the most
+zealous partisan of France. Moreau, however, no sooner crossed the
+Rhine than the duke fled, abandoned his states, and afterward not only
+refused to bear the smallest share of the contributions levied upon
+the country by the French, but also seized the subsidies furnished by
+England. The duke, shortly after this, quarrelling with his eldest
+son, William, the Estates sided with the latter and supplied him with
+funds, at the same time refusing to grant any of the sums demanded by
+the duke, who, on his part, omitted the confirmation of the new
+committee and ordered Grosz, the councillor, Stockmaier, the secretary
+of the diet, and several others, besides Batz, the agent of the diet
+at Vienna, to be placed under arrest, their papers to be seized, and a
+sum of money to be raised from the church property, 1805. Not long
+after this, rendered insolent by the protection of the great despot of
+France, he utterly annihilated the ancient constitution of
+Wurtemberg.]
+
+
+
+CCLIV. Prussia's Declaration of War and Defeat
+
+
+Prussia, by a timely declaration of war against France before the
+battle of Austerlitz, might have turned the tide against Napoleon, and
+earned for herself the glory and the gain, instead of being, by a
+false policy, compelled, at a later period, to make that declaration
+under circumstances of extreme disadvantage. Her maritime commerce
+suffered extreme injury from the attacks of the English and Swedes.
+War was unavoidable, either for or against France. The decision was
+replete with difficulty. Prussia, by continuing to side with France,
+was exposed to the attacks of England, Sweden, and probably Russia; it
+was, moreover, to be feared that Napoleon, who had more in view the
+diminution of the power of Prussia than that of Austria, might delay
+his aid. During the late campaign, the Prussian territory had been
+violated and the fortress of Wesel seized by Napoleon, who had also
+promised the restoration of Hanover to England as a condition of
+peace. He had invited Prussia to found, besides the Rhenish, a
+northern confederation, and had, at the same time, bribed Saxony with
+a promise of the royal dignity, and Hesse with that of the annexation
+of Fulda, not to enter into alliance with Prussia. Prussia saw herself
+scorned and betrayed by France. A declaration of war with France was,
+however, surrounded with tenfold danger. The power of France,
+unweakened by opposition, had reached an almost irresistible height.
+Austria, abandoned in every former campaign and hurried to ruin by
+Prussia, could no longer be reckoned on for aid. The whole of Germany,
+once in favor of Prussia, now sided with the foe. Honor at length
+decided. Prussia could no longer endure the scorn of the insolent
+Frenchman, his desecration of the memory of the great Frederick, or,
+with an army impatient for action, tamely submit to the insults of
+both friend and foe. The presence of the Russian czar, Alexander, at
+Berlin, his visit to the tomb of Frederick the Great, rendered still
+more popular by an engraving, had a powerful effect upon public
+opinion. Louisa, the beautiful queen of Prussia and princess of
+Mecklenburg, animated the people with her words and roused a spirit of
+chivalry in the army, which still deemed itself invincible. The
+younger officers were not sparing of their vaunts, and Prince Louis
+vented his passion by breaking the windows of the minister Haugwitz.
+John Muller, who, on the overthrow of Austria, had quitted Vienna and
+had been appointed Prussian historiographer at Berlin, called upon the
+people, in the preface to the "Trumpet of the Holy War," to take up
+arms against France.
+
+War was indeed declared, but with too great precipitation. Instead of
+awaiting the arrival of the troops promised by Russia or until Austria
+had been gained, instead of manning the fortresses and taking
+precautionary measures, the Prussian army, in conjunction with that of
+Saxony, which lent but compulsory aid, and with those of Mecklenburg
+and Brunswick, its voluntary allies, took the field without any
+settled plan, and suddenly remained stationary in the Thuringian
+forest, like Mack two years earlier at Ulm, waiting for the appearance
+of Napoleon, 1806. The king and the queen accompanied the army, which
+was commanded by Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, a veteran of seventy-
+two, and by his subordinate in command, Frederick Louis, prince of
+Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, who constantly opposed his measures. In the
+general staff the chief part was enacted by Colonel Massenbach, a
+second Mack, whose counsels were rarely followed. All the higher
+officers in the army were old men, promotion depending not upon merit
+but upon length of service. The younger officers were radically bad,
+owing to their airs of nobility and licentious garrison life; their
+manners and principles were equally vulgar. Women, horses, dogs, and
+gambling formed the staple of their conversation; they despised all
+solid learning, and, when decorated on parade, in their enormous
+cocked hats and plumes, powdered wigs and queues, tight leather
+breeches and great boots, they swore at and cudgelled the men, and
+strutted about with conscious heroism. The arms used by the soldiery
+were heavy and apt to hang fire, their tight uniform was inconvenient
+for action and useless as a protection against the weather, and their
+food, bad of its kind, was stinted by the avarice of the colonels,
+which was carried to such an extent that soldiers were to be seen,
+who, instead of a waistcoat, had a small bit of cloth sewn on to the
+lower part of the uniform where the waistcoat was usually visible.
+Worst of all, however, was the bad spirit that pervaded the army, the
+enervation consequent upon immorality. Even before the opening of the
+war, Lieutenant Henry von Bulow, a retired officer, the greatest
+military genius at that period in Germany, and, on that account,
+misunderstood, foretold the inevitable defeat of Prussia, and,
+although far from being a devotee, declared, "The cause of the
+national ignorance lies chiefly in the atheism and demoralization
+produced by the government of Frederick II. The enlightenment, so
+highly praised in the Prussian states, simply consists in a loss of
+energy and power."
+
+The main body of the Prussian army was stationed around Weimar and
+Jena, a small corps under General Tauenzien was pushed forward to
+cover the rich magazines at Hof, and a reserve of seventeen thousand
+men under Eugene, duke of Wurtemberg, lay to the rear at Halle. It was
+remarked that this position, in case of an attack being made by
+Napoleon, was extremely dangerous, the only alternatives left for the
+Prussian army being either to advance, form a junction with the
+gallant Hessians and render the Rhine the seat of war, or to fall back
+upon the reserve and hazard a decisive battle on the plains of
+Leipzig. That intriguing impostor, Lucchesini, the oracle of the camp,
+however, purposely declared that _he_ knew Napoleon, that Napoleon
+would most certainly not attempt to make an attack. A few days
+afterward Napoleon, nevertheless, appeared, found the pass at Kosen
+open, cut off the Prussian army from the right bank of the Saal, from
+its magazines at Hof and Naumburg, which he also seized, from the
+reserve corps stationed at Halle, and from Prussia. Utterly astounded
+at the negligence of the duke of Brunswick, he exclaimed, while
+comparing him with Mack, "Les Prussiens sont encore plus stupides que
+les Autrichiens!" On being informed by some prisoners that the
+Prussians expected him from Erfurt when he was already at Naumburg, he
+said, "Ils se tromperont furieusement, ces perruques." He would,
+nevertheless, have been on his part exposed to great peril had the
+Prussians suddenly attacked him with their whole force from Weimar,
+Jena, and Halle, or had they instantly retired into Franconia and
+fallen upon his rear; but the idea never entered the heads of the
+Prussian generals, who tranquilly waited to be beaten by him one after
+the other.
+
+After Tauenzien's repulse, a second corps under Prince Louis of
+Prussia, which had been pushed forward to Saalfeld, imprudently
+attempting to maintain its position in the narrow valley, was
+surrounded and cut to pieces. The prince refused to yield, and, after
+a furious defence, was killed by a French horse-soldier. The news of
+this disaster speedily reached the main body of the Prussians. The
+duke of Brunswick, at that time holding a military council in the
+castle of Weimar, so entirely lost his presence of mind as to ask in
+the hearing of several young officers, and with embarrassment depicted
+on his countenance, "What are we to do?" This veteran duke would with
+painful slowness write down in the neatest hand the names of the
+villages in which the various regiments were to be quartered,
+notwithstanding which, it sometimes happened that, owing to his
+topographical ignorance, several regiments belonging to different
+corps d'armee were billeted in the same village and had to dispute its
+possession. He would hesitate for an hour whether he ought to write
+the name of a village Munchenholzen or Munchholzen.
+
+The Prussian army was compared to a ship with all sail spread lying at
+anchor. The duke was posted with the main body not far from Weimar,
+the Saxons at the Schnecke on the road between Weimar and Jena, the
+prince of Hohenlohe at Jena. Mack had isolated and exposed his
+different corps d'armee in an exactly similar manner at Ulm. Hohenlohe
+again subdivided his corps and scattered them in front of the
+concentrated forces of the enemy. Still, all was not yet lost, the
+Prussians being advantageously posted in the upper valley, while the
+French were advancing along the deep valleys of the Saal and its
+tributaries. But, on the 13th of October, Tauenzien retired from the
+vale, leaving the steeps of Jena, which a hundred students had been
+able to defend simply by rolling down the stones there piled in heaps,
+open, and, during the same night, Napoleon sent his artillery up and
+posted himself on the Landgrafenberg. There, nevertheless, still
+remained a chance; the Dornberg, by which the Landgrafenberg was
+commanded, was still occupied by Tauenzien, and the Windknollen, a
+still steeper ascent, whence Hohenlohe, had he not spent the night in
+undisturbed slumbers at Capellendorf, might utterly have annihilated
+the French army, remained unoccupied. The thunder of the French
+artillery first roused Hohenlohe from his couch, and, while he was
+still under the hands of his barber, Tauenzien was driven from the
+Dornberg. The duties of the toilet at length concluded, Hohenlohe led
+his troops up the hillside with a view of retaking the position he had
+so foolishly lost; but his serried columns were exposed to the
+destructive fire of a body of French tirailleurs posted above, and
+were repulsed with immense loss. General Ruchel arrived, with his
+corps that had been uselessly detached, too late to prevent the flight
+of the Hohenlohe corps, and, making a brave but senseless attack, was
+wounded and defeated. A similar fate befell the unfortunate Saxons at
+the Schnecke and the duke of Brunswick at Auerstädt. The latter,
+although at the head of the strongest division of the Prussian army,
+succumbed to the weakest division of the French army, that commanded
+by Davoust, who henceforward bore the title of duke of Auerstädt, and
+was so suddenly put to the rout that a body of twenty thousand
+Prussians under Kalkreuth never came into action. The duke was shot in
+both eyes. This incident was, by his enemies, termed fortune's
+revenge, "as he never would see when he had his eyes open."[1]
+
+Napoleon followed up his victory with consummate skill. The junction
+of the retreating corps d'armee and their flight by the shortest route
+into Prussia were equally prevented. The defeated Prussian army was in
+a state of indescribable confusion. An immensely circuitous march lay
+before it ere Prussia could be re-entered. A number of the regiments
+disbanded, particularly those whose officers had been the first to
+take to flight or had crept for shelter behind hedges and walls. An
+immense number of officers' equipages, provided with mistresses,
+articles belonging to the toilet, and epicurean delicacies, fell into
+Napoleon's hands. Wagons laden with poultry, complete kitchens on
+wheels, wine casks, etc., had followed this luxurious army. The scene
+presented by the battlefield of Jena widely contrasted with that of
+Rossbach, whose monument was sent by Napoleon to Paris as the most
+glorious part of the booty gained by his present easy victory.[2]
+
+The fortified city of Erfurt was garrisoned with fourteen thousand
+Prussians under Mollendorf, who, on the first summons, capitulated to
+Murat, the general of the French cavalry. The hereditary Prince of
+Orange was also taken prisoner on this occasion. Von Hellwig, a
+lieutenant of the Prussian hussars, boldly charged the French guard
+escorting the fourteen thousand Prussian prisoners of war from Erfurt,
+at the head of his squadron, at Eichenrodt in the vicinity of
+Eisenach, and succeeded in restoring them to liberty. The liberated
+soldiers, however, instead of joining the main body, dispersed.
+Eugene, duke of Wurtemberg, was also defeated at Halle, and, throwing
+up his command, withdrew to his states. History has, nevertheless,
+recorded one trait of magnanimity, that of a Prussian ensign fifteen
+years of age, who, being pursued by some French cavalry not far from
+Halle, sprang with the colors into the Saal and was crushed to death
+by a mill-wheel.
+
+Kalkreuth's corps, that had not been brought into action and was the
+only one that remained entire, being placed under the command of the
+prince of Hohenlohe, its gallant commander, enraged at the indignity,
+quitted the army. Hohenlohe's demand, on reaching Magdeburg, for a
+supply of ammunition and forage, was refused by the commandant, Von
+Kleist, and he hastened helplessly forward in the hope of reaching
+Berlin, but the route was already blocked by the enemy, and he was
+compelled to make a fatiguing and circuitous march to the west through
+the sandy March. Magdeburg, although garrisoned with twenty-two
+thousand Prussians, defended by eight hundred pieces of artillery and
+almost impregnable fortifications, capitulated on the 11th of November
+to Ney, on his appearance beneath the walls with merely ten thousand
+men and a light field-battery. Kleist, in exculpation of his conduct,
+alleged his expectation of an insurrection of the citizens in case of
+a bombardment. Magdeburg contained at that time three thousand unarmed
+citizens. It is not known whether Kleist had been bribed, or whether
+he was simply infected with the cowardice and stupidity by which the
+elder generals of that period were distinguished; it is, however,
+certain that among the numerous younger officers serving under his
+command not one raised the slightest opposition to this disgraceful
+capitulation.[3]
+
+The Hohenlohe corps, which consisted almost exclusively of infantry,
+was accompanied in its flight by Blucher, the gallant general of the
+hussars, with the elite of the remaining cavalry. Blucher had,
+however, long borne a grudge against his pedantic companion, and,
+mistrusting his guidance, soon quitted him. Being surrounded by a
+greatly superior French force under Klein,[4] he contrived to escape
+by asserting with great earnestness to that general that an armistice
+had just been concluded. When afterward urgently entreated by
+Hohenlohe to join him with his troops, he procrastinated too long, it
+may be owing to his desire to bring Hohenlohe, who, by eternally
+retreating, completely disheartened his troops, to a stand, or owing
+to the impossibility of coming up with greater celerity.[5] He had,
+indubitably, the intention to join Hohenlohe at Prenzlow, but
+unfortunately arrived a day too late, the prince, whose ammunition and
+provisions were completely spent, and who, owing to the stupidity of
+Massenbach, who rode up and down the Ucker without being able to
+discover whether he was on the right or left bank, had missed the only
+route by which he could retreat, having already fallen, with twelve
+thousand men, into the enemy's hands. This disaster was shortly
+afterward followed by the capture of General Hagen with six thousand
+men at Pasewalk and that of Bila with another small Prussian corps not
+far from Stettin. Blucher, strengthened by the corps of the duke of
+Weimar and by numerous fugitives, still kept the field, but was at
+length driven back to Lubeck, where he was defeated, and, after a
+bloody battle in the very heart of the terror-stricken city, four
+thousand of his men were made prisoners. He fled with ten thousand to
+Radkan, where, finding no ships to transport him across the Baltic, he
+was forced to capitulate.
+
+The luckless duke of Brunswick was carried on a bier from the field of
+Jena to his palace at Brunswick, which he found deserted. All
+belonging to him had fled. In his distress he exclaimed, "I am now
+about to quit all and am abandoned by all!" His earnest petition to
+Napoleon for protection for himself and his petty territory was
+sternly refused by the implacable victor, who replied that he knew of
+no reigning duke of Brunswick, but only of a Prussian general of that
+name, who had, in the infamous manifest of 1792, declared his
+intention to destroy Paris and was undeserving of mercy. The blind old
+man fled to Ottensen, in the Danish territory, where he expired.
+
+Napoleon, after confiscating sixty millions worth of English goods on
+his way through Leipzig, entered Berlin on the 17th of October, 1806.
+The defence of the city had not been even dreamed of; nay, the great
+arsenal, containing five hundred pieces of artillery and immense
+stores, the sword of Frederick the Great, and the private
+correspondence of the reigning king and queen, were all abandoned to
+the victor.[6] Although the citizens were by no means martially
+disposed, the authorities deemed it necessary to issue proclamations
+to the people, inculcatory of the axiom, "Tranquillity is the first
+duty of the citizen." Napoleon, on his entry into Berlin, was
+received, not, as at Vienna, with mute rage, but with loud
+demonstrations of delight. Individuals belonging to the highest class
+stationed themselves behind the crowd and exclaimed, "For God's sake,
+give a hearty hurrah! Cry Vive l'empereur! or we are all lost." On a
+demand, couched in the politest terms, for the peaceable delivery of
+the arms of the civic guard, being made by Hulin, the new French
+commandant, to the magistrate, the latter, on his own accord, ordered
+the citizens to give up their arms "under pain of death." Numerous
+individuals betrayed the public money and stores, that still remained
+concealed, to the French. Hulin replied to a person who had discovered
+a large store of wood, "Leave the wood untouched; your king will want
+a good deal to make gallows for traitorous rogues." Napoleon's
+reception struck him with such astonishment that he declared, "I know
+not whether to rejoice or to feel ashamed." At the head of his general
+staff, in full uniform and with bared head, he visited the apartment
+occupied by Frederick the Great at Sans Souci, and his tomb. He took
+possession of Frederick's sword and declared in the army bulletin, "I
+would not part with this weapon for twenty millions." Frederick's tomb
+afforded him an opportunity for giving vent to the most unbecoming
+expressions of contempt against his unfortunate descendant. He
+publicly aspersed the fame of the beautiful and noble-hearted Prussian
+queen, in order to deaden the enthusiasm she sought to raise. But he
+deceived himself. Calumny but increased the esteem and exalted the
+enthusiasm with which the people beheld their queen and kindled a
+feeling of revenge in their bosoms. Napoleon behaved, nevertheless,
+with generosity to another lady of rank. Prince Hatzfeld, the civil
+governor of Berlin, not having quitted that city on the entry of
+Napoleon, had been discovered by the spies and been condemned to death
+by a court-martial. His wife, who was at that time enceinte, threw
+herself at Napoleon's feet. With a smile, he handed to her the paper
+containing the proof of her husband's guilt, which she instantly
+burned, and her husband was restored to liberty. John Muller was among
+the more remarkable of the servants of the state who had remained at
+Berlin. This sentimental parasite, the most despicable of them all,
+whose pathos sublimely glossed over each fresh treason, was sent for
+by Napoleon, who placed him about his person. Among other things, he
+asked him, "Is it not true the Germans are somewhat thick-brained?" to
+which the fawning professor replied with a smile. In return for the
+benefits he had received from the royal family of Prussia, he
+delivered, before quitting Berlin, an academical lecture upon
+Frederick the Great, in the presence of the French general officers,
+in which he artfully (the lecture was of course delivered in the
+French language) contrived to flatter Napoleon at the expense of that
+monarch.[7] Prince Charles of Isenberg raised, in the very heart of
+Berlin, a regiment, composed of Prussian deserters, for the service of
+France.[8]
+
+The Prussian fortresses fell, meanwhile, one after the other, during
+the end of autumn and during the winter, some from utter inability, on
+account of their neglected state, to maintain themselves, but the
+greater part owing to their being commanded by old villains,
+treacherous and cowardly as the commandant of Magdeburg. The strong
+fortress of Hameln was in this manner yielded by a Baron von Schöler,
+Plassenburg by a Baron von Becker, Nimburg on the Weser by a Baron von
+Dresser, Spandau by a Count von Benkendorf. The citadel of Berlin
+capitulated without a blow, and Stettin, although well provided with
+all the _materiel_ of war, was delivered up by a Baron von Romberg.
+Custrin, one of the strongest fortified places, was commanded by a
+Count von Ingersleben. The king visited the place during his flight
+and earnestly recommended him to defend it to the last. This place,
+sooner than yield, had, during the seven years' war, allowed itself to
+be reduced to a heap of ruins. When standing on one of the bastions,
+the king inquired its name. The commandant was ignorant of it.
+Scarcely had the king quitted the place, than a body of French huzzars
+appeared before the gates, and Ingersleben instantly capitulated.
+
+Silesia, although less demoralized than Berlin, viewed these political
+changes with even greater apathy. This fine province had, during the
+reign of Frederick the Great, been placed under the government of the
+minister, Count Hoym, whose easy disposition had, like insidious
+poison, utterly enervated the people. The government officers, as if
+persuaded of the reality of the antiquarian whim which deduced the
+name of Silesia from Elysium, dwelt in placid self-content, unmoved by
+the catastrophes of Austerlitz or Jena. No measures were,
+consequently, taken for the defence of the country, and a flying corps
+of Bavarians, Wurtembergers, and some French under Vandamme, speedily
+overran the whole province, notwithstanding the number of its
+fortresses. At Glogau, the commandant, Von Reinhardt, unhesitatingly
+declared his readiness to capitulate and excluded the gallant Major
+von Putlitz, who insisted upon making an obstinate defence, "as a
+revolutionist," from the military council. Being advised by one of the
+citizens to fire upon the enemy, he rudely replied, "Sir, you do not
+know what one shot costs the king." In Breslau, the Counts von Thiele
+and Lindner made a terrible fracas, burned down the fine faubourgs,
+and blew up the powder-magazine, merely in order to veil the disgrace
+of a hasty capitulation, which enraged the soldiery to such a pitch
+that, shattering their muskets, they heaped imprecations on their
+dastard commanders, and, in revenge, plundered the royal stores. Brieg
+was ceded after a two days' siege, by the Baron von Cornerut. The
+defence of the strong fortress of Schweidnitz, of such celebrated
+importance during the seven years' war, had been intrusted to Count
+von Haath, a man whose countenance even betokened imbecility. He
+yielded the fortress without a blow, and, on the windows of the
+apartment in which he lodged in the neighboring town of Jauer being
+broken by the patriotic citizens, he went down to the landlord, to
+whom he said, "My good sir, you must have some enemies!" The remaining
+fortresses made a better defence. Glatz was taken by surprise, the
+city by storm. The fortress was defended by the commandant, Count
+Gotzen, until ammunition sufficient for twelve days longer alone
+remained. Neisse capitulated from famine; Kosel was gallantly defended
+by the commandant, Neumann; and Silberberg, situated on an impregnable
+rock, refused to surrender.
+
+The troops of the Rhenish confederation, encouraged by the bad example
+set by Vandamme and by several of the superior officers, committed
+dreadful havoc, plundered the country, robbed and barbarously treated
+the inhabitants. It was quite a common custom among the officers, on
+the conclusion of a meal, to carry away with them the whole of their
+host's table-service. The filthy habits of the French officers were
+notorious. Their conduct is said to have been not only countenanced
+but commanded by Napoleon, as a sure means of striking the enervated
+population with the profoundest terror; and the panic in fact almost
+amounted to absurdity, the inhabitants of this thickly-populated
+province nowhere venturing to rise against the handful of robbers by
+whom they were so cruelly persecuted. A Baron von Puckler offered an
+individual exception: his endeavors to rouse the inert masses met with
+no success, and, rendered desperate by his failure, he blew out his
+brains. When too late a prince of Anhalt-Pless assembled an armed
+force in Upper Silesia and attempted to relieve Breslau, but Thiele
+neglecting to make a sally at the decisive moment, the Poles in Prince
+of Pless's small army took to flight, and the whole plan miscarried. A
+small Prussian corps, amounting to about five hundred men, commanded
+by Losthin, afterward infested Silesia, surprised the French under
+Lefebvre at Kanth and put them to the rout, but were a few days after
+this exploit taken prisoners by a superior French force.
+
+Attempts at reforms suited to the spirit of the age had, even before
+the outbreak of war, been made in Prussia by men of higher
+intelligence; Menken, for instance, had labored to effect the
+emancipation of the peasantry, but had been removed from office by the
+aristocratic party. During the war, the corruption pervading every
+department of the government, whether civil or military, was fully
+exposed, and Frederick William III. was taught by bitter experience to
+pursue a better system, to act with decision and patient
+determination. The Baron von Stein, a man of undoubted talent, a
+native of Nassau, was placed at the head of the government; two of the
+most able commanders of the day, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, undertook
+the reorganization of the army. On the 1st of December, 1806, the king
+cashiered every commandant who had neglected to defend the fortress
+intrusted to his care and every officer guilty of desertion or
+cowardly flight, and the long list of names gave disgraceful proof of
+the extent to which the nobility were compromised. One of the first
+measures taken by the king was, consequently, to throw open every post
+of distinction in the army to the citizens. The old inconvenient
+uniform and firearms were at the same time improved, the queue was cut
+off, the cane abandoned. The royal army was indeed scanty in number,
+but it contained within itself germs of honor and patriotism that gave
+promise of future glory.
+
+The reform, however, but slowly progressed. Ferdinand von Schill, a
+Prussian lieutenant, who had been wounded at Jena, formed, in
+Pomerania, a guerilla troop of disbanded soldiery and young men, who,
+although indifferently provided with arms, stopped the French convoys
+and couriers. His success was so extraordinary that he was sometimes
+enabled to send sums of money, taken from the enemy, to the king.
+Among other exploits, he took prisoner Marshal Victor, who was
+exchanged for Blucher. Blucher assembled a fresh body of troops on the
+island of Rugen. Schill, being afterward compelled to take refuge from
+the pursuit of the French in the fortress of Colberg, the commandant,
+Loucadou, placed him under arrest for venturing to criticise the bad
+defence of the place.
+
+The king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus IV., might with perfect justice
+have bitterly reproached Prussia and Austria for the folly with which
+they had, by their disunion, contributed to the aggrandizement of the
+power of France. He acted nobly by affording a place of refuge to the
+Prussians at Stralsund and Rugen.
+
+Colberg was, on Loucadou's dismissal, gloriously defended by Gneisenau
+and by the resolute citizens, among whom Nettelbek, a man seventy
+years of age, chiefly distinguished himself. Courbiere acted with
+equal gallantry at Graudena. On being told by the French that Prussia
+was in their hands and that no king of Prussia was any longer in
+existence, he replied, "Well, be it so! but I am king at Graudenz."
+Pillau was also successfully defended by Herrmann.[9] Polish Prussia
+naturally fell off on the advance of the French. Calisch rose in open
+insurrection; the Prussian authorities were everywhere compelled to
+save themselves by flight from the vengeance of the people. Poland had
+been termed the Botany Bay of Prussia, government officers in disgrace
+for bad conduct being generally sent there by way of punishment. No
+one voluntarily accepted an appointment condemning him to dwell amid a
+population inspired by the most ineradicable national hatred, glowing
+with revenge, and unable to appreciate the benefits bestowed upon them
+in their ignorance and poverty by the wealthier and more civilized
+Prussians.
+
+The king had withdrawn with the remainder of his troops, which were
+commanded by the gallant L'Estoc, to Koenigsberg, where he formed a
+junction with the Russian army, which was led by a Hanoverian, the
+cautious Bennigsen, and accompanied by the emperor Alexander in
+person. Napoleon expected that an opportunity would be afforded for
+the repetition of his old manoeuvre of separating and falling singly
+upon his opponents, but Bennigsen kept his forces together and offered
+him battle at Eylau, in the neighborhood of Koenigsberg; victory still
+wavered, when the Prussian troops under L'Estoc fell furiously upon
+Marshal Ney's flank, while that general was endeavoring to surround
+the Russians, and decided the day. It was the 8th of February, and the
+snow-clad ground was stained with gore. Napoleon, after this
+catastrophe, remained inactive, awaiting the opening of spring and the
+arrival of reinforcements. Dantzig, exposed by the desertion of the
+Poles, fell, although defended by Kalkreuth, into his hands, and, on
+the 14th of June, 1807, the anniversary, so pregnant with important
+events, of the battle of Marengo, he gained a brilliant victory at
+Friedland, which was followed by General Ruchel's abandonment of
+Koenigsberg with all its stores.
+
+The road to Lithuania now lay open to the French, and the emperor
+Alexander deemed it advisable to conclude peace. A conference was held
+at Tilsit on the Riemen between the sovereigns of France, Russia, and
+Prussia, and a peace, highly detrimental to Germany, was concluded on
+the 9th of July, 1807. Prussia lost half of her territory, was
+restricted to the maintenance of an army merely amounting to forty-two
+thousand men, was compelled to pay a contribution of one hundred and
+forty millions of francs to France, and to leave her most important
+fortresses as security for payment in the hands of the French. These
+grievous terms were merely acceded to by Napoleon "out of esteem for
+his Majesty the emperor of Russia," who, on his part, deprived his
+late ally of a piece of Prussian-Poland (Bialystock) and divided the
+spoil of Prussia with Napoleon.[10] Nay, he went, some months later,
+so far in his generosity, as, on an understanding with Napoleon and
+without deigning any explanation to Prussia, arbitrarily to cancel an
+article of the peace of Tilsit, by which Prussia was indemnified for
+the loss of Hanover with a territory containing four hundred thousand
+souls.
+
+The Prussian possessions on the left bank of the Elbe, Hanover,
+Brunswick, and Hesse-Cassel,[11] were converted by Napoleon into the
+new kingdom of Westphalia, which he bestowed upon his brother Jerome
+and included in the Rhenish confederation. East Friesland was annexed
+to Holland. Poland was not restored, but a petty grandduchy of Warsaw
+was erected, which Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, received,
+together with the royal dignity. Prussia, already greatly diminished
+in extent, was to be still further encroached upon and watched by
+these new states. The example of electoral Saxony was imitated by the
+petty Saxon princes, and Anhalt, Lippe, Schwarzburg, Reuss,
+Mecklenburg and Aldenburg joined the Rhenish confederation. Dantzig
+became a nominal free town with a French garrison.[12]
+
+The brave Hessians resisted this fresh act of despotism. The Hessian
+troops revolted, but were put down by force, and their leader, a
+sergeant, rushed frantically into the enemy's fire. The Hessian
+peasantry also rose in several places. The Hanse towns, on the
+contrary, meekly allowed themselves to be pillaged and to be robbed of
+their stores of English goods.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had neglected to send troops at
+an earlier period to the aid of Prussia, now offered the sturdiest
+resistance and steadily refused to negotiate terms of peace or to
+recognize Napoleon as emperor. His generals, Armfeldt[13] and Essen,
+made some successful inroads from Stralsund, and, in unison with the
+English, might have effected a strong diversion to Napoleon's rear,
+had their movements been more rapid and combined. On the conclusion of
+the peace of Tilsit, a French force under Mortier appeared, drove the
+Swedes back upon Stralsund, and compelled the king, in the August of
+1807, to abandon that city, which the new system of warfare rendered
+no longer tenable.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: On the 14th of October. On this unlucky day, Frederick
+the Great had, in 1758, been surprised at Hochkirch, and Mack, in
+1805, at Ulm. On this day, the peace of Westphalia was, A.D. 1648,
+concluded at Osnabrück, and, in 1809, that of Vienna. It was, however,
+on this day that the siege of Vienna was, in 1529, raised, and that,
+in 1813, Napoleon was shut up at Leipzig.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The whole of these disasters had been predicted by Henry
+von Bülow, whose prophecies had brought him into a prison. On learning
+the catastrophe of Jena, he exclaimed, "That is the consequence of
+throwing generals into prison and of placing idiots at the head of the
+army!"]
+
+[Footnote 3: The young "vons," on the contrary, capitulated with
+extreme readiness, in order to return to their pleasurable habits.
+Several of them set a great shield over their doors, with the
+inscription, "Herr von N. or M., prisoner of war on parole." In all
+the capitulations, the commandants and officers merely took care of
+their own persons and equipages and sacrificed the soldiery. Napoleon,
+who was well aware of this little weakness, always offered them the
+most flattering personal terms.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The same man who had been imposed upon by a similar ruse
+at Ulm by the Archduke Ferdinand. Napoleon dismissed him the service.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Massenbach published an anonymous charge against Blücher,
+which that general publicly refuted.]
+
+[Footnote 6: While the unfortunate Henry von Bülow, whose wise
+counsels had been despised, was torn from his prison to be delivered
+to the Russians, whose behavior at Austerlitz he had blamed. On his
+route he was maliciously represented as a friend to the French and
+exposed to the insults of the rabble, who bespattered him with mud,
+and to such brutal treatment from the Cossacks that he died of his
+wounds at Riga. Never had a prophet a more ungrateful country. He was
+delivered by his fellow-citizens to an ignominious death for
+attempting their salvation, for pointing out the means by which alone
+their safety could be insured, and for exposing the wretches by whom
+they were betrayed.]
+
+[Footnote 7: In the "Trumpet of the Holy War," he had summoned the
+nation to take up arms against the heathens (the French). He breathed
+war and flames. In his address to the king, he said, "The idle parade
+of the ruler during a long peace has never maintained a state!" He
+excited the hatred of the people against the French, telling them to
+harbor "such hatred against the enemy, like men who knew how to hate!"
+After thus aiding to kindle the flames of war, he went over to the
+French and wrote the letter to Bignon which that author has inserted
+in his History of France: "Like Ganymede to the seat of the gods, have
+I been borne by the eagle to Fontainebleau, there to serve a god."]
+
+[Footnote 8: The conduct of these deserters, how, decorated with the
+French cockade, they treated the German population with unheard-of
+insolence, is given in detail by Seume.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Courbiere, Herrmann, and Neumann of Cosel were bourgeois:
+the commandants of the other fortresses, so disgracefully ceded, were,
+without exception, nobles.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Bignon remarks that the queen, Louisa, who left no means
+untried in order to save as much as possible of Prussia, came somewhat
+too late, when Napoleon had already entered into an agreement with
+Russia. Hence Napoleon's inflexibility, which was the more insulting
+owing to the apparently yielding silence with which, from a feeling of
+politeness, he sometimes received the personal petitions of the queen,
+to which he would afterward send a written refusal. The part played in
+this affair by Alexander was far from honorable, and Bignon says with
+great justice, "The emperor of Russia must at that time have had but
+little judgement, if he imagined that taking Prussia in such a manner
+under his protection would be honorable to the protector." With a view
+of appeasing public opinion in Germany and influencing it in favor of
+the alliance between France and Russia, Zschokke, who was at that time
+in Napoleon's pay, published a mean-spirited pamphlet, entitled, "Will
+the human race gain by the present political changes?"]
+
+[Footnote 11: The elector, William, who had solicited permission to
+remain neutral, having made great military preparations and received
+the Prussians with open arms, was, in Napoleon's twenty-seventh
+bulletin, deposed with expressions of the deepest contempt. "The house
+of Hesse-Cassel has for many years past sold its subjects to England,
+and by this means has the elector collected his immense wealth. May
+this mean and avaricious conduct prove the ruin of his house."--Louis,
+Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, was threatened with similar danger for
+inclining on the side of Prussia, but perceived his peril in time to
+save himself from destruction.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Marshal Lefebvre, who had taken the city, was created
+duke of Dantzig. The city, however, did not belong to him, but became
+a republic; notwithstanding which it was at first compelled to pay a
+contribution, amounting to twenty million francs, to Napoleon, to
+maintain a strong French garrison at its expense, and was fleeced in
+every imaginable way. A stop was consequently put to trade, the
+wealthiest merchants became bankrupt, and Napoleon's satraps
+established their harems and celebrated their orgies in their
+magnificent houses and gardens, and, by their unbridled license,
+demoralized to an almost incredible degree the staid manners of the
+quondam pious Lutheran citizens. Vide Blech, The Miseries of Dantzig,
+1815.]
+
+[Footnote 13: One of the handsomest men of his time and the Adonis of
+many a princely dame.]
+
+
+
+CCLV. The Rhenish Confederation
+
+
+The whole of western Europe bent in lowly submission before the genius
+of Napoleon; Russia was bound by the silken chains of flattery;
+England, Turkey, Sweden, and Portugal, alone bade him defiance.
+England, whose fleets ruled the European seas, who lent her aid to his
+enemies, and instigated their opposition, was his most dangerous foe.
+By a gigantic measure, known as the continental system, he sought to
+undermine her power. The whole of the continent of Europe, as far as
+his influence was felt, was, by an edict, published at Berlin on the
+21st of November, 1806, closed against British trade; nay, he went so
+far as to lay an embargo on all English goods lying in store and to
+make prisoners of war of all the English at that time on the
+continent. All intercourse between England and the rest of Europe was
+prohibited. But Napoleon's attempt to ruin the commerce of England was
+merely productive of injury to himself; the promotion of every branch
+of industry on the continent could not replace the loss of its foreign
+trade; the products of Europe no longer found their way to the more
+distant parts of the globe, to be exchanged for colonial luxuries,
+which, with the great majority of the people, more particularly with
+the better classes, had become necessaries, and numbers who had but
+lately lauded Napoleon to the skies regarded him with bitter rage on
+being compelled to relinquish their wonted coffee and sugar.
+
+Napoleon, meanwhile, undeterred by opposition, enforced his
+continental system. Russia, actuated by jealousy of England and
+flattered by the idea, with which Napoleon had, at Tilsit, inspired
+the emperor Alexander, of sharing with him the empire of a world,
+aided his projects. The first step was to secure to themselves
+possession of the Baltic; the king of Sweden, Napoleon's most
+implacable foe, was to be dethroned, and Sweden to be promised to
+Frederick, prince-regent of Denmark, in order to draw him into the
+interests of the allied powers of France and Russia. The scheme,
+however, transpired in time to be frustrated. An English fleet, with
+an army, among which was the German Legion, composed of Hanoverian
+refugees, on board, attacked, and, after a fearful bombardment, took
+Copenhagen, and either destroyed or carried off the whole of the
+Danish fleet, September, 1807.[1] The British fleet, on its triumphant
+return through the Sound, was saluted at Helsingfors by the king of
+Sweden, who invited the admirals to breakfast. The island of
+Heligoland, which belonged to Holstein and consequently formed part of
+the possessions of Denmark, and which carried on a great smuggling
+trade between that country and the continent, was at that time also
+seized by the British.
+
+Napoleon revenged himself by a bold stroke in Spain. He proposed the
+partition of Portugal to that power, and, under that pretext, sent
+troops across the Pyrenees. The licentious queen of Spain, Maria
+Louisa Theresa of Parma, and her paramour, Godoy, who had, on account
+of the treaty between France and Spain, received the title of Prince
+of Peace, reigned at that time in the name of the imbecile king,
+Charles IV. His son, Ferdinand, placed himself at the head of the
+democratic faction, by which Godoy was regarded with the most deadly
+hatred. Both parties, however, conscious of their want of power,
+sought aid from Napoleon, who flattered each in turn, with a view of
+rendering the one a tool for the destruction of the other. The Prince
+of Peace was overthrown by a popular tumult; Ferdinand VII. was
+proclaimed king, and his father, Charles IV., was compelled to
+abdicate. These events were apparently countenanced by Napoleon, who
+invited the youthful sovereign to an interview; Ferdinand,
+accordingly, went to Bayonne and was--taken prisoner. The Prince of
+Peace, on the eve of flying from Spain, where his life was no longer
+safe, with his treasures and with the queen, persuaded the old king,
+Charles, also to go to Bayonne, where his person was instantly seized.
+Both he and his son were compelled to renounce their right to the
+throne of Spain and to abdicate in favor of Joseph, Napoleon's
+brother, the 5th of May, 1808. The elevation of Joseph to the Spanish
+throne was followed by that of Murat to the throne of Naples. The
+haughty Spaniard, however, refused to be trampled under foot, and his
+proud spirit disdained to accept a king imposed upon him by such
+unparalleled treachery. Napoleon's victorious troops were, for the
+first time, routed by peasants, an entire army was taken prisoner at
+Baylen, and another, in Portugal, was compelled to retreat. Napoleon's
+veterans were scattered by monks and peasants, a proof, to the eternal
+disgrace of every subject people, that the invincibility of a nation
+depends but upon its will.
+
+Napoleon did not conduct the war in Spain in person during the first
+campaign; the tranquillity of the North had first to be secured. For
+this purpose, he held a personal conference, in October, 1808, with
+the emperor Alexander at Erfurt, whither the princes of Germany
+hastened to pay their devoirs, humbly as their ancestors of yore to
+conquering Attila. The company of actors brought in Napoleon's train
+from Paris boasted of gaining the plaudits of a royal parterre, and a
+French sentinel happening to call to the watch to present arms to one
+of the kings there dancing attendance was reproved by his officer with
+the observation, "Ce n'est qu un roi."[2] Both emperors, for the
+purpose of offering a marked insult to Prussia, attended a great
+harehunt on the battlefield of Jena. It was during this conference
+that Napoleon and Alexander divided between themselves the sovereignty
+of Europe, Russia undertaking the subjugation of Sweden and the
+seizure of Finland, France the conquest of Spain and Portugal.
+
+The period immediately subsequent to the fall of the ancient empire
+forms the blackest page in the history of Germany. The whole of the
+left bank of the Rhine was annexed to France. The people,
+notwithstanding the improvement that took place in the administration
+under Bon Jean St. André, groaned beneath the exorbitant taxes and the
+conscription. The commerce on the Rhine had almost entirely
+ceased.[3]--The grandduchy of Berg was, until 1808, governed with
+great mildness by Avar, the French minister.--Holland had, since 1801,
+remained under the administration of her benevolent governor,
+Schimmelpenninck, but had been continually drained by the imposition
+of additional income taxes, which, in 1804, amounted to six per cent
+on the capital in the country. Commerce had entirely ceased, smuggling
+alone excepted. In 1806, the Dutch were commanded to entreat Napoleon
+to grant them a king in the person of his brother Louis, who fixed his
+residence in the venerable council-house at Amsterdam, and, it must be
+confessed, endeavored to promote the real interests of his new
+subjects.[4]
+
+The Swiss, with characteristic servility, testified the greatest zeal
+on every occasion for the emperor Napoleon, celebrated his fete-day,
+and boasted of his protection,[5] and of the freedom they were still
+permitted to enjoy. Freedom of thought was expressly prohibited.
+Sycophants, in the pay of the foreign ruler, as, for instance,
+Zschokke, alone guided public opinion. In Zug, any person who ventured
+to speak disparagingly of the Swiss in the service of France was
+declared an enemy to his country and exposed to severe punishment.[6]
+The Swiss shed their blood in each and all of Napoleon's campaigns,
+and aided him to reduce their kindred nations to abject slavery.[7]
+
+The Rhenish confederation shared the advantages of French influence to
+the same degree in which it, in common with the old states on the left
+bank of the Rhine, was subject to ecclesiastical corruption or to the
+upstart vanity incidental to petty states. Wherever enlightenment and
+liberty had formerly existed, as in Protestant and constitutional
+Würtemberg, the violation of the ancient rights of the people was
+deeply felt, and the new aristocracy, modelled on that of France,
+appeared as unbearable to the older inhabitants of Würtemberg as did
+the loss of their ancient independence to the mediatized princes and
+lordlings. King Frederick, notwithstanding his refusal to send troops
+into Spain, was compelled to furnish an enormous contingent for the
+wars in eastern Europe; the conscription and taxes were heavily felt,
+and the peasant was vexed by the great hunts, celebrated by
+Matthisson, the court-poet, as festivals of Diana.[8] In Bavaria, the
+administration of Maximilian Joseph and of his minister, Montgelas,
+although arbitrary in its measures, promoted, like that of Frederick
+II. and Joseph II., the advance of enlightenment and true liberty. The
+monasteries were closed, the punishment of the rack was abolished,
+unity was introduced in the administration of the state; the schools,
+the police, and the roads were improved, toleration was established;
+in a word, the dreams of the Illuminati, thirty years before this
+period, were, in almost every respect, realized. But, on the other
+hand, patriotism was here more unknown than in any other part of
+Germany. Christopher von Aretin set himself up as an apparitor to the
+French police, and, in 1810, published a work against the few German
+patriots still remaining, whom he denounced, in the fourteenth number
+of the Literary Gazette of Upper Germany, as "Preachers of Germanism,
+criminals and traitors, by whom the Rhenish confederation was
+polluted." The crown prince of Bavaria, who deeply lamented the rule
+of France and the miseries of Germany, offers a contrary example. A
+constitution, naturally a mere tool in the hand of the ministry, was
+bestowed, in 1808, upon Bavaria.
+
+The government of Charles von Dalberg, the prince primate and
+grandduke of Frankfort, was one of the most despicable of those
+composing the Rhenish confederation. Equally insensible to the duties
+attached to his high name and station,[9] he flattered the foreign
+tyrant to an extent unsurpassed by any of the other base sycophants at
+that time abounding in the empire; with folded hands would he at all
+times invoke the blessing of the Most High on the head of the almighty
+ruler of the earth, and celebrate each of his victories with hymns of
+gratitude and joy, while his ministers misruled and tyrannized over
+the country,[10] whose freedom they loudly vaunted.[11]--In Würzburg,
+the French ambassador reigned with the despotism of an Eastern
+satrap.[12] Saxe-Coburg[13] and Anhalt-Gotha,[14] where the native
+tyrant was sheltered beneath the wing of Napoleon, were in the most
+lamentable state.--In Saxony, the government remained unaltered.
+Frederick Augustus, filled with gratitude for the lenity with which he
+had been treated after the war and for the grant of the royal dignity,
+remained steadily faithful to Napoleon, but introduced no internal
+innovations into the government. The adhesion of Saxe-Weimar to the
+Rhenish confederation was of deplorable consequence to Germany, the
+great poets assembled there by the deceased Duchess Amalia also
+scattering incense around Napoleon.
+
+The kingdom of Westphalia was doomed to taste to the dregs the bitter
+cup of humiliation. The new king, Jerome, who declared, "Je veux qu'on
+respecte la dignite de l'homme et du citoyen," bestowed, it is true,
+many and great benefits upon his subjects; the system of flogging, so
+degrading to the soldier, was abolished, the judicature was improved,
+the administration simplified, and the German in authority,
+notwithstanding his traditionary gruffness, became remarkable for
+urbanity toward the citizens and peasants. But Napoleon's despotic
+rule ever demanded fresh sacrifices of men and money and increased
+severity on the part of the police, in order to quell the spirit of
+revolt. Jerome, conscious of being merely his brother's
+representative, consoled himself for his want of independence in his
+gay court at Cassel.[15] He had received but a middling education, and
+had, at one period, held a situation in the marine at Baltimore in
+North America. While still extremely young, placed unexpectedly upon a
+throne, more as a splendid puppet than as an independent sovereign, he
+gave way to excesses, natural, and, under the circumstances, almost
+excusable. It would be ungenerous to repeat the sarcasms showered upon
+him on his expulsion. The execrations heaped, at a later period, upon
+his head, ought with far greater justice to have fallen upon those of
+the Germans themselves, and more particularly upon those of that
+portion of the aristocracy that vied with the French in enriching the
+chronique scandaleuse of Cassel, and upon those of the citizens who,
+under Bongars, the head of the French police, acted the part of spies
+upon and secret informers against their wretched countrymen.--The
+farcical donation of a free constitution to the people put a climax to
+their degradation. On the 2d of July, 1808, Jerome summoned the
+Westphalian Estates to Cassel and opened the servile assembly, thus
+arbitrarily convoked, with extreme pomp. The unfortunate deputies, who
+had, on the conclusion of the lengthy ceremonial, received an
+invitation _assister au répas_ at the palace and had repaired thither,
+their imaginations, whetted by hunger, revelling in visions of
+gastronomic delight, were sorely discomfited on discovering that they
+were simply expected "to look on while the sovereign feasted." The
+result of this assembly was, naturally, a unanimous tribute of
+admiration and an invocation of blessings on the head of the foreign
+ruler, the principal part in which was played by John Müller, who
+attempted to convince his fellow countrymen that by means of the
+French usurpation they had first received the boon of true liberty.
+This cheaply-bought apostate said, in his usual hyperbolical style,
+"It is a marked peculiarity of the northern nations, more especially
+of those of German descent, that, whenever God has, in His wisdom,
+resolved to bestow upon them a new kind or a higher degree of
+civilization, the impulse has ever been given from without. This
+impulse was given to us by Napoleon, by him before whom the earth is
+silent, God having given the whole world into his hand, nor can
+Germany at the present period have a wish ungratified, Napoleon having
+reorganized her as the nursery of European civilization. Too sublime
+to condescend to every-day polity, he has given durability to Germany!
+Happy nation! what an interminable vista of glory opens to thy view!"
+Thus spoke John Müller. Thousands of Germans had been converted into
+abject slaves, but none other than he was there ever found, with
+sentimental phrases to gild the chains of his countrymen, to vaunt
+servility as liberty and dishonor as glory.[16] John Müller's
+unprincipled address formed, as it were, the turning-point of German
+affairs. Self-degradation could go no further. The spirit of the sons
+of Germany henceforward rose, and, with manly courage, they sought, by
+their future actions, to wipe off the deep stain of their former guilt
+and dishonor.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: See accounts of this affair in the Recollections of a
+Legionary, Hanover, 1826, and in Beamisch's History of the Legion.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A graphic description of these times is to be met with in
+Joanna Schopenhauer's Tour on the Lower Rhine. The kings of Bavaria,
+Wurtemberg, Westphalia, Saxony, the prince primate, the hereditary
+prince of Baden and of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the duke of Weimar, the
+princes of Hobenzollern, Hesse-Rotenburg, and Hesse-Philippsthal, were
+present. No one belonging to the house of Austria was there: of that
+of Prussia there was Prince William, the king's brother. The
+Allgemeine Zeitung of that day wrote: "The fact of Napoleon's sending
+for the privy-councillor, Von Goethe, into his cabinet, and conversing
+with him for upward of an hour, appears to us well worthy of mention.
+What German would not rejoice that the great emperor should have
+entered into such deep conversation with such a fitting representative
+of our noblest, and now, alas, sole remaining national possession, our
+art and learning, by whose preservation alone can our nationality be
+saved from utter annihilation." Notwithstanding which the company of
+actors belonging to the theatre at Weimar, which was close at hand and
+had been under Goethe's instruction, was not once allowed to perform
+on the Erfurt stage, which Napoleon had supplied with actors from
+Paris. Wieland was also compelled to remain standing for an hour in
+Napoleon's presence, and when, at length, unable, owing to the
+weakness of old age, to continue in that position, he ventured to ask
+permission to retire, Napoleon is said to have considered the request
+an unwarrantable liberty. The literary heroes of Weimar took no
+interest in the country from which they had received so deep a tribute
+of admiration. Not a patriotic sentiment escaped their lips. At the
+time when the deepest wound was inflicted on the Tyrol, Goethe gave to
+the world his frivolous "Wahlverwandschaften," which was followed by a
+poem in praise of Napoleon, of whom he says:
+
+  "Doubts, that have baffled thousands, _he_ has solved;
+   Ideas, o'er which centuries have brooded,
+   _His_ giant mind intuitively compassed."]
+
+[Footnote 3: The great and dangerous robber bands of the notorious
+Damian Hessel, and of Schinderhannes, afford abundant proof of the
+demoralized condition of the people.]
+
+[Footnote 4: On the 12th of January, 1807, a ship laden with four
+hundred quintals of gunpowder blew up in the middle of the city of
+Leyden, part of which was thereby reduced to ruins, and one hundred
+and fifty persons, among others the celebrated professors Luzac and
+Kleit, were killed.]
+
+[Footnote 5: On the opening of the federal diet in 1806, the
+Landammann lauded "the omnipotent benevolence of the gracious
+mediator." In earlier times, the Swiss would, on the contrary, have
+boasted of their affording protection to, not of receiving protection
+from, France.]
+
+[Footnote 6: In order to prove of what importance they considered the
+benevolent protection of Napoleon the Great.--_Attgemeine Zeitung of
+1810, No_. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Their general, Von der Wied, who was taken prisoner at
+Talavera in Spain and died shortly afterward of a pestilential
+disease, had done signal service to France, in 1798 in Switzerland, in
+1792 in Italy, in 1805 in Austria, in 1806 in Prussia, and finally in
+Spain.--_Allgemeine Zeitung of 1811, No_. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Personal freedom was restricted by innumerable decrees.
+Freedom of speech, formerly great in Würtemberg, was strictly
+repressed; all social confidence was annihilated. A swarm of informers
+ensnared those whom the secret police were unable to entrap. The
+secrecy of letters was violated. Trials in criminal cases were no
+longer allowed to be public. The sentence passed upon the accused was,
+particularly in cases of the highest import, not delivered by the
+judge as dictated by the law, but by the despot's caprice.--The
+conscription was enforced with increased severity and tyranny.--The
+natural right of emigration was abolished.--The people were disarmed,
+and not even the inhabitants of solitary farms and hamlets were
+allowed to possess arms in order to defend themselves against wolves
+and robbers. A man was punished for killing a mad dog, because the gun
+used for that purpose had been illegally secreted. Pass-tickets were
+given to and returned by all desirous of passing the gates of the
+pettiest town. The members of the higher aristocracy were compelled,
+under pain of being deprived of the third of their income, to spend
+three months in the year at court.--The citizen was oppressed by a
+variety of fresh taxes, by the newly-created monopolies of tobacco,
+salt, etc., and colonial imposts, by the tenfold rise of the excise
+and custom-house dues, etc. Vide Zahn in the Würtemberg Annual.
+Zschokke, meanwhile, in his pamphlet already mentioned, "Will the
+human race gain," etc., advocated republican equality and liberty
+under a monarchical constitution.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The Von Dalbergs of Franconia were the first hereditary
+barons of the Holy Roman Empire, and one of their race was dubbed
+knight at each imperial coronation. Hence the demand of the imperial
+herald, "Is no Dalberg here?" And a Dalberg it was, who, in Napoleon's
+name, declared to the German emperor that he no longer recognized an
+emperor of Germany.--In 1797, Dalberg had, at the diet, and again in
+1805, expressed himself with great zeal against France; on the present
+occasion he was Napoleon's first satrap.]
+
+[Footnote 10: They sold the demesnes of Hanau and Fulda and received
+the sums produced by the sale in gift from the grandduke.--_Görres's
+Rhenish Mercury, A.D. 1814, No. 168._]
+
+[Footnote 11: They were barefaced enough to bestow a constitution,
+and, in 1810, to open a diet at Hanau, although all the newspapers
+had, five days previously, been suppressed, and orders had been issued
+that the editor of the only newspaper permitted for the future was to
+be appointed by the police.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 294._]
+
+[Footnote 12: Count Montholon-Semonville sold justice and mercy. Vide
+Brockhaus's Deutsche Blätter, 1814, No. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The duke, Francis, allowed the country to be mercilessly
+drained and impoverished by the minister, Von Kretschmann. He lived on
+extremely bad terms with his uncle, Frederick Josias, duke of Coburg,
+the celebrated Austrian general. Francis died in 1806. Ernest, his son
+and successor, delivered the country, in 1809, from Kretschmann's
+tyranny, and, in 1811, bestowed upon it a constitution, which was,
+nevertheless, merely an imitation of that of Westphalia.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The prince, Augustus Christian Frederick, contracted
+debts to an enormous amount, completely drained his petty territory,
+and even seized bail-money. Military amusements, drunkenness and other
+gross excesses, the preservation of enormous herds of deer which
+destroyed the fields of the peasantry, formed the pleasures of this
+prince.--_Stenzel's History of Anhalt._]
+
+[Footnote 15: Napoleon nicknamed him _roi de coulisses_, and gave him
+a guardian in his ambassador, Reinhard, a person of celebrity during
+the Revolution. Jerome's first ministers were friends of his youth;
+the Creole, Le Camus, who was created Count Pürstenstein, and Malchus,
+whose office it was to fill a bottomless treasury. Vide Hormayr,
+Archive 5, 458, and the Secret History of the Court of Westphalia,
+1814.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Vide Strombeck's Life and the Allgemeine Zeitung of
+September, 1808. Besides John Müller and Aretin, mention may, with
+equal justice, be made of Orome of Geissen and Zschokke, a native of
+Magdeburg naturalized in Switzerland, who, in 1807, ventured to
+declare in public that Napoleon had done more for Swiss independence
+than William Tell five hundred years ago; who, paid by Napoleon,
+defamed the noble-spirited Spaniards and Tyrolese in 1815, decried the
+enthusiastic spirit animating Germany, and afterward whitewashed
+himself by his liberal tirades. With these may also be associated
+Murhard, the publisher of the _Moniteur Westphalien_, K.J. Schütz, the
+author of a work upon Napoleon, the Berlinese Jew, Saul Asher, the
+author of a scandalous work, entitled "Germanomanie," and of a
+slanderous article in Zschokke's Miscellanies against Prussia,
+Kosegarten the poet, who, in 1809, delivered a speech in eulogy of
+Napoleon, far surpassing all in bombast and mean adulation. Benturini,
+at that time, also termed Napoleon the emanation of the universal
+Spirit, a second incarnation of the Deity, a second savior of the
+world. In Posselt's European Annals of 1807, a work by a certain W.
+upon the political interests of Germany appeared, and concluded as
+follows: "Let us raise to him (Napoleon) a national monument, worthy
+of the first and only benefactor of the nations of Germany. Let his
+name be engraved in gigantic letters of shining gold on Germany's
+highest and steepest pinnacle, whence, lighted by the effulgent rays
+of morn, it may be visible far over the plains on which he bestowed a
+happier futurity!" This writer also drew a comparison between Napoleon
+and Charlemagne, in which he designated the latter a barbarous despot
+and the former the new savior of the world. He says, "Napoleon first
+solved the enigma of equality and liberty--his chief aim was the
+prevention of despotism--his chief desire, to eternalize the dominion
+of virtue." In the course of 1808, it was said in the essay, "On the
+Regeneration of Germany," that the Germans were still children whom it
+was solely possible for the French to educate: "Our language is also
+not logical like French--if we intend to attain unity, we must adhere
+with heart and soul to him who has smoothed the path to it, to him,
+our securest support, to him, whose name outshines that of
+Charlemagne--foreign princes in German countries are no proof of
+subjection, they, on the contrary, most surely warrant our continued
+existence as a nation." In France sixty authors dedicated their works,
+within the space of a year, to the emperor Napoleon--in Germany,
+ninety.]
+
+
+
+CCLVI. Resuscitation of Patriotism Throughout Germany--Austria's
+Demonstration
+
+
+The general slavery, although most severely felt in Eastern Germany,
+bore there a less disgraceful character. Austria and Prussia had been
+conquered, pillaged, reduced in strength and political importance,
+while the Rhenish states, forgetful that it is ever less disgraceful
+to yield to an overpowering enemy than voluntarily to lend him aid,
+had shared in and profited by the triumph of the empire's foe. Austria
+and Prussia suffered to a greater extent than the Rhenish
+confederation, but they preserved a higher degree of independence.
+Prussia, although almost annihilated by her late disasters,[1] still
+dreamed of future liberation. Austria had, notwithstanding her
+successive and numerous defeats, retained the greater share of
+independence, but her subjection, although to a lesser degree, was the
+more disgraceful on account of her former military glory and her
+preponderance as a political power in Germany. With steady
+perseverance and unfaltering courage she opposed the attacks of the
+foreign tyrant against the empire, and, France's first and last
+antagonist, the most faithful champion of the honor of Germany, she
+rose, with redoubled vigor, after each successive defeat, to renew the
+unequal struggle.
+
+Prussia had been overcome, because, instead of uniting with the other
+states of Germany, she had first abandoned them to be afterward
+deserted by them in her turn, and because, instead of arming her
+warlike people against every foreign foe, she had habituated her
+citizens to unarmed effeminacy and had rested her sole support on a
+mercenary army, an artificial and spiritless automaton, separated from
+and unsympathizing with the people. The idea that the salvation of
+Prussia could now alone be found in her reconciliation with the
+neighboring powers of Germany, in a general confederation, in the
+patriotism of her armed citizens, had already arisen. But, in order to
+inspire the citizen with enthusiasm, he must first, by the secure and
+free possession of his rights and by his participation in the public
+weal, be deeply imbued with a consciousness of freedom. The slave has
+no country; the freeman alone will lay down his life in its defence.
+In those times of Germany's deepest degradation and suffering, men for
+the first time again heard speak of a great and common fatherland, of
+national fame and honor; and liberty, that glorious name, was uttered
+not only by those who groaned beneath the rule of the despotic
+foreigner, but even by those who deplored the loss of the internal
+liberty of their country, the gradual subjection of the proud and
+free-spirited German to native tyranny. The king of Prussia, not
+content with morally reorganizing his army, also bestowed wise laws,
+which restored the citizen and the peasant to their rights, to their
+dignity as men, of which they had for so long been deprived by the
+nobility, the monopolizers of every privilege. The emancipation of the
+peasant essentially consisted in the abolition of feudal servitude and
+forced labor; that of the citizen, in the donation of a free municipal
+constitution, of self-administration, and freedom of election. The
+nobility were, at the same time, despoiled of the exclusive
+appointment to the higher civil and military posts and of the
+exclusive possession of landed property. Each citizen possessed the
+right, hitherto strictly prohibited, of purchasing baronial estates,
+and the nobility were, on their part, permitted to exercise trades,
+which a miserable prejudice had hitherto deemed incompatible with
+noble birth. These new institutions date from 1808 and are due to the
+energy of the minister, Stein.
+
+This noble-spirited German was the founder of a secret society, the
+_Tugendbund_, by which a general insurrection against Napoleon was
+silently prepared throughout Germany. Among its members were numerous
+statesmen, officers, and literati. Among the latter, Arndt gained
+great note by his popular style, Jahn by his influence over the rising
+generation. Jahn reintroduced gymnastics, so long neglected, into
+education, as a means of heightening moral courage by the increase of
+physical strength.[2] Scharnhorst, meanwhile, although restricted to
+the prescribed number of troops, created a new army by continually
+exchanging trained soldiers for raw recruits, and secretly purchased
+an immense quantity of arms, so that a considerable force could, in
+case of necessity, be speedily assembled. He also had all the brass
+battery guns secretly converted into field-pieces and replaced by iron
+guns. Napoleon's spies, however, came upon the trace of the
+_Tugendbund_. Stein, exposed by an intercepted letter, was outlawed[3]
+by Napoleon and compelled to quit Prussia. He was succeeded by
+Hardenberg, by whom the treaty of Basel had formerly been concluded
+and whose nomination was publicly approved of by Napoleon. Scharnhorst
+and Julius Gruner, the head of the Berlin police, were also deprived
+of their offices. The Berlin university, nevertheless, continued to
+give evidence of a better spirit. Enlightenment and learning, on their
+decrease at Frankfort on the Oder, here found their headquarters.
+Halle had become Westphalian, and the universities of Rinteln and
+Helmstädt had, from a similar cause, been closed.
+
+Austria also felt her humiliation too deeply not to be inspired, like
+Prussia, with an instinct of self-preservation. The imperial dignity
+and catholicism were here closely associated with the memory of the
+Middle Ages, whose magnificence and grandeur were once more disclosed
+to the people in the masterly productions of the writers of the day.
+Hence the unison created by Frederick Schlegel between the romantic
+poets and antiquarians of Germany and Viennese policy. The
+predilection for ancient German art and poetry had, in the literary
+world, been merely produced by the reaction of German intelligence
+against foreign imitation; this literary reaction, however, happened
+coincidently with and aided that in the political world. The
+Nibelungen, the Minnesingers, the ancient chronicles, became a popular
+study. The same enthusiasm inspired the liberal-spirited poets, Tieck,
+Arnim, and Brentano; Fouqué charmed the rising generation and the
+multitude with his extravagant descriptions of the age of chivalry;
+the learned researches of Grimm, Hagen, Busching, Gräter, etc., into
+German antiquity, at that time, excited general interest, but the
+glowing colors in which Joseph Gorres, himself a former Jacobin, and
+amid the half Gallicized inhabitants of Coblentz, revived, as if by
+magic, the Middle Age on the ruin-strewed banks of the Rhine caused
+the deepest delight. Two men, Stein, now a refugee in Austria, and
+Count Munster, first of all Hanoverian minister and afterward English
+ambassador at Petersburg, who kept up a constant correspondence with
+Stein and conducted the secret negotiations in the name of Great
+Britain, were unwearied in their endeavors to forge arms against
+Napoleon. In Austria, Count John Philip von Stadion, who had, since
+the December of 1805, been placed at the head of the ministry, had
+both the power and the will to repair the blunders committed by Thugut
+and Cobenzl.
+
+The Russo-gallic alliance was viewed with terror by Austria. Europe
+had, to a certain degree, been partitioned at Erfurt, by Napoleon and
+Alexander. Fresh sacrifices were evidently on the eve of being
+extorted from Germany. Russia had resolved at any price to gain
+possession of either the whole or a part of Turkey, and offered to
+confirm Napoleon in that of Bohemia, on condition of being permitted
+to seize Moldavia and Wallachia.[4] The danger was urgent. Austria,
+sold by Russia to France, could alone defend herself against both her
+opponents by an immense exertion of the national power of Germany. The
+old and faulty system had been fearfully revenged. The disunion of the
+German princes, the despotism of the aristocratic administrations, the
+estrangement of the people from all public affairs, had all conduced
+to the present degradation of Germany. Necessity now induced an
+alteration in the system of government and an appeal to the German
+people, whose voice had hitherto been vainly raised. The example set
+by Spain was to be followed. Stein, who was at that time at Vienna,
+kindled the glowing embers to a flame. The military reforms begun at
+an earlier period by the Archduke Charles were carried out on a wider
+basis. A completely new institution, that of the _Landwehr_ or armed
+citizens, in contradistinction with the mercenary soldiery, was set on
+foot. Enthusiasm and patriotism were not wanting. The circumstance of
+the pope's imprisonment in Rome by Napoleon sufficed to rouse the
+Catholics. Everything was hoped for from a general rising throughout
+Germany against the French. Precipitation, however, ruined all.
+Prussia was still too much weakened, her fortresses were still in the
+hands of the French, and Austria inspired but little confidence, while
+the Rhenish confederation solely aimed at aggrandizing itself by fresh
+wars at the expense of that empire, and, notwithstanding the
+inclination to revolt evinced by the people in different parts of
+Germany, more particularly in Westphalia, the terror inspired by
+Napoleon kept them, as though spellbound, beneath their galling yoke.
+
+While Napoleon was engaged in the Peninsula, Austria levied almost the
+whole of her able-bodied men and equipped an army, four hundred
+thousand strong, at the head of which no longer foreign generals, but
+the princes of the house of Habsburg, were placed. The Archduke
+Charles[5] set off, in 1809, for the Rhine, John for Italy, Ferdinand
+for Poland. The first proclamation, signed by Prince Rosenberg and
+addressed to the Bavarians, was as follows: "You are now beginning to
+perceive that we are Germans like yourselves, that the general
+interest of Germany touches you more nearly than that of a nation of
+robbers, and that the German nation can alone be restored to its
+former glory by acting in unison. Become once more what you once were,
+brave Germans! Or have you, Bavarian peasants and citizens, gained
+aught by your prince being made into a king? by the extension of his
+authority over a few additional square miles? Have your taxes been
+thereby decreased? Do you enjoy greater security in your persons and
+property?" The proclamation of the Archduke Charles "to the German
+nation," declared: "We have taken up arms to restore independence and
+national honor to Germany. Our cause is the cause of Germany. Show
+yourselves deserving of our esteem! The German, forgetful of what is
+due to himself and to his country, is our only foe." An anonymous but
+well-known proclamation also declared: "Austria beheld--a sight that
+drew tears of blood from the heart of every true-born German--you, O
+nations of Germany! so deeply debased as to be compelled to submit to
+the legislation of the foreigner and to allow your sons, the youth of
+Germany, to be led to war against their still unsubdued brethren. The
+shameful subjection of millions of once free-born Germans will ere
+long be completed. Austria exhorts you to raise your humbled necks, to
+burst your slavish chains!" And in another address was said: "How long
+shall Hermann mourn over his degenerate children? Was it for this that
+the Cherusci fought in the Teutoburg forest? Is every spark of German
+courage extinct? Does the sound of your clanking chains strike like
+music on your ears? Germans, awake! shake off your death-like slumber
+in the arms of infamy! Germans! shall your name become the derision of
+after ages?"
+
+The Austrian army, instead of vigorously attacking and disarming
+Bavaria, but slowly advanced, and permitted the Bavarians to withdraw
+unharassed for the purpose of forming a junction with the other troops
+of the Rhenish confederation under Napoleon, who had hastened from
+Spain on the first news of the movements of Austria. The hopes of the
+German patriots could not have been more fearfully disappointed or the
+German name more deeply humiliated than by the scorn with which
+Napoleon, on this occasion, placed himself at the head of the nations
+of western Germany, by whose arms alone, for he had but a handful of
+French with him, he overcame their eastern brethren at a moment in
+which the German name and German honor were more loudly invoked. "I
+have not come among you," said Napoleon smilingly to the Bavarians,
+Wurtembergers, etc., by whom he was surrounded, "I am not come among
+you as the emperor of France, but as the protector of your country and
+of the German confederation. No Frenchman is among you; _you alone_
+shall beat the Austrians."[6] The extent of the blindness of the
+Rhenish confederation[7] is visible in their proclamations. The king
+of Saxony even called Heaven to his aid, and said to his soldiers,
+"Draw your swords against Austria with full trust in the aid of Divine
+providence!"[8]
+
+In the April of 1809, Napoleon led the Rhenish confederated troops,
+among which the Bavarians under General Wrede chiefly distinguished
+themselves, against the Austrians, who had but slowly advanced, and
+defeated them in five battles, on five successive days, the most
+glorious triumph of his surpassing tactics, at Pfaffenhofen, Thann,
+Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuhl, and Ratisbon. The Archduke Charles
+retired into Bohemia in order to collect reinforcements, but General
+Hiller was, on account of the delay in repairing the fortifications of
+Linz, unable to maintain that place, the possession of which was
+important on account of its forming a connecting point between Bohemia
+and the Austrian Oberland. Hiller, however, at least saved his honor
+by pushing forward to the Traun, and, in a fearfully bloody encounter
+at Ebelsberg, capturing three French eagles, one of his colors alone
+falling into the enemy's hands. He was, nevertheless, compelled to
+retire before the superior forces of the French, and Napoleon entered
+Vienna unopposed. A few balls from the walls of the inner city were
+directed against the faubourg in his possession, but he no sooner
+began to bombard the palace than the inner city yielded. The Archduke
+Charles arrived, when too late, from Bohemia. Both armies, separated
+by the Danube, stood opposed to one another in the vicinity of the
+imperial city. Napoleon, in order to bring the enemy to a decisive
+engagement, crossed the river close to the great island of Lobau. He
+was received on the opposite bank near Aspern and Esslingen by the
+Archduke Charles, and, after a dreadful battle, that was carried on
+with unwearied animosity for two days, the 21st and 22d of May, 1809,
+was for the first time completely beaten[9] and compelled to fly for
+refuge to the island of Lobau. The rising stream had, meanwhile,
+carried away the bridge, Napoleon's sole chance of escape to the
+opposite bank. For two days he remained on the island with his
+defeated troops, without provisions, and in hourly expectation of
+being cut to pieces; the Austrians, however, neglected to turn the
+opportunity to advantage and allowed the French leisure to rebuild the
+bridge, a work of extreme difficulty. During six weeks afterward the
+two armies continued to occupy their former positions under the walls
+of Vienna on the right and left banks of the Danube, narrowly watching
+each other's movements and preparing for a final struggle.
+
+The Archduke John had successfully penetrated into Italy, where he had
+defeated the viceroy, Eugene, at Salice and Fontana fredda. Favored by
+the simultaneous revolt of the Tyrolese, his success appeared certain,
+when the news of his brother's disaster compelled him to retreat. He
+withdrew into Hungary,[10] whither he was pursued by Eugene, by whom
+he was, on the 14th of June, defeated at Raab. The Archduke Ferdinand,
+who had advanced as far as Warsaw, had been driven back by the Poles
+under Poniatowski and by a Russian force sent by the emperor Alexander
+to their aid, which, on this success, invaded Galicia. Napoleon
+rewarded the Poles for their aid by allowing Russia to seize Wallachia
+and Moldavia.
+
+The fate of Austria now depended on the issue of the struggle about to
+take place on the Danube. The archduke's troops were still elated with
+recent victory, but Napoleon had been strongly reinforced and again
+began the attack at Wagram, not far from the battleground of Aspern.
+The contest lasted two days, the 5th and 6th of July. The Austrians
+fought with great personal gallantry, lost one of their colors, but
+captured twelve golden eagles and standards of the enemy; but the
+reserve body, intended to protect their left wing, failing to make its
+appearance on the field, they were outflanked by Napoleon and driven
+back upon Moravia. Every means of conveyance in Vienna was put into
+requisition for the transport of the forty-five thousand men, wounded
+on this occasion, to the hospitals, and this heartrending scene
+indubitably contributed to strengthen the general desire for peace. An
+armistice was, on the 12th of July, concluded at Znaym, and, after
+long negotiation, was followed, on the 10th of October, by the treaty
+of Vienna. Austria was compelled to cede Carniola, Trieste, Croatia
+and Dalmatia to Napoleon, Salzburg, Berchtoldsgaden, the Innviertel,
+and the Hausruckviertel to Bavaria, a part of Galicia to Warsaw and
+another part to Russia. Count Stadion lost office and was succeeded by
+Clement, Count von Metternich.--Frederick Stabs, the son of a preacher
+of Nuamburg on the Saal, formed a resolution to poniard Napoleon at
+Schönbrunn, the imperial palace in the neighborhood of Vienna. Rapp's
+suspicions became roused, and the young man was arrested before his
+purpose could be effected. He candidly avowed his intention. "And if I
+grant you your life?" asked Napoleon. "I would merely make use of the
+gift to rob you, on the first opportunity, of yours," was the
+undaunted reply. Four-and-twenty hours afterward the young man was
+shot.[11] The ancient German race of Gotscheer in Carniola and the
+people of Istria rose in open insurrection against the French and were
+only put down by force.
+
+Although Prussia had left Austria unsuccored during this war, many of
+her subjects were animated with a desire to aid their Austrian
+brethren. Schill, unable to restrain his impetuosity, quitted Berlin
+on the 28th of April, for that purpose, with his regiment of hussars.
+His conduct, although condemned by a sentence of the court-martial,
+was universally applauded. Dornberg, an officer of Jerome's guard,
+revolted simultaneously in Hesse, but was betrayed by a false friend
+at the moment in which Jerome's person was to have been seized, and
+was compelled to fly for his life. Schill merely advanced as far as
+Wittenberg and Halberstadt, was again driven northward to Wismar, and
+finally to Stralsund, by the superior forces of Westphalia and
+Holland. In a bloody street-fight at Stralsund he split General
+Carteret's, the Dutch general's head, and was himself killed by a
+cannon-ball. Thus fell this young hero, true to his motto, "Better a
+terrible end than endless terror." The Dutch cut off his head,
+preserved it in spirits of wine, and placed it publicly in the Leyden
+library, where it remained until 1837, when it was buried at Brunswick
+in the grave of his faithful followers. Five hundred of his men, under
+Lieutenant Brunow, escaped by forcing their way through the enemy. Of
+the prisoners taken on this occasion, eleven officers were, by
+Napoleon's command, shot at Wesel, fourteen subalterns and soldiers at
+Brunswick, the rest, about six hundred in number, were sent in chains
+to Toulon and condemned to the galleys.[12] Dörnberg fled to England.
+Katt, another patriot, assembled a number of veterans at Stendal and
+advanced as far as Magdeburg, but was compelled to flee to the
+Brunswickers in Bohemia. What might not have been the result had the
+plan of the Archduke Charles to march rapidly through Franconia been
+followed on the opening of the campaign?
+
+William, duke of Brunswick, the son of the hapless Duke Ferdinand, had
+quitted Oels, his sole possession, for Bohemia, where he had collected
+a force two thousand strong, known as the black Brunswickers on
+account of the color of their uniform and the death's head on their
+helmets, with which he resolved to avenge his father's death.
+Victorious in petty engagements over the Saxons at Zittau and over the
+French under Junot at Berneck, he refused to recognize the armistice
+between Austria and France, and, fighting his way through the enemy,
+surprised Leipzig by night and there provided himself with ammunition
+and stores. He was awaited at Halberstadt by the Westphalians under
+Wellingerode, whom, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, he
+completely defeated during the night of the 30th of July. Two days
+later he was attacked in Brunswick, in his father's home, by an enemy
+three times his superior, by the Westphalians under Rewbel, who
+advanced from Celle while the Saxons and Dutch pursued him from
+Erfurt. Aided by his brave citizens, many of whom followed his
+fortunes, he was again victorious and was enabled by a speedy retreat,
+in which he broke down all the bridges to his rear, to escape to
+Elsfleth, whence he sailed to England.
+
+In August, an English army, forty thousand strong, landed on the
+island of Walcheren and attempted to create a diversion in Holland,
+but its ranks were speedily thinned by disease, it did not venture up
+the country and finally returned to England. The English,
+nevertheless, displayed henceforward immense activity in the
+Peninsula, where, aided by the brave and high-spirited population,[13]
+they did great detriment to the French. In the English army in the
+Peninsula were several thousand Germans, principally Hanoverian
+refugees. There were also numerous deserters from the Rhenish
+confederated troops, sent by Napoleon into Spain.
+
+During the war in June, the king of Wurtemberg took possession of
+Mergentheim, the chief seat of the Teutonic order, which had, up to
+the present period, remained unsecularized. The surprised inhabitants
+received the new Protestant authorities with demonstrations of rage
+and revolted. They were the last and the only ones among all the
+secularized or mediatized estates of the Empire that boldly attempted
+opposition. They were naturally overpowered without much difficulty
+and were cruelly punished. About thirty of them were shot by the
+soldiery; six were executed; several wealthy burgesses and peasants
+were condemned as criminals to work in chains in the new royal gardens
+at Stuttgard. Thus miserably terminated the celebrated Teutonic order.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The whole of the revenues of Prussia were confiscated by
+the French until 1808. The contribution of one hundred and forty
+millions was, nevertheless, to be paid, and the French garrisons in
+the Prussian fortresses of Glogau, Küstrin, and Stettin were to be
+maintained at the expense of Prussia. The suppression of the
+monasteries in Silesia was far from lucrative, the commissioners, who
+were irresponsible, carrying on a system of pillage, and landed
+property having greatly fallen in value. The most extraordinary
+imposts of every description were resorted to for the purpose of
+raising a revenue, among other means, a third of all the gold and
+silver in the country was called in. A coinage, still more debased,
+was issued, and one more inferior still was smuggled into the country
+by English coiners. In 1808, silver money fell two-thirds of its
+current value and was even refused acceptance at that price.--The
+French, moreover, lorded over the country with redoubled insolence,
+broke every treaty, increased their garrisons, and occasionally laid
+the most inopportune commands, in the form of a request, upon the
+king; as, for instance, to lay under embargo and deliver up to them a
+number of English merchantmen that had been driven into the Prussian
+harbors by a dreadful storm. Blücher, at that time governor of
+Pomerania, restrained his fiery nature and patiently endured their
+insolence, while silently brooding over deep and implacable revenge.]
+
+[Footnote 2: When marching with his pupils out of Berlin, he would ask
+the fresh ones as he passed beneath the Bradenburg gate, "What are you
+thinking of now?" If the boy did not know what to answer, he would
+give him a box on the ear, saying as he did so, "You should think of
+this, how you can bring back the four fine statues of horses that once
+stood over this gate and were carried by the French to Paris."]
+
+[Footnote 3: Decree of 16th December, 1808: "A certain Stein, who is
+attempting to create disturbances, is herewith declared the enemy of
+France; his property shall be placed under sequestration, and his
+person shall be secured." The Allgemeine Zeitung warns, at the same
+time, in its 330th number, all German savants not to give way to
+patriotic enthusiasm and to follow in John Müller's footsteps.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Bignon's History of France.]
+
+[Footnote 5: He undertook the chief command with extreme unwillingness
+and had long advised against the war, the time not having yet arrived,
+Prussia being still adverse, Germany not as yet restored to her
+senses, and experience having already proved to him how little he
+could act as his judgment directed. How often had he not been made use
+of and then suddenly neglected, been restrained, in the midst of his
+operations, by secret orders, been permitted to conduct the first or
+only the second part of a campaign, been placed in a subaltern
+position when the chief command was rightfully his, or been forced to
+accept of it when all was irremediably lost. Even on this occasion the
+first measure advised by him, that of pushing rapidly through Bohemia
+and Franconia, met with opposition. On the Maine and on the Weser
+alone was there a hope of inspiring the people with enthusiasm, not in
+Bavaria, where the hatred of the Austrians was irradicably rooted. It,
+nevertheless, pleased the military advisers of the emperor at Vienna
+to order the army to advance slowly through Bavaria.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "None of my soldiers accompany me. You will know how to
+value this mark of confidence."--_Napoleon's Address to the Bavarians.
+Bölderndorf's Bavarian Campaigns_. "I am alone among you and have not
+a Frenchman around my person. This is an unparalleled honor paid by me
+to you."--_Napoleon's Address to the Würtemberg troops_. Arndt wrote
+at that time:
+
+  "By idle words and dastard wiles
+     Hath he the mastery gained;
+   He holds our sacred fatherland
+     In slavery enchained.
+   Fear hath rendered truth discreet,
+   And Honor croucheth at his feet.
+
+   Is this his work? ah no! 'tis _thine!_
+     This _thou_ alone hast done.
+   For him thy banner waved, for him
+     Thy sword the battle won
+
+   By thy disputes he gaineth strength,
+     By thy disgrace full honor,
+   And 'neath the German hero's arm
+     His weakness doth he cover:
+   Glittering erewhile in borrowed show,
+   The Gallic cock doth proudly crow."]
+
+[Footnote 7: The states of Würtemberg imparted, among other things,
+the following piece of information to the house of Habsburg: "That the
+heads of a democratical government should spread principles
+destructive to order among its neighbors was easily explicable, but
+that Austria should take advantage of the war to derange the internal
+mechanism of neighboring states was inexcusable."--_Allgemeine
+Zeitung, No. 113_. The Bavarian proclamation (_Allgemeine Zeitung, No.
+135_) says, "Princes of the blood royal unblushingly subscribed to
+proclamations placing them on an equality with the men of the
+Revolution of 1793." The _Moniteur_, Napoleon's Parisian organ, said
+in August, 1809, after the conclusion of the war, "The mighty hand of
+Napoleon has snatched Germany from the revolutionary abyss about to
+engulf her."]
+
+[Footnote 8: Posselt's Political Annals at that time contained an
+essay, in which the attempt made by the Austrian cabinet to call the
+Germans to arms was designated as a "crime" against the sovereigns
+"among whom Germany was at that period partitioned, and in whose
+hearing it was both foolish and dangerous to speak of Germany."
+Derision has seldom been carried to such a pitch.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The finest feat of arms was that performed by the
+Austrian infantry, who repulsed twelve French regiments of
+cuirassiers. This picked body of cavalry was mounted on the best and
+strongest horses of Holstein and Mecklenburg (for Napoleon overcame
+Germany principally by means of Germany), and bore an extremely
+imposing appearance. The Austrian infantry coolly stood their charge
+and allowed them to come close upon them before firing a shot, when,
+taking deliberate aim at the horses, they and their riders were rolled
+in confused heaps on the ground. Three thousand cuirasses were picked
+up by the victors after the battle.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Napoleon proclaimed independence to the Hungarians, but
+was unable to gain a single adherent among them.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Aretin about this time published a "Representation of
+the Patriots of Austria to Napoleon the Great," in which that great
+sovereign was entreated to bestow a new government upon Austria and to
+make that country, like the new kingdom of Westphalia, a member of his
+family of states. A fitting pendant to John Müller's state speech, and
+so much the more uncalled-for as it was exactly the Austrians who,
+during this disastrous period, had, less than any of the other races
+of Germany, lost their national pride.]
+
+[Footnote 12: They were afterward condemned to hard labor in the
+Hieres Isles, nor was it until 1814 that the survivors, one hundred
+and twenty in number, were restored to their homes.--_Allgemeine
+Zeitung, 1814. Appendix 91._]
+
+[Footnote 13: Vide Napier's Peninsular War for an account of the
+military achievements of the Spaniards.--_Trans._]
+
+
+
+CCLVII. Revolt of the Tyrolese
+
+
+The Alps of the Tyrol had for centuries been the asylum of liberty.
+The ancient German communal system had there continued to exist even
+in feudal times. Exactly at the time when the house of Habsburg lost
+its most valuable possessions in Switzerland, at the time of the
+council of Constance, Duke Frederick, surnamed Friedel with the empty
+purse, was compelled by necessity and for the sake of retaining the
+affection of the Tyrolese, to confirm them by oath in the possession
+of great privileges, which his successors, owing to a wholesome dread
+of exciting the anger of the sturdy mountaineers, prudently refrained
+from violating. The Tyrol was externally independent and was governed
+by her own diet. No recruits were levied in that country by the
+emperor, excepting those for the rifle corps, which elected its own
+commanders and wore the Tyrolean garb. The imposts were few and
+trifling in amount, the administration was simple. The free-born
+peasant enjoyed his rights in common with the patriarchal nobility and
+clergy, who dwelt in harmony with the people; in several of the
+valleys the public affairs were administered by simple peasants; each
+commune had its peculiar laws and customs.
+
+The first invasion of the Tyrol, in 1703, by the Bavarians, was
+successfully resisted. The Bavarians were driven, with great loss on
+their side, out of the country. A somewhat similar spirit animated the
+Tyrolese in 1805, and their anger was solely appeased by the express
+remonstrances of the Archduke John, whom the inhabitants of the
+Austrian Tyrol treated with the veneration due to a father. They now
+fell under the dominion of Bavaria, whose benevolent sovereign,
+Maximilian Joseph, promised, under the act dated the 14th of January,
+1806, "not only strongly to uphold the constitution of the country and
+the well-earned rights and privileges of the people, but also to
+promote their welfare": but, led astray by his, certainly noble,
+enthusiasm for the rescue of his Bavarian subjects from Jesuit
+obscurantism, he imagined that similar measures might also be
+advantageously taken in the Tyrol, where the mountaineers, true to
+their ancient simplicity, were revolted by the severity of the cure,
+attempted too by a physician of whose intentions they were
+mistrustful. Bavaria was overrun with rich monasteries; the Tyrol,
+less fertile, possessed merely a patriarchal clergy, less numerous,
+more moral and active. There was no motive for interference. The
+conscription that, by converting the idle youth of Bavaria into
+disciplined soldiery, was a blessing to the martial-spirited and
+improvident population, was impracticable amid the well-trained
+Tyrolese, and, although the control exercised by a well-regulated
+bureaucracy might be beneficial when viewed in contradistinction with
+the ancient complicated system of government and administration of
+justice during the existence of the division into petty states and the
+manifold contradictory privileges, it was utterly uncalled for in the
+simple administration of the Tyrol. For what purpose were mere
+presumptive ameliorations to be imposed upon a people thoroughly
+contented with the laws and customs bequeathed by their ancestors? The
+attempt was nevertheless made, and ancient Bavarian official insolence
+leagued with French frivolity of the school of Montgelas to vex the
+Tyrolese and to violate their most sacred privileges. The numerous
+chapels erected for devotional purposes were thrown down amid marks of
+ridicule and scorn; the ignorance and superstition of the old church
+was at one blow to yield to modern enlightenment.[1] The people
+shudderingly beheld the crucifixes and images of saints, so long the
+objects of their deepest veneration, sold to Jews. Notwithstanding the
+late assurances of the Bavarian king, the Tyrolean diet was, moreover,
+not only dissolved, but the country was deprived of its ancient name
+and designated "Southern Bavaria," and the castle of the Tyrol, that
+had defied the storms of ages, and whose possessor, according to a
+sacred popular legend, had alone a right to claim the homage of the
+country, was sold by auction. The national pride of the Tyrolese was
+deeply and bitterly wounded, their ancient rights and customs were
+arbitrarily infringed, and, instead of the great benefits so recently
+promised, eight new taxes were levied, and the tax-gatherers not
+infrequently rendered themselves still more obnoxious by their
+brutality. Colonel Dittfurt, who, during the winter of 1809, acted
+with extreme inhumanity in the Fleimserthal, where the conscription
+had excited great opposition, and who publicly boasted that with his
+regiment alone he would keep the whole of the beggarly mountaineers in
+subjection, drew upon himself the greatest share of the popular
+animosity.
+
+Austria, when preparing for war in 1809, could therefore confidently
+reckon upon a general rising in the Tyrol. Andrew Hofer, the host of
+the Sand at Passeyr (the Sandwirth), went to Vienna, where the revolt
+was concerted.[2] A conspiracy was entered into by the whole of the
+Tyrolese peasantry. Sixty thousand men, on a moderate calculation,
+were intrusted with the secret, which was sacredly kept, not a single
+townsman being allowed to participate in it. Kinkel, the Bavarian
+general, who was stationed at Innsbruck and narrowly watched the
+Tyrol, remained perfectly unconscious of the mine beneath his feet.
+Colonel Wrede, his inferior in command, had been directed to blow up
+the important bridges in the Pusterthal at St. Lorenzo, in order to
+check the advance of the Austrians, in case of an invasion. Several
+thousand French were expected to pass through the Tyrol on their route
+from Italy to join the army under Napoleon. No suspicion of the
+approach of a popular outbreak existed. On the 9th of April, the
+signal was suddenly given; planks bearing little red flags floated
+down the Inn; on the 10th, the storm burst. Several of the Bavarian
+sappers sent at daybreak to blow up the bridges of St. Lorenzo being
+killed by the bullets of an invisible foe, the rest took to flight.
+Wrede, enraged at the incident, hastened to the spot at the head of
+two battalions, supported by a body of cavalry and some field-pieces.
+The whole of the Pusterthal had, however, already risen at the summons
+of Peter Kemnater, the host of Schabs,[3] in defence of the bridges.
+Wrede's artillery was captured by the enraged peasantry and cast,
+together with the artillerymen, into the river. Wrede, after suffering
+a terrible loss, owing to the skill of the Tyrolean riflemen, who
+never missed their aim, was completely put to rout, and, although he
+fell in with a body of three thousand French under Brisson on their
+route from Italy, resolved, instead of returning to the Pusterthal, to
+withdraw with the French to Innsbruck. The passage through the valley
+of the Eisack had, however, been already closed against them by the
+host of Lechner, and the fine old Roman bridge at Laditsch been blown
+up. In the pass of the Brixen, where the valley closes, the French and
+Bavarians suffered immense loss; rocks and trees were rolled on the
+heads of the appalled soldiery, numbers of whom were also picked off
+by the unerring rifles of the unseen peasantry. Favored by the open
+ground at the bridge of Laditsch, they constructed a temporary bridge,
+across which they succeeded in forcing their way on the 11th of April.
+Hofer had, meanwhile, placed himself, early on the 10th, at the head
+of the brave peasantry of Passeyr, Algund, and Meran, and had thrown
+himself on the same road, somewhat to the north, near Sterzing, where
+a Bavarian battalion was stationed under the command of Colonel
+Bärnklau, who, on being attacked by him, on the 11th, retreated to the
+Sterzinger Moos, a piece of tableland, where, drawn up in square, he
+successfully repulsed every attempt made to dislodge him until Hofer
+ordered a wagon, loaded with hay and guided by a girl,[4] to be pushed
+forward as a screen, behind which the Tyrolese advancing, the square
+was speedily broken and the whole of Bärnklau's troop was either
+killed or taken prisoner.
+
+The whole of the lower valley of the Inn had, on the self-same day,
+been raised by Joseph Speckbacher, a wealthy peasant of Rinn, the
+greatest hero called into existence by this fearful peasant war. The
+alarm-bell pealed from every church tower throughout the country. A
+Bavarian troop, at that time engaged in levying contributions at Axoms
+as a punishment for disobedience, hastily fled. The city of Hall was,
+on the ensuing night, taken by Speckbacher, who, after lighting about
+a hundred watch-fires in a certain quarter, as if about to make an
+attack on that side, crept, under cover of the darkness, to the gate
+on the opposite side, where, as a common passenger, he demanded
+permission to enter, took possession of the opened gate, and seized
+the four hundred Bavarians stationed in the city. On the 12th, he
+appeared before Innsbruck. Kinkel was astounded at the audacity of the
+peasants, whom Dittfurt glowed with impatience to punish. But the
+people, shouting "Vivat Franzl! Down with the Bavarians!" again rushed
+upon the guns and turned them upon the Bavarians, who were, moreover,
+exposed to a murderous fire poured upon them from the windows and
+towers by the citizens, who had risen in favor of the peasantry. The
+people of the upper valley of the Inn, headed by Major Teimer, also
+poured to the scene of carnage. Dittfurt performed prodigies of valor,
+but every effort was vain. Scornfully refusing to yield to the
+_canaille_, he continued, although struck by two bullets, to fight
+with undaunted courage, when a third stretched him on the ground;
+again he started up and furiously defended himself until a fourth
+struck him in the head. He died four days afterward in a state of wild
+delirium, cursing and swearing. Kinkel and the whole of the Bavarian
+infantry yielded themselves prisoners. The cavalry attempted to
+escape, but were dismounted with pitchforks by the peasantry, and the
+remainder were taken prisoners before Hall.
+
+Wrede and Brisson, meanwhile, crossed the Brenner. At Sterzing, every
+trace of the recent conflict had been carefully obliterated, and Wrede
+vainly inquired the fate of Bärnklau. He entered the narrow pass, and
+Hofer's riflemen spread death and confusion among his ranks. The
+strength of the allied column, nevertheless, enabled it to force its
+way through, and it reached Innsbruck, where, completely surrounded by
+the Tyrolese, it, in a few minutes, lost several hundred men, and, in
+order to escape utter destruction, laid down its arms. The Tyrolese
+entered Innsbruck in triumph, preceded by the military band belonging
+to the enemy, which was compelled to play, followed by Teimer and
+Brisson in an open carriage, and with the rest of their prisoners
+guarded between their ranks. Their captives consisted of two generals,
+ten staff-officers, above a hundred other officers, eight thousand
+infantry, and a thousand cavalry. Throughout the Tyrol, the arms of
+Bavaria were cast to the ground and all the Bavarian authorities were
+removed from office. The prisoners were, nevertheless, treated with
+the greatest humanity, the only instance to the contrary being that of
+a tax-gatherer, who, having once boasted that he would grind the
+Tyrolese down until they gladly ate hay, was, in revenge, compelled to
+swallow a bushel of hay for his dinner.
+
+It was not until after these brilliant achievements on the part of the
+Tyrolese that Lieutenant Field-Marshal von Chasteler, a Dutchman, and
+the Baron von Hormayr, the imperial civil intendant, entered Innsbruck
+with several thousand Austrians, and that Hormayr assumed the reins of
+government. Two thousand French, under General Lemoine, attempted to
+make an inroad from Trent, but were repulsed by Hofer and his ally,
+Colonel Count Leiningen, who had been sent to his aid by Chasteler.
+The advance of a still stronger force of the enemy under Baraguay
+d'Hilliers a second time against Botzen called Chasteler in person
+into the field, and the French, after a smart engagement near Volano,
+where the Herculean Passeyrers carried the artillery on their
+shoulders, were forced to retreat. It was on this occasion that
+Leiningen, who had hastily pushed too far forward, was rescued from
+captivity by Hofer.[5] The Vorarlberg had, meanwhile, also been raised
+by Teimer. A Dr. Schneider placed himself at the head of the
+insurgents, whose forces already extended in this direction as far as
+Lindau, Kempten, and Memmingen.
+
+Napoleon's success, at this conjuncture, at Ratisbon, enabled him to
+despatch a division of his army into the Tyrol to quell the
+insurrection that had broken out to his rear. Wrede, who had been
+quickly exchanged and set at liberty, speedily found himself at the
+head of a small Bavarian force, and succeeded in driving the Austrians
+under Jellachich, after an obstinate and bloody resistance, out of
+Salzburg, on the 29th of April. Jellachich withdrew to the pass of
+Lueg for the purpose of placing himself in communication with the
+Archduke John, who was on his way from Italy. An attack made upon this
+position by the Bavarians being repulsed, Napoleon despatched Marshal
+Lefebvre, duke of Dantzig, from Salzburg with a considerable force to
+their assistance. Lefebvre spoke German, was a rough soldier, treated
+the peasants as robbers instead of legitimate foes, shot every leader
+who fell into his hands, and gave his soldiery license to commit every
+description of outrage on the villagers. The greater part of the
+Tyrolese occupying the pass of Strub having quitted their post on
+Ascension Day in order to attend divine service, the rest were, after
+a gallant resistance, overpowered and mercilessly butchered.
+Chasteler, anxious to repair his late negligence, advanced against the
+Bavarians in the open valley of the Inn and was overwhelmed by
+superior numbers at Wörgl. Speckbacher, followed by his peasantry,
+again made head against the enemy, whom, notwithstanding the
+destruction caused in his ranks by their rapid and well-directed fire,
+he twice drove out of Schwatz. The Bavarians, nevertheless, succeeded
+in forcing an entrance into the town, which they set on fire after
+butchering all the inhabitants, hundreds of whom were hanged to the
+trees or had their hands nailed to their heads. These cruelties were
+not, even in a single instance, imitated by the Tyrolese. The proposal
+to send their numerous Bavarian prisoners home maimed of one ear, as a
+mode of recognition in case they should again serve against the Tyrol,
+was rejected by Hofer. The unrelenting rage of the Bavarians was
+solely roused by the unsparing ridicule of the Tyrolese, by whom they
+were nicknamed, on account of the general burliness of their figures
+and their fondness for beer, Bavarian hogs, and who, the moment they
+came within hearing, would call out to them, as to a herd of pigs,
+"Tschu, Tschu, Tschu--Natsch, Natsch." The Bavarians, intoxicated with
+success, advanced further up the country, surrounded the village of
+Vomp, set it on fire amid the sound of kettledrums and hautboys, and
+shot the inhabitants as they attempted to escape from the burning
+houses. Chasteler and Hormayr were, during this robber-campaign, as it
+was termed by the French, proscribed as _chefs de brigands_ by
+Napoleon. Count Tannenberg, the descendant of the oldest of the
+baronial families in the Tyrol, a blind and venerable man, who was
+also taken prisoner _en route_, replied with dignity to the censure
+heaped upon him by Wrede, and at Munich defended his country's cause
+before the king.[6] The officers, whom he had treated with extreme
+politeness, rose from his hospitable board to set fire to his castle
+over his head. The Scharnitz was yielded, and the Bavarians under Arco
+penetrated also on that side into the country.--Jellachich, upon this,
+retired upon Carinthia, and was followed through the Pusterthal by
+Chasteler, who dreaded being cut off. The peasants, incredulous of
+their abandonment by Austria, implored, entreated him to remain, to
+which, for the sake of freeing himself from their importunities, he at
+length consented, but they had no sooner dispersed in order to summon
+the people again to the conflict than he retired. Hofer, on returning
+to the spot, merely finding a small body of troops under the command
+of General Buol, who had received orders to bring up the rear, threw
+himself in despair on a bed. Eisenstecken, his companion and adjutant,
+however, instantly declared that the departure of the soldiers must,
+at all hazards, be prevented. The officers signed a paper by which
+they bound themselves, even though contrary to the express orders of
+the general, to remain. Buol, upon this, yielded and remained, but,
+during the fearful battle that ensued, remained in the post-house on
+the Brenner, inactively watching the conflict, which terminated in the
+triumph of the peasantry. Hormayr completely absconded and attempted
+to escape into Switzerland.
+
+Innsbruck was surrendered by Teimer to the French, on the 19th of May.
+Napoleon's defeat, about this time, at Aspern having however compelled
+Lefebvre to return hastily to the Danube, leaving merely a part of the
+Bavarians with General Deroy in Innsbruck, the Tyrolese instantly
+seized the opportunity, and Hofer, Eisenstecken, and the gallant
+Speckbacher boldly assembled the whole of the peasantry on the
+mountain of Isel. Peter Thalguter led the brave and gigantic men of
+Algund. Haspinger, the Capuchin, nicknamed Redbeard, appeared on this
+occasion for the first time in the guise of a commander and displayed
+considerable military talent. An incessant struggle was carried on
+from the 25th to the 29th of May.[7] Deroy, repulsed from the mountain
+of Isel with a loss of almost three thousand men, simulated an
+intention to capitulate, and withdrew unheard during the night by
+muffling the horses' hoofs and the wheels of the artillery carriages
+and enjoining silence under pain of death. Speckbacher attempted to
+impede his retreat at Hall, but arrived too late.[8] Teimer was
+accused of having been remiss in his duty through jealousy of the
+common peasant leaders. Arco escaped by an artifice similar to that of
+Deroy and abandoned the Scharnitz. The Vorarlbergers again spread as
+far as Kempten. Hormayr also returned, retook the reins of government,
+imposed taxes, flooded the country with useless law-scribbling, and,
+at the same time, refused to grant the popular demand for the
+convocation of the Tyrolean diet. After the victory of Aspern, the
+emperor declared, "My faithful county of Tyrol shall henceforward ever
+remain incorporated with the Austrian empire, and I will agree to no
+treaty of peace save one indissolubly uniting the Tyrol with my
+monarchy." During this happy interval, Speckbacher besieged the
+fortress of Cuffstein, where he performed many signal acts of
+valor.[9]
+
+The disaster of Wagram followed, and, in the ensuing armistice, the
+Emperor Francis was compelled to agree to the withdrawal of the whole
+of his troops from the Tyrol. The Archduke John is said to have given
+a hint to General Buol to remain in the Tyrol as if retained there by
+force by the peasantry, instead of which both Buol and Hormayr hurried
+their retreat, after issuing a miserable proclamation, in which they
+"recommended the Tyrolese to the care of the duke of Dantzig."
+Lefebvre actually again advanced at the head of thirty to forty
+thousand French, Bavarians and Saxons. The courage of the unfortunate
+peasantry naturally sank. Hofer alone remained unshaken, and said, on
+bidding Hormayr farewell, "Well, then, I will undertake the
+government, and, as long as God wills, name myself Andrew Hofer, host
+of the Sand at Passeyr, Count of the Tyrol." Hormayr laughed.--A
+general dispersion took place. Hofer alone remained. When, resolute in
+his determination not to abandon his native soil, he was on his way
+back to his dwelling, he encountered Speckbacher hurrying away in a
+carriage in the company of some Austrian officers. "Wilt thou also
+desert thy country?" was Hofer's sad demand. Buol, in order to cover
+his retreat, sent back eleven guns and nine hundred Bavarian prisoners
+to General Rusca, who continued to threaten the Pusterthal.
+
+In the mountains all was tranquil, and the advance of the French
+columns was totally unopposed. Hofer, concealed in a cavern amid the
+steep rocks overhanging his native vale, besought Heaven for aid, and,
+by his enthusiastic entreaties, succeeded in persuading the brave
+Capuchin, Joachim Haspinger, once more to quit the monastery of
+Seeben, whither he had retired. A conference was held at Brixen
+between Haspinger, Martin Schenk, the host of the _Krug_, a jovial man
+of powerful frame, Kemnater, and a third person of similar calling,
+Peter Mayer, host of the Mare, who bound themselves again to take up
+arms in the Eastern Tyrol, while Hofer, in person, raised the Western
+Tyrol. Speckbacher, to the delight of the three confederates,
+unexpectedly made his appearance at this conjuncture. Deeply wounded
+by the reproach contained in the few words addressed to him by Hofer,
+he had, notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of his companions,
+quitted them on arriving at the nearest station and hastened to retake
+his post in defence of his country.
+
+Lefebvre had already entered Innsbruck, and, according to his brutal
+custom, had plundered the villages and reduced them to ashes; he had
+also published a proscription-list[10] instead of the amnesty. A
+desperate resistance now commenced. The whole of the Tyrol again flew
+to arms; the young men placed in their green hats the bunch of
+rosemary gathered by the girl of their heart, the more aged a
+peacock's plume, the symbol of the house of Habsburg, all carried the
+rifle, so murderous in their hands; they made cannons of larch-wood,
+bound with iron rings, which did good service; they raised abatis,
+blew up rooks, piled immense masses of stone on the extreme edges of
+the precipitous rocks commanding the narrow vales, in order to hurl
+them upon the advancing foe, and directed the timber-slides in the
+forest-grown mountains, or those formed of logs by means of which the
+timber for building was usually run into the valleys, in such a manner
+upon the most important passes and bridges, as to enable them to shoot
+enormous trees down upon them with tremendous velocity.
+
+Lefebvre resolved to advance with the main body of his forces across
+the Brenner to Botzen, whither another corps under Burscheidt also
+directed its way through the upper valley of the Inn, the Finstermunz,
+and Meran, while a third under Rusca came from Carinthia through the
+Pusterthal, and a fourth under Peyry was on the march from Verona
+through the vale of the Adige. These various _corps d'armée_, by which
+the Tyrol was thus attacked simultaneously on every point, were to
+concentrate in the heart of the country. Lefebvre found the Brenner
+open. The Tyrolese, headed by Haspinger, had burned the bridges on the
+Oberau and awaited the approach of the enemy on the heights commanding
+the narrow valley of Eisach. The Saxons under Rouyer were sent in
+advance by Lefebvre to shed their blood for a foreign despot. Rocks
+and trees hurled by the Tyrolese into the valley crushed numbers of
+them to death. Rouyer, after being slightly hurt by a rolling mass of
+rock, retreated after leaving orders to the Saxon regiment, composed
+of contingents from Weimar, Gotha, Coburg, Hildburghausen, Altenburg,
+and Meiningen, commanded by Colonel Egloffstein, to retain its
+position in the Oberau. This action took place on the 4th of August.
+The Saxons, worn out by the fatigue and danger to which they were
+exposed, were compelled, on the ensuing day, to make head in the
+narrow vale against overwhelming numbers of the Tyrolese, whose
+incessant attacks rendered a moment's repose impossible. Although
+faint with hunger and with the intensity of the heat, a part of the
+troops under Colonel Egloffstein succeeded in forcing their way
+through, though at an immense sacrifice of life,[11] and fell back
+upon Rouyer, who had taken up a position at Sterzing without fighting
+a stroke in their aid, and who expressed his astonishment at their
+escape. The rest of the Saxon troops were taken prisoners, after a
+desperate resistance, in the dwelling-houses of Oberau.[12] They had
+lost nearly a thousand men. The other _corps d'armée_ met with no
+better fate. Burscheidt merely advanced up the valley of the Inn as
+far as the bridges of Pruz, whence, being repulsed by the Tyrolese and
+dreading destruction, he retreated during the dark night of the 8th of
+August. His infantry crept, silent and unheard, across the bridge of
+Pontlaz, of such fatal celebrity in 1703, which was strictly watched
+by the Tyrolese. The cavalry cautiously followed, but were betrayed by
+the sound of one of the horses' feet. Rocks and trees were in an
+instant hurled upon the bridge, crushing men and horses and blocking
+up the way. The darkness that veiled the scene but added to its
+horrors. The whole of the troops shut up beyond the bridge were either
+killed or taken prisoner. Burscheidt reached Innsbruck with merely a
+handful of men, completely worn out by the incessant pursuit. Rusca
+was also repulsed, between the 6th and the 11th of August
+(particularly at the bridge of Lienz), in the Pusterthal, by brave
+Antony Steger. Rusca had set two hundred farms on fire. Twelve hundred
+of his men were killed, and his retreat was accelerated by Steger's
+threat to roast him, in case he fell into his hands, like a scorpion,
+within a fiery circle. Peyry did not venture into the country.
+
+Lefebvre, who had followed to the rear of the Saxon troops from
+Innsbruck, bitterly reproached them with their defeat, but, although
+he placed himself in advance, did not succeed in penetrating as far as
+they had up the country. At Mauls, his cavalry were torn from their
+saddles and killed with clubs, and he escaped, with great difficulty,
+after losing his cocked hat. His corps, notwithstanding its numerical
+strength, was unable to advance a step further. The Capuchin harassed
+his advanced guard from Mauls and was seconded by Speckbacher from
+Stilfs, while Count Arco was attacked to his rear at Schonberg by
+multitudes of Tyrolese. The contest was carried on without
+intermission from the 5th to the 10th of August. Lefebvre was finally
+compelled to retreat with his thinned and weary troops.[13] On the
+11th, Deroy posted himself with the rearguard on the mountain of Isel.
+The Capuchin, after reading mass under the open sky to his followers,
+again attacked him on the 13th. A horrible slaughter ensued. Four
+hundred Bavarians, who had fallen beneath the clubs of their
+infuriated antagonists, lay in a confused heap. The enemy evacuated
+Innsbruck and the whole of the Tyrol.[14] Count Arco was one of the
+last victims of this bloody campaign.
+
+The _Sandwirth_, placed himself at the head of the government at
+Innsbruck. Although a simple peasant and ever faithful to the habits
+of his station,[15] he laid down some admirable rules, convoked a
+national assembly, and raised the confidence of the people of
+Carinthia, to whom he addressed a proclamation remarkable for dignity.
+He hoped, at that time, by summoning the whole of the mountain tribes
+to arms and leading them to Vienna, to compel the enemy to accede to
+more favorable terms of peace. Speckbacher penetrated into the
+district of Salzburg, defeated the Bavarians at Lofers and Unken, took
+one thousand seven hundred prisoners, and advanced as far as
+Reichenhall and Melek. The Capuchin proposed, in his zeal, to storm
+Salzburg and invade Carinthia, but was withheld by Speckbacher, who
+saw the hazard attached to the project, as well as the peril that
+would attend the departure of the Tyrolese from their country. His
+plan merely consisted in covering the eastern frontier. His son,
+Anderle, who had escaped from his secluded Alp, unexpectedly joined
+him and fought at his side. Speckbacher was stationed at Melek, where
+he drove Major Rummele with his Bavarian battalion into the Salzach,
+but was shortly afterward surprised by treachery. He had already been
+deprived of his arms, thrown to the ground, and seriously injured with
+blows dealt with a club, when, furiously springing to his feet, he
+struck his opponents to the earth and escaped with a hundred of his
+men across a wall of rock unscalable save by the foot of the expert
+and hardy mountaineer. His young son was torn from his side and taken
+captive. The king, Maximilian Joseph, touched by his courage and
+beauty, sent for him and had him well educated.--The Capuchin, who had
+reached Muhrau in Styria, was also compelled to retire.
+
+The peace of Vienna, in which the Tyrolese were not even mentioned,
+was meanwhile concluded. The restoration of the Tyrol to Bavaria was
+tacitly understood, and, in order to reduce the country to obedience,
+three fresh armies again approached the frontiers, the Italian, Peyry,
+from the south through the valley of the Adige, and Baraguay
+d'Hilliers from the west through the Pusterthal; the former suffered a
+disastrous defeat above Trent, but was rescued from utter destruction
+by General Vial, who had followed to his rear, and who, as well as
+Baraguay, advanced as far as Brixen.[16] Drouet d'Erlon, with the main
+body of the Bavarians, came from the north across the Strub and the
+Loferpass, and gained forcible possession of the Engpass. Hofer had
+been persuaded by the priest, Donay, to relinquish the anterior passes
+into the country and Innsbruck, and to take up a strong position on
+the fortified mountain of Isel. Speckbacher arrived too late to defend
+Innsbruck, and, enraged at the ill-laid plan of defence, threw a body
+of his men into the Zillerthal in order to prevent the Bavarians from
+falling upon Hofer's rear. He was again twice wounded at the storming
+of the Kemmberg, which had already been fortified by the Bavarians. On
+the 25th of October, the Bavarians entered Innsbruck and summoned
+Hofer to capitulate. During the night of the 30th, Baron Lichtenthurm
+appeared in the Tyrolese camp, announced the conclusion of peace, and
+delivered a letter from the Archduke John, in which the Tyrolese were
+commanded peaceably to disperse and no longer to offer their lives a
+useless sacrifice. There was no warrant for the future, not a memory
+of an earlier pledge. The commands of their beloved master were obeyed
+by the Tyrolese with feelings of bitter regret, and a complete
+dispersion took place. Speckbacher alone maintained his ground, and
+repulsed the enemy on the 2d and 3d of November, but, being told, in a
+letter, by Hofer, "I announce to you that Austria has made peace with
+France and has forgotten the Tyrol," he gave up all further
+opposition, and Mayer and Kemnater, who had gallantly made head
+against General Rusca at the Muhlbacher Klause, followed his example.
+
+The tragedy drew to a close. Hofer returned to his native vale, where
+the people of Passeyr and Algund, resolved at all hazards not to
+submit to the depredations of the Italian brigands under Rusca,
+flocked around him and compelled him to place himself at their head
+for a last and desperate struggle. Above Meran, the French were thrown
+in such numbers from the _Franzosenbuhl_, which still retains its
+name, that "they fell like a shower of autumnal leaves into the city."
+The horses belonging to a division of cavalry intended to surround the
+insurgent peasantry were all that returned; their riders had been shot
+to a man. Rusca lost five hundred dead and one thousand seven hundred
+prisoners. The Capuchin was also present, and generously saved the
+captive Major Doreille, whose men had formerly set fire to a village,
+from the hands of the infuriated peasantry. But a traitor guided the
+enemy to the rear of the brave band of patriots; Peter Thalguter fell,
+and Hofer took refuge amid the highest Alps.--Kolb, who was by some
+supposed to be an English agent, but who was simply an enthusiast,
+again summoned the peasantry around Brixen to arms. The peasantry
+still retained such a degree of courage, as to set up an enormous
+barn-door as a target for the French artillery, and at every shot up
+jumped a ludicrous figure. Resistance had, however, ceased to be
+general; the French pressed in ever-increasing numbers through the
+valleys, disarmed the people, the majority of whom, obedient to
+Hofer's first mandate, no longer attempted opposition, and took their
+leaders captive. Peter Mayer was shot at Botzen. His life was offered
+to him on condition of his denying all participation in the patriotic
+struggles of his countrymen, but he disdained a lie and boldly faced
+death. Those among the peasantry most distinguished for gallantry were
+either shot or hanged. Baur, a Bavarian author, who had fought against
+the Tyrolese, and is consequently a trusty witness, remarks that all
+the Tyroleso patriots, without exception, evinced the greatest
+contempt of death. The struggle recommenced in the winter, but was
+merely confined to the Pusterthal. A French division under Broussier
+was cut off on the snowed-up roads and shot to a man by the peasantry.
+
+Hofer at first took refuge with his wife and child in a narrow rocky
+hollow in the Kellerlager, afterward in the highest Alpine hut, near
+the Oetzthaler Firner in the wintry desert. Vainly was he implored to
+quit the country; his resolution to live or to die on his native soil
+was unchangeable. A peasant named Raffel, unfortunately descrying the
+smoke from the distant hut, discovered his place of concealment, and
+boasted in different places of his possession of the secret of his
+hiding-place. This came to the ears of Father Donay, a traitor in the
+pay of France;[17] Raffel was arrested, and, in the night of the 27th
+of January, 1810, guided one thousand six hundred French and Italian
+troops to the mountain, while two thousand French were quartered in
+the circumjacent country. Hofer yielded himself prisoner with calm
+dignity. The Italians abused him personally, tore out his beard, and
+dragged him pinioned, half naked and barefoot, in his night-dress,
+over ice and snow to the valley. He was then put into a carriage and
+carried into Italy to the fortress of Mantua. No one interceded in his
+behalf. Napoleon sent orders by the Paris telegraph to shoot him
+within four-and-twenty hours. He prepared cheerfully for death.[18] On
+being led past the other Tyrolese prisoners, they embraced his knees,
+weeping. He gave them his blessing. His executioners halted not far
+from the Porta Chiesa, where, placing himself opposite the twelve
+riflemen selected for the dreadful office, he refused either to allow
+himself to be blindfolded or to kneel. "I stand before my Creator," he
+exclaimed with a firm voice, "and standing will I restore to Him the
+spirit He gave!" He gave the signal to fire, but the men, it may be,
+too deeply moved by the scene, missed their aim. The first fire
+brought him on his knees, the second stretched him on the ground, and
+a corporal, advancing, terminated his misery by shooting him through
+the head, February 29, 1810.--At a later period, when Mantua again
+became Austrian, the Tyrolese bore his remains back to his native
+Alps. A handsome monument of white marble was erected to his memory in
+the church at Innsbruck; his family was ennobled. Count Alexander of
+Wurtemberg has poetically described the restoration of his remains to
+the Tyrol, for which he so nobly fought and died.
+
+  "How was the gallant hunter's breast
+    With mingled feelings torn,
+  As slowly winding 'mid the Alps,
+    His hero's corpse was borne!
+
+  "The ancient Gletcher, glowing red,
+    Though cold their wonted mien,
+  Bright radiance shed o'er Hofer's head,
+    Loud thundered the lavine!"
+
+Haspinger, the brave Capuchin, escaped unhurt to Vienna, in which
+Joseph Speckbacher, the greatest hero of this war, also succeeded,
+after unheard-of suffering and peril.--The Bavarians in pursuit of him
+searched the mountains in troops, and vowed to "cut his skin into
+boot-straps, if they caught him." Speckbacher attempted to escape into
+Austria, but was unable to go beyond Dux, the roads being blocked up
+with snow. At Dux, the Bavarians came upon his trace, and attacking
+the house in which he had taken refuge, he escaped by leaping through
+the roof, but again wounded himself. During the ensuing twenty-seven
+days, he wandered about the snow-clad forests, exposed to the bitter
+cold and in danger of starvation. During four consecutive days he did
+not taste food. He at length found an asylum in a hut in a high and
+exposed situation at Bolderberg, where he by chance fell in with his
+wife and children, who had also taken refuge there. The watchful
+Bavarians pursued him even here, and he merely owed his escape to the
+presence of mind with which, taking a sledge upon his shoulders, he
+advanced toward them as if he had been the servant of the house. No
+longer safe in this retreat, he hid himself in a cave on the
+Gemshaken, whence he was, in the beginning of spring, carried by a
+snow-ravine a mile and a half into the valley. He contrived to
+disengage himself from the snow, but one of his legs had been
+dislocated and rendered it impossible for him to regain his cave.
+Suffering unspeakable anguish, he crept to the nearest hut, where he
+found two men, who carried him to his own house at Rinn, whither his
+wife had returned. But Bavarians were quartered in the house, and his
+only place of refuge was the cow-shed, where Zoppel, his faithful
+servant, dug for him a hole beneath the bed of one of the cows, and
+daily brought him food. The danger of discovery was so great that his
+wife was not made acquainted with his arrival. He remained in this
+half-buried state for seven weeks, until rest had so far invigorated
+his frame as to enable him to escape across the high mountain passes,
+now freed by the May sun from the snow. He accordingly rose from his
+grave and bade adieu to his sorrowing wife. He reached Vienna without
+encountering further mishap, but gained no thanks for his heroism. He
+was compelled to give up a small estate that he had purchased with the
+remains of his property, the purchase-money proving insufficient, and
+he must have been consigned to beggary, had not Hofer's son, who had
+received a fine estate from the emperor, engaged him as his steward.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Without any attempt being made on the part of the
+government to prepare the minds of the people by proper instruction,
+the children were taken away by force in order to be inoculated for
+the smallpox. The mothers, under an idea that their infants were being
+bewitched or poisoned, trembled with rage and fear, while the Bavarian
+authorities and their servants mocked their dismay.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Hofer was, in 1790, as the deputy of the Passeyrthal, a
+member of the diet at Innsbruck which so zealously opposed the reforms
+attempted by Joseph II.; he had fought, as captain of a rifle corps,
+against the French in 1796, and, in 1805, when bidding farewell to the
+Archduke John on the enforced cession of the Tyrol by Austria to
+Bavaria, had received a significant shake of the hand with an
+expressed hope of seeing him again in better times. Hofer traded in
+wine, corn and horses, was well known and highly esteemed as far as
+the Italian frontier. He had a Herculean form and was remarkably
+good-looking. He wore a low-crowned, broad-brimmed black Tyrolean hat,
+ornamented with green ribbons and the feathers of the capercalzie. His
+broad chest was covered with a red waistcoat, across which green
+braces, a hand in breadth, were fastened to black chamois-leather
+knee-breeches. His knees were bare, but his well-developed calves were
+covered with red stockings. A broad black leathern girdle clasped his
+muscular form. Over all was thrown a short green coat without buttons.
+His long dark-brown beard, that fell in rich curls upon his chest,
+added dignity to his appearance. His full, broad countenance was
+expressive of good-humor and honesty. His small, penetrating eyes
+sparkled with vivacity.]
+
+[Footnote 3: A youth of two-and-twenty, slight in person and extremely
+handsome, at that time a bridegroom, and inspired by the deepest
+hatred of the Bavarians, by whose officers he had been personally
+insulted.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The daughter of a tailor, named Camper. As the balls flew
+around her, she shouted, "On with ye! who cares for Bavarian
+dumplings!"]
+
+[Footnote 5: The Austrian general, Marschall, who had been sent to
+guard the Southern Tyrol, was removed for declaring that he deemed it
+an insult for the military to make common cause with peasants and for
+complaining of his being compelled to sit down to table with Hofer.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Proclamation of the emperor Francis to the Tyrolese:
+"Willingly do I anticipate your wish to be regarded as the most
+faithful subjects of the Austrian empire. Never again shall the sad
+fate of being torn from my heart befall you."]
+
+[Footnote 7: The Count von Stachelburg from Meran, who fought as a
+volunteer among the peasantry, fell at that time. He was the last of
+his race.]
+
+[Footnote 8: He was joined here by his son Anderl, a child ten years
+of age, who collected the enemy's balls in his hat, and so obstinately
+refused to quit the field of battle that his father was compelled to
+have him carried by force to a distant alp.]
+
+[Footnote 9: He paid a visit, in disguise, to the commandant within
+the fortress, extinguished a grenade with his hat, crept undiscovered
+into the fortress and spoiled the fire-engines, cut loose the ships
+moored beneath the walls, etc. Joseph Speckbacher of the Innthal was
+an open-hearted, fine-spirited fellow, endowed with a giant's
+strength, and the best marksman in the country. His clear bright eye
+could, at the distance of half a mile, distinguish the bells on the
+necks of the cattle. In his youth, he was addicted to poaching, and
+being, on one occasion, when in the act of roasting a chamois,
+surprised by four Bavarian Jäger, he unhesitatingly dashed the melted
+fat of the animal into their faces, and, quick as lightning, dealt
+each of them a deathblow with the butt-end of his rifle.]
+
+[Footnote 10: He cited the following names immortal in the Tyrol: A.
+Hofer, Straub of Hall, Reider of Botzen, Bombardi, postmaster of
+Salurn, Morandel of Kaltern, Resz of Fleims, Tschöll of Meran,
+Frischmann of Schlanders, Senn, sheriff of Nauders, Fischer, actuary
+of Landek, Strehle, burgomaster of Imbst, Plawen, governor of Reutti,
+Major Dietrich of Lermos, Aschenbacher, governor of the Achenthal,
+Sieberer of Cuffstein, Wintersteller of Kisbüchl, Kolb of Lienz, Count
+Sarntheim, Peer, counsellor to the court of appeal. Count Sarntheim
+was taken prisoner and carried into Bavaria, together with the heroic
+Baroness of Sternbach, who, mounted on horseback and armed with
+pistols, accompanied the patriot force and aided in the command. She
+was seized in her castle of Mühlan, imprisoned in a house of
+correction at Munich, and afterward carried to Strasburg, was deprived
+of the whole of her property, ignominiously treated, and threatened
+with death, but never lost courage.--_Beda, Water's Tyrol._
+Wintersteller was a descendant of the brave host of the same name who,
+in 1703, adorned his house, which was afterward occupied by
+Wintersteller, with the trophies won from the Bavarians.]
+
+[Footnote 11: When incessantly pursued and ready to drop with fatigue,
+they found a cask of wine, and a drummer, knocking off its head,
+stooped down to drink, when he was pierced with a bullet, and his
+blood mingled with the liquor, which was, nevertheless, greedily
+swallowed by the famishing soldiery.--_Jacob's Campaign of the
+Gotha-Altenburgers._]
+
+[Footnote 12: The Tyrolese aimed at the windows and shot every one who
+looked out. As soon as the houses were, by this means, filled with the
+dead and wounded, they stormed them and took the survivors prisoner.
+Two hundred and thirty men of Weimar and Coburg, commanded by Major
+Germar, defended themselves to the last; the house in which they were
+being at length completely surrounded and set on fire by the Tyrolese,
+they surrendered. This spot was afterward known as the
+"_Sachsenklemme_." Seven hundred Saxon prisoners escaped from their
+guards and took refuge on the _Krimmer Tauern_, where they were
+recaptured by the armed women and girls.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Bartholdy relates that Lefebvre, disguised as a common
+soldier, mingled with the cavalry in order to escape the balls of the
+Tyrolese sharpshooters. A man of Passeyr is said to have captured a
+three-pounder and to have carried it on his shoulders across the
+mountain. The Tyrolese would even carry their wounded enemies
+carefully on their shoulders to their villages. A Count Mohr greatly
+distinguished himself among the people of Vintschgau. The spirit shown
+by an old man above eighty years of age, who, after shooting a number
+of the enemy from a rock on which he had posted himself, threw
+himself, exclaiming "Juhhe! in God's name!" down the precipice, with a
+Saxon soldier, by whom he had been seized, is worthy of record.]
+
+[Footnote 14: Von Seebach, in his History of the Ducal Saxon Regiment,
+graphically describes the flight. During the night time, all the
+mountains around the beautiful valley of Innsbruck were lighted up
+with watch-fires. Lefebvre ordered his to be kept brightly burning
+while his troops silently withdrew.]
+
+[Footnote 15: He did not set himself above his equals and followed his
+former simple mode of life. The emperor of Austria sent him a golden
+chain and three thousand ducats, the first money received by the Tyrol
+from Austria; but Hofer's pride was not raised by this mark of favor,
+and the naivete of his reply on this occasion has often been a subject
+of ridicule: "Sirs, I thank you. I have no news for you to-day. I
+have, it is true, three couriers on the road, the Watscher-Hiesele,
+the Sixten-Seppele, and the Memmele-Franz, and the Schwanz ought long
+to have been here; I expect the rascal every hour." The honest fellow
+permitted no pillage, no disorderly conduct; he even guarded the
+public morals with such strictness as to publish the following orders
+against the half-naked mode, imported by the French, at that time
+followed by the women: "Many of my good fellow-soldiers and defenders
+of their country have complained that the women of all ranks cover
+their bosoms and arms too little, or with transparent dresses, and by
+these means raise sinful desires highly displeasing to God and to all
+piously-disposed persons. It is hoped that they will, by better
+behavior, preserve themselves from the punishment of God, and, in case
+of the contrary, must solely blame themselves should they find
+themselves disagreeably covered. Andre Hofer, chief in command in the
+Tyrol."]
+
+[Footnote 16: During the pillage of the monastery of Seeben by the
+French, a nun, in order to escape from their hands, cast herself from
+the summit of the rock into the valley.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Donay had devoted himself to the service of the church,
+but having committed a theft, had been refused ordination. Napoleon
+rewarded him for his treachery with ordination and the appointment of
+chaplain in the _Santa Casa_ at Loretto.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Four hours before his execution he wrote to his
+brother-in-law, Pöhler, "My beloved, the hostess, is to have mass read
+for my soul at St. Marin by the rosy-colored blood. She is to have
+prayers read in both parishes, and is to let the sub-landlord give my
+friends soup, meat, and half a bottle of wine each. The money I had
+with me I have distributed to the poor; as for the rest, settle my
+accounts with the people as justly as you can. All in the world adieu,
+until we all meet in heaven eternally to praise God. Death appears to
+me so easy that my eyes have not once been wet on that account.
+Written at five o'clock in the morning, and at nine o'clock I set off
+with the aid of all the saints on my journey to God."]
+
+
+
+CCLVIII. Napoleon's Supremacy
+
+
+Napoleon had, during the great war in Austria, during the intermediate
+time between the battles of Aspern and Wagram, caused the person of
+the pope, Pius VII., to be seized, and had incorporated the state of
+the church with his Italian kingdom. The venerable pope, whose
+energies were called forth by misfortune, astonished Christendom by
+his bold opposition to the ruler over the destinies of Europe, before
+whom he had formerly bent in humble submission, and for whose
+coronation he had condescended to visit Paris in person. The
+reestablishment of Catholicism in France by Napoleon had rendered the
+pope deeply his debtor, but Napoleon's attempt to deprive him of all
+temporal power, and to render him, as the first bishop of his realm,
+subordinate to himself, called forth a sturdy opposition. Napoleon no
+sooner spoke the language of Charlemagne than the pope responded in
+the words of Gregory VII. and of Innocent IV.: "Time has produced no
+change in the authority of the pope; now as ever does the pope reign
+supreme over the emperors and kings of the earth." The diplomatic
+dispute was carried on for some time, owing to Napoleon's expectation
+of the final compliance of the pope.[1] But on his continued refusal
+to submit, the peril with which Napoleon's Italian possessions were
+threatened by the landing of a British force in Italy and by the war
+with Austria, induced him, first of all, to throw a garrison into
+Ancona, and afterward to take possession of Rome, and, as the pope
+still continued obstinate, finally to seize his person, to carry him
+off to France, and to annex the Roman territory to his great empire.
+The anathema hurled by the pope upon Napoleon's head had at least the
+effect of creating a warmer interest in behalf of the pontiff in the
+hearts of the Catholic population and of increasing their secret
+antipathy toward his antagonist.
+
+In 1810, Napoleon annexed Holland and East Friesland "as alluvial
+lands" to France. His brother Louis, who had vainly labored for the
+welfare of Holland, selected a foreign residence and scornfully
+refused to accept the pension settled upon him by Napoleon. The first
+act of the new sovereign of Holland was the imposition of an income
+tax of fifty per cent. Instruction in the French language was enforced
+in all the schools, and all public proclamations and documents were
+drawn up in both Dutch and French.[2] Holland was formed into two
+departments, which were vexed by two prefects, the Conte de Celles and
+Baron Staffart, Belgian renegades and blind tools of the French
+despot, and was, moreover, harassed by the tyrannical and cruel
+espionage, under Duvillieres, Duterrage, and Marivaux, which, in 1812,
+occasioned several ineffectual attempts to throw off the yoke.[3] In
+1811, Holland was also deprived of Batavia, her sole remaining colony,
+by the British.
+
+Lower Saxony, as far as the Baltic, the principalities of Oldenburg,
+Salm, and Aremberg, the Hanse towns, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck,
+were, together with a portion of the kingdom of Westphalia, at the
+same time also incorporated by Napoleon with France, under pretext of
+putting a stop to the contraband trade carried on on those coasts,
+more particularly from the island of Heligoland. He openly aimed at
+converting the Germans, and they certainly discovered little
+disinclination to the metamorphosis, into French. He pursued the same
+policy toward the Italians, and, had he continued to reign, would have
+followed a similar system toward the Poles. The subjection of the
+whole of Italy, Germany, and Poland lay within his power, but, to the
+nations inhabiting those countries he must, notwithstanding their
+incorporation with his universal empire, have guaranteed the
+maintenance of their integrity, a point he had resolved at all hazards
+not to concede. He, consequently, preferred dividing these nations and
+allowing one-half to be governed by princes inimical to him, but whose
+power he despised. His sole dread was patriotism, the popular love of
+liberty. Had he placed himself, as was possible in 1809, on the
+imperial throne of Germany, the consequent unity of that empire must,
+even under foreign sway, have endangered the ruler: he preferred
+gradually to gallicize Germany as she had been formerly romanized by
+her ancient conquerors. His intention to sever the Rhenish provinces
+and Lower Saxony entirely from Germany was clear as day. They received
+French laws, French governors, no German book was allowed to cross
+their frontiers without previous permission from the police, and in
+each department but one newspaper, and that subject to the revision of
+the prefect, was allowed to be published.--In Hamburg, one Baumhauer
+was arrested for an anti-gallic expression and thrown into the
+subterranean dungeons of Magdeburg, where he pined to death. The same
+tyranny was exercised even on the German territory belonging to the
+Rhenish confederation. Becker, privy-councillor of the duke of Gotha,
+was transported beyond the seas for having published a pamphlet
+against France. Several authors were compelled to retire into Sweden
+and Russia; several booksellers were arrested, numerous books were
+confiscated. Not the most trifling publication was permitted within
+the Rhenish confederated states that even remotely opposed the
+interests of France. The whole of the princes of the Rhenish
+confederation were, consequently, under the _surveillance_ of French
+censors and of the literary spies of Germany in the pay of France.
+Hormayr's Archives contain a pamphlet well worthy of perusal, in which
+an account is given of all the arrests and persecutions that took
+place on account of matters connected with the press.--Madame de Staël
+was exiled for having spoken favorably of the German character in her
+work "de l'Allemagne," and the work itself was suppressed; Napoleon,
+on giving these orders, merely said, "Ce livre n'est pas Français,"
+
+His treatment of Switzerland was equally unindulgent. The Valais,
+which, although not forming part of Switzerland, still retained a sort
+of nominal independence, was formally incorporated with France; the
+canton of Tessin was, as arbitrarily, occupied by French troops, an
+immense quantity of British goods was confiscated, the press was
+placed under the strictest censorship, the _Erzähler_ of Muller-
+Friedeberg, the only remaining Swiss newspaper of liberal tendency,
+was suppressed, while Zschokke unweariedly lauded Napoleon to the
+skies as the regenerator of the liberties of Switzerland and as the
+savior of the world. A humble entreaty of the Swiss for mercy was
+scornfully refused by Napoleon. Instead of listening to their
+complaints, he reproached their envoys, who were headed by Reinhard of
+Zurich, in the most violent terms, charged the Swiss with conspiracy,
+and said that a certain Sydler had ventured to speak against him in
+the federal diet, etc.; nor could his assumed anger be pacified save
+by the instant dissolution of the federal diet, by the extension of
+the levy of Swiss recruits for the service of France, and by the
+threat of a terrible punishment to all Swiss who ventured to enter the
+service of England and Spain. The Swiss merely bound their chains
+still closer without receiving the slightest alleviation to their
+sufferings. Reinhard wrote in 1811, the time of this ill-successful
+attempt on the part of the Swiss, "a petty nation possesses no means
+of procuring justice." Why then did the great German nation sever
+itself into so many petty tribes?
+
+The marriage of Napoleon on the 2d of April, 1810, with Maria Louisa,
+the daughter of the emperor of Austria, surrounded his throne with
+additional splendor. This marriage had a double object; that of
+raising an heir to his broad empire, his first wife, Josephine
+Beauharnais, whom he divorced, having brought him no children, and
+that of legitimating his authority and of obliterating the stain of
+low birth by intermingling his blood with that of the ancient race of
+Habsburg. Strange as it must appear for the child of revolution to
+deny the very principles to which he owed his being and to embrace the
+aristocratic ideas of a bygone age, for the proud conqueror of all the
+sovereigns of Europe anxiously to solicit their recognition of him as
+their equal in birth, these apparent contradictions are easily
+explained by the fact that men of liberal ideas were the objects of
+Napoleon's greatest dread and hatred, and that he was consequently
+driven to favor the ancient aristocracy, as he had formerly favored
+the ancient church, and to use them as his tools. Young and rising
+nations, not the ancient families of Europe, threatened his power, and
+he therefore sought to confirm it by an alliance against the former
+with the ancient dynasties.[4] The nuptials were solemnized with
+extraordinary pomp at Paris. The conflagration of the Austrian
+ambassador's, Prince von Schwarzenberg's, house during a splendid fete
+given by him to the newly-wedded pair, and which caused the death of
+several persons, among others, of the Princess Pauline Schwarzenberg,
+the ambassador's sister-in-law, who rushed into the flaming building
+to her daughter's rescue, clouded the festivities with ominous gloom.
+In the ensuing year, 1811, the youthful empress gave birth to a
+prince, Napoleon Francis, who was laid in a silver cradle, and
+provisionally entitled "King of Rome," in notification of his future
+destiny to succeed his father on the throne of the Roman empire.[5]
+
+Austria offered a melancholy contrast to the magnificence of France.
+Exhausted by her continual exertions for the maintenance of the war,
+the state could no longer meet its obligations, and, on the 15th of
+March, 1811, Count Wallis, the minister of finance, lowered the value
+of one thousand and sixty millions of bank paper to two hundred and
+twelve millions, and the interest upon the whole of the state debts to
+half the new paper issue. This fearful state bankruptcy was
+accompanied by the fall of innumerable private firms; trade was
+completely at a standstill, and the contributions demanded by Napoleon
+amounted to a sum almost impossible to realize. Prussia, especially,
+suffered from the drain upon her resources. The beautiful and
+high-souled queen, Louisa, destined not to see the day of vengeance
+and of victory, died, in 1810, of a broken heart.[6]
+
+While Germany lay thus exhausted and bleeding in her chains, Napoleon
+and Alexander put the plans, agreed to between them at Erfurt, into
+execution. Napoleon threw himself with redoubled violence on luckless
+Spain, and the Russians invaded Sweden.
+
+The Germans acted a prominent part in the bloody wars in the
+Peninsula. Four Swiss regiments, that had at an earlier period been in
+the Spanish service, and the German Legion, composed of Hanoverian
+refugees to England, upheld the Spanish cause, while all sorts of
+troops of the Rhenish confederation, those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg
+excepted, several Dutch and four Swiss regiments, fought for Napoleon.
+
+The troops of the Rhenish confederation formed two corps. The fate of
+one of them has been described by Captain Rigel of Baden. The Baden
+regiment was, in 1808, sent to Biscay and united under Lefebvre with
+other contingents of the Rhenish confederation, for instance, with the
+Nassauers under the gallant Von Schäfer, the Dutch under General
+Chasse, the Hessians, the Primates (Frankforters), and Poles. As early
+as October, they fought against the Spaniards at Zornoza, and at the
+pillage of Portugalete first became acquainted with the barbarous
+customs of this terrible civil war. The most implacable hatred,
+merciless rage, the assassination of prisoners, plunder, destruction,
+and incendiarism, equally distinguished both sides. The Germans
+garrisoned Bilboa, gained some successes at Molinar and Valmaseda,
+were afterward placed under the command of General Victor, who arrived
+with a fresh army, were again victorious at Espinosa and Burgos,
+formed a junction with Soult and finally with Napoleon, and, in
+December, 1808, entered Madrid in triumph.--In January, 1809, the
+German troops under Victor again advanced upon the Tagus, and, after a
+desperate conflict, took the celebrated bridge of Almaraz by storm.
+This was followed by the horrid sacking of the little town of Arenas,
+during which a Nassauer named Hornung, not only, like a second Scipio,
+generously released a beautiful girl who had fallen into his hands,
+but sword in hand defended her from his fellow-soldiers. In the
+following March, the Germans were again brought into action, at Mesa
+de Ibor, where Schäfer's Nassauers drove the enemy from their
+position, under a fearful fire, which cut down three hundred of their
+number; and at Medelin, where they were again victorious and massacred
+numbers of the armed Spanish peasantry. Four hundred prisoners were,
+after the battle, shot by order of Marshal Victor. Among the wounded
+on the field of battle there lay, side by side, Preusser, the
+Nassauer, and a Spanish corporal, both of whom had severely suffered.
+A dispute arose between them, in the midst of which they discovered
+that they were brothers. One had entered the French, the other the
+Spanish service.--A Dutch battalion under Storm de Grave, abandoned at
+Merida to the vengeance of the enraged people, was furiously assailed,
+but made a gallant defence and fought its way through the enemy.
+
+In the commencement of 1809, Napoleon had again quitted Spain in order
+to conduct the war on the Danube in person. His marshals, left by him
+in different parts of the Peninsula, took Saragossa, drove the British
+under Sir John Moore out of the country, and penetrated into Portugal,
+but were ere long again attacked by a fresh English army under the
+Duke of Wellington. This rendered the junction of the German troops
+with the main body of the French army necessary, and they consequently
+shared in the defeats of Talavera and Almoncid. Their losses, more
+particularly in the latter engagement, were very considerable,
+amounting in all to two thousand six hundred men; among others,
+General Porbeck of Baden, an officer of noted talent, fell: five
+hundred of their wounded were butchered after the battle by the
+infuriated Spaniards. But Wellington suddenly stopped short in his
+victorious career. It was in December, 1809, when the news of the
+fresh peace concluded by Napoleon with Austria arrived. On the
+Spaniards hazarding a fresh engagement, Wellington left them totally
+unassisted, and, on the 19th of November, they suffered a dreadful
+defeat at Ocasia, where they lost twenty-five thousand men. The
+Rhenish confederated troops were, in reward for the gallantry
+displayed by them on this occasion, charged with the transport of the
+prisoners into France, and were exposed to the whole rigor of the
+climate and to every sort of deprivation while the French withdrew
+into winter quarters. The fatigues of this service greatly thinned
+their ranks. The other German regiments were sent into the Sierra
+Morena, where they were kept ever on the alert guarding that key to
+Spain, while the French under Soult advanced as far as Cadiz, those
+under Massena into Portugal; but Soult being unable to take Cadiz, and
+Massena being forced by the Duke of Wellington to retire, the German
+troops were also driven from their position, and, in 1812, withdrew to
+Valencia, but, in the October of the same year, again advanced with
+Soult upon Madrid.
+
+The second corps of the Rhenish confederated troops was stationed in
+Catalonia, where they were fully occupied. Their fate has been
+described by two Saxon officers, Jacobs and Von Seebach. In the
+commencement of 1809, Reding the Swiss, who had, in 1808, chiefly
+contributed to the capture of the French army at Baylen, commanded the
+whole of the Spanish forces in Catalonia, consisting of forty thousand
+Spaniards and several thousand Swiss; but these guerilla troops,
+almost invincible in petty warfare, were totally unable to stand in
+open battle against the veterans of the French emperor, and Reding was
+completely routed by St. Cyr at Taragona. In St. Cyr's army were eight
+thousand Westphalians under General Morio, three thousand Berglanders,
+fifteen hundred Wurzburgers, from eight to nine hundred men of
+Schwarzburg, Lippe, Waldeck, and Reuss, all of whom were employed in
+the wearisome siege of Gerona, which was defended by Don Alvarez, one
+of Spain's greatest heroes. The popular enthusiasm was so intense that
+even the women took up arms (in the company of St. Barbara) and aided
+in the defence of the walls. The Germans, ever destined to head the
+assault, suffered immense losses on each attempt to carry the place by
+storm. In one attack alone, on the 3d of July, in which they met with
+a severe repulse, they lost two thousand of their men. Their demand of
+a truce for the purpose of carrying their wounded off the field of
+battle was answered by a Spaniard, Colonel Blas das Furnas, "A quarter
+of an hour hence not one of them will be alive!" and the whole of the
+wounded men were, in fact, murdered in cold blood by the Spaniards.
+During a second assault on the 19th of September, sixteen hundred of
+their number and the gallant Colonel Neuff, an Alsatian, who had
+served in Egypt, fell. Gerona was finally driven by famine to
+capitulate, after a sacrifice of twelve thousand men, principally
+Germans, before her walls. Of the eight thousand Westphalians but one
+battalion remained. St. Cyr was, in 1810, replaced by Marshal
+Augereau, but the troops were few in number and worn out with fatigue;
+a large convoy was lost in an unlucky engagement, in which numbers of
+the Germans deserted to the Spanish, and Augereau retired to
+Barcelona, the metropolis of Catalonia, in order to await the arrival
+of reinforcements, among which was a Nassau regiment, one of Anhalt,
+and the identical Saxon corps that had so dreadfully suffered in the
+Tyrol.[7] The Saxon and Nassau troops, two thousand two hundred
+strong, under the command of General Schwarz, an Alsatian, advanced
+from Barcelona toward the celebrated mountain of Montserrat, whose
+hermitages, piled up one above another _en amphitheatre_, excite the
+traveller's wonder. Close in its vicinity lay the city of Manresa, the
+focus of the Catalonian insurrection. The German troops advanced in
+close column, although surrounded by infuriated multitudes, by whom
+every straggler was mercilessly butchered. The two regiments,
+nevertheless, succeeded in making themselves masters of Manresa, where
+they were instantly shut in, furiously assailed, and threatened with
+momentary destruction. The Anhalt troops and a French corps,
+despatched by Augereau to their relief, were repulsed with
+considerable loss. Schwarz now boldly sallied forth, fought his way
+through the Spaniards, and, after losing a thousand men, succeeded in
+reaching Barcelona, but was shortly afterward, after assisting at the
+taking of Hostalrich, surprised at La Bisbal and taken prisoner with
+almost all the Saxon troops. The few that remained fell victims to
+disease.[8] The fate of the prisoners was indeed melancholy. Several
+thousand of them died on the Balearic Islands, chiefly on the island
+of Cabrera, where, naked and houseless, they dug for themselves holes
+in the sand and died in great numbers of starvation. They often also
+fell victims to the fury of the inhabitants. The Swiss engaged in the
+Spanish service, sometimes saved their lives at the hazard of their
+own.
+
+Opposed to them was the German Legion, composed of the brave
+Hanoverians, who had preferred exile in Britain to submission to
+Jerome, and had been sent in British men-of-war to Portugal, whence
+they had, in conjunction with the troops of England and Spain,
+penetrated, in 1808, into the interior of Spain.[9] At Benavente, they
+made a furious charge upon the French and took their long-delayed
+revenge. Linsingen's cavalry cut down all before them; arms were
+severed at a blow, heads were split in two; one head was found cut in
+two across from one ear to the other. A young Hanoverian soldier took
+General Lefebvre prisoner, but allowed himself to be deprived of his
+valuable captive by an Englishman.--The Hanoverians served first under
+Sir John Moore. On the death of that commander at Corunna, the troops
+under his command returned to England: a ship of the line, with two
+Hanoverian battalions on board, was lost during the passage. The
+German Legion afterward served under the Duke of Wellington, and
+shared the dangers and the glory of the war in the Peninsula. "The
+admirable accuracy and rapidity of the German artillery under Major
+Hartmann greatly contributed to the victory of Talavera, and received
+the personal encomiums of the Duke."
+
+Langwerth's brigade gained equal glory. The German Legion was,
+however, never in full force in Spain. A division was, in 1809, sent
+to the island of Walcheren, but shared the ill-success attending all
+the attempts made in the North Sea during Napoleon's reign. The
+conquest and demolition of Vliessingen in August was the only result.
+A pestilence broke out among the troops, and, on Napoleon's successes
+in Austria, it was compelled to return to England. A third division,
+consisting of several Hanoverian regiments, was sent to Sicily,
+accompanied the expedition to Naples in 1809, and afterward guarded
+the rocks of Sicily. The Hanoverians in Spain were also separated into
+various divisions, each of which gained great distinction, more
+particularly so, the corps of General Alten in the storming of
+Ciudad-Rodrigo. In 1812, the Hanoverian cavalry broke three French
+squares at Garcia Hernandez.
+
+The Russians had, meanwhile, invaded Sweden. Gustavus Adolphus,
+hitherto Russia's firmest ally, was suddenly and treacherously
+attacked. General Buxhovden overran Finland, inciting the people, as
+he advanced, to revolt against their lawful sovereign. But the brave
+Finlanders stoutly resisted the attempted imposition of the yoke of
+the barbarous Russ, and, although ill-supported by Sweden, performed
+prodigies of valor. Gustavus Adolphus was devoid of military
+knowledge, and watched, as if sunk in torpor, the ill-planned
+operations of his generals. While the flower of the Swedish troops was
+uselessly employed against Denmark and Norway, Finland was allowed to
+fall into the grasp of Russia.[10] The Russians were already expected
+to land in Sweden, when a conspiracy broke out among the nobility and
+officers of the army, which terminated in the seizure of the king's
+person and his deposition, March, 1809. His son, Gustavus Vasa, the
+present ex-king of Sweden, was excluded from the succession, and his
+uncle Charles, the imbecile and unworthy duke of Sudermania,[11] was
+proclaimed king under the title of Charles XIII. He was put up as a
+scarecrow by the conspirators. Gustavus Adolphus IV. had, at all
+events, shown himself incapable of saving Sweden. But the conspirators
+were no patriots, nor was their object the preservation of their
+country; they were merely bribed traitors, weak and incapable as the
+monarch they had dethroned. They were composed of a party among the
+ancient nobility, impatient of the restrictions of a monarchy, and of
+the younger officers in the army, who were filled with enthusiasm for
+Napoleon. The rejoicings on the occasion of the abdication of Gustavus
+Adolphus were heightened by the news of the victory gained by Napoleon
+at Ratisbon, which, at the same time, reached Stockholm. The new and
+wretched Swedish government instantly deferred everything to Napoleon
+and humbly solicited his favor; but Napoleon, to whom the friendship
+of Russia was, at that time, of higher importance than the submission
+of a handful of intriguants in Sweden, received their homage with
+marked coldness. Finland, shamefully abandoned in her hour of need,
+was immediately ceded to Russia, in consideration of which, Napoleon
+graciously restored Rugen and Swedish-Pomerania to Sweden. Charles
+XIII. adopted, as his son and successor, Christian Augustus, prince of
+Holstein-Augustenburg, who, falling dead off his horse at a
+review,[12] the aged and childless monarch was compelled to make a
+second choice, which fell upon the French general, Bernadotte, who
+had, at one time, been a furious Jacobin and had afterward acted as
+Napoleon's general and commandant in Swedish-Pomerania, where he had,
+by his mildness, gained great popularity. The majority in Sweden
+deemed him merely a creature of Napoleon, whose favor they hoped to
+gain by this flattering choice; others, it may be, already beheld in
+him Napoleon's future foe, and knew the value of the sagacity and
+wisdom with which he was endowed, and of which the want was so deeply
+felt in Sweden at a period when intrigue and cunning had succeeded to
+violence. The Freemasons, with whom he had placed himself in close
+communication, appear to have greatly influenced his election.[13] The
+unfortunate king, Gustavus Adolphus, after being long kept a close
+prisoner in the castle of Gripsholm, where his strong religious bias
+had been strengthened by apparitions,[14] was permitted to retire into
+Germany; he disdainfully refused to accept of a pension, separated
+himself from his consort, a princess of Baden, and lived in proud
+poverty, under the name of Colonel Gustavson, in Switzerland.--
+Bernadotte, the newly adopted prince, took the title of Charles John,
+crown prince of Sweden. Napoleon, who was in ignorance of this
+intrigue, was taken by surprise, but, in the hope of Bernadotte's
+continued fidelity, presented him with a million _en cadeau_;
+Bernadotte had, however, been long jealous of Napoleon's fortune, and,
+solely intent upon gaining the hearts of his future subjects, deceived
+him and secretly permitted the British to trade with Sweden, although
+publicly a party in the continental system.
+
+This system was at this period enforced with exaggerated severity by
+Napoleon. He not only prohibited the importation of all British goods,
+but seized all already sent to the continent and condemned them to be
+publicly burned. Millions evaporated in smoke, principally at
+Amsterdam, Hamburg, Frankfort, and Leipzig. The wealthiest mercantile
+establishments were made bankrupt.
+
+In addition to the other blows at that time zealously bestowed upon
+the dead German lion, the king of Denmark attempted to extirpate the
+German language in Schleswig, but the edict to that effect, published
+on the 19th of January, 1811, was frustrated by the courage of the
+clergy, schoolmasters, and peasantry, who obstinately refused to learn
+Danish.[15]
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The pope, among other things, long refused his consent to
+the second marriage of the king of Westphalia, although that prince's
+first wife was merely a Protestant and an American citizen.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Bilderdyk, whom the Dutch consider as their greatest
+poet, was, nevertheless, at that time, Napoleon's basest flatterer,
+and ever expressed a hypochondriacal and senseless antipathy to
+Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 3: At Amsterdam, in 1811; in the district around Leyden, in
+1812. Insurrections of a similar character were suppressed in April,
+1811, in the country around Liege; in December, 1812, at Aix-la-
+Chapelle; the East Frieslanders also rebelled against the
+conscription.]
+
+[Footnote 4: It was during this year that Napoleon caused the seamless
+coat of the Saviour, which had, during the Revolution, taken refuge at
+Augsburg, to be borne in a magnificent procession to Treves and to be
+exposed for eighteen days to public view. The pilgrims amounted to two
+hundred and fifty thousand.--Hormayr, who had, during the foregoing
+year, summoned the Tyrolese to arms against Napoleon, said in his
+Annual for 1811, "By the marriage of the emperor Napoleon with Maria
+Louisa, the Revolution may be considered as completely terminated and
+peace durably settled throughout Europe."]
+
+[Footnote 5: His birth was celebrated by numerous German poets and by
+general public rejoicings, but with the basest adulation in
+Switzerland. Meyer of Knonau relates, in his History of Switzerland,
+that the king of Rome was at one of the festivals termed "the blessed
+infant." Goethe's poem in praise of Napoleon appeared at this time.
+The clergy also emulated each other in servility.]
+
+[Footnote 6: At that time the noble-hearted poet, Seume, who had
+formerly been a victim of native tyranny, died of sorrow and disgust
+at the rule of the foreigner in Germany, at Toeplitz, 1810.]
+
+[Footnote 7: This regiment was merely rewarded by Napoleon for its
+gallantry with 15 gros (1s. 6-1/4d.) per man, in order to drink to his
+health on his birthday.--_Von Seebach_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: What the feeling among the Germans was is plainly shown
+by the charge against General Beurmann for general ill-treatment of
+his countrymen, whom he was accused of having allowed to perish in the
+hospitals, in order to save the expense of their return home. Out of
+seventy officers and two thousand four hundred and twenty-three
+privates belonging to the Saxon regiment, but thirty-nine officers and
+three hundred and nineteen privates returned to their native country.
+Vide Jacob's Campaigns of the Gotha-Altenburgers and Von Seebach's
+History of the Campaigns of the Saxony Infantry. Von Seebach, who was
+taken prisoner on his return from Manresa, has given a particularly
+detailed and graphic account of the campaign.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Beamish has recounted their exploits in detail. The
+"Recollections of a Legionary," Hanover, 1826, is also worthy of
+perusal.]
+
+[Footnote 10: The gallant acts of the Finlanders and the brutality of
+the Russians are brought forward in Arndt's "Swedish Histories."]
+
+[Footnote 11: When regent, on the death of Gustavus III., he had
+spared his murderers and released those criminated in the conspiracy.
+On the present occasion, he yielded in everything to the aristocracy,
+and voted for the dethronement of his own house, which, as he had no
+children, infallibly ensued on the exclusion of the youthful
+Gustavus.]
+
+[Footnote 12: An extremely suspicious accident, which gave rise to
+many reports.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Vide Posselt's Sixth Annual.]
+
+[Footnote 14: This castle was haunted by the ghost of King Eric XIV.,
+who had long pined here in close imprisonment, and who had once
+before, during a sumptuous entertainment given by Gustavus Adolphus
+IV. to his brother-in-law, the Margrave of Baden, struck the whole
+court with terror by his shrieks and groans.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Wimpfen, History of Schleswig.]
+
+
+
+CCLIX. The Russian Campaign
+
+
+An enormous comet that, during the whole of the hot summer of 1811,
+hung threatening in the heavens, appeared as the harbinger of great
+and important vicissitudes to the enslaved inhabitants of the earth,
+and it was in truth by an act of Divine providence that a dispute
+arose between the two giant powers intent upon the partition of
+Europe.
+
+Napoleon was over-reached by Russia, whose avarice, far from being
+glutted by the possession of Finland, great part of Prussian and
+Austrian Poland, Moldavia, and Wallachia, still craved for more, and
+who built her hopes of Napoleon's compliance with her demands on his
+value for her friendship. Belgrade was seized, Servia demanded, and
+the whole of Turkey in Europe openly grasped at. Napoleon was,
+however, little inclined to cede the Mediterranean to his Russian
+ally, to whose empire he gave the Danube as a boundary. Russia next
+demanded possession of the duchy of Warsaw, which was refused by
+Napoleon. The Austrian marriage was meanwhile concluded. Napoleon,
+prior to his demand for the hand of the archduchess Maria Louisa, had
+sued for that of the grandduchess Anna, sister to the emperor
+Alexander, who was then in her sixteenth year, but, being refused by
+her mother, the empress Maria, a princess of Wurtemberg, and Alexander
+delaying a decisive answer, he formed an alliance with the Habsburg.
+This event naturally led Russia to conclude that she would no longer
+be permitted to aggrandize herself at the expense of Austria, and
+Alexander consequently assumed a threatening posture and condescended
+to listen to the complaints, hitherto condemned to silence, of the
+agricultural and mercantile classes. No Russian vessel durst venture
+out to sea, and a Russian fleet had been seized by the British in the
+harbors of Lisbon. At Riga lay immense stores of grain in want of a
+foreign market. On the 31st of December, 1810, Alexander published a
+fresh tariff permitting the importation of colonial products under a
+neutral flag (several hundred English ships arrived under the American
+flag), and prohibiting the importation of French manufactured goods.
+Not many weeks previously, on the 13th of December, Napoleon had
+annexed Oldenburg to France. The duke, Peter, was nearly related to
+the emperor of Russia, and Napoleon, notwithstanding his declared
+readiness to grant a compensation, refused to allow it to consist of
+the grandduchy of Warsaw, and proposed a duchy of Erfurt, as yet
+uncreated, which Russia scornfully rejected.
+
+The alliance between Russia, Sweden, and England was now speedily
+concluded. Sweden, who had vainly demanded from Napoleon the
+possession of Norway and a large supply of money, assumed a tone of
+indignation, threw open her harbors to the British merchantmen, and so
+openly carried on a contraband trade in Pomerania that Napoleon, in
+order to maintain the continental system, was constrained to garrison
+Swedish-Pomerania and Rugen, and to disarm the Swedish inhabitants.
+Bernadotte, upon this, ranged himself entirely on the side of his
+opponents, without, however, coming to an open rupture, for which he
+awaited a declaration on the part of Russia. The expressions made use
+of by Napoleon on the birth of the king of Rome at length filled up
+the measure of provocation. Intoxicated with success, he boasted, in
+an address to the mercantile classes, that he would in despite of
+Russia maintain the continental system, for he was lord over the whole
+of continental Europe; that if Alexander had not concluded a treaty
+with him at Tilsit he would have compelled him to do so at
+Petersburg.--The pride of the haughty Russian was deeply wounded, and
+a rupture was nigh at hand.
+
+Two secret systems were at this period undermining each other in
+Prussia, that of the _Tugendbund_ founded by Stein and Scharnhorst,
+whose object being the liberation of Germany at all hazards from the
+yoke of Napoleon, consequently, favored Russia, and that of
+Hardenberg, which aimed at a close union with France. Hardenberg,
+whose position as chancellor of state gave him the upper hand, had
+compromised Prussia by the servility with which he sued for an
+alliance long scornfully refused and at length conceded on the most
+humiliating terms by Napoleon.[1]
+
+Russia had, meanwhile, made preparations for a war unanticipated by
+Napoleon. As early as 1811, a great Russian army stood ready for the
+invasion of Poland, and might, as there were at that time but few
+French troops in Germany, easily have advanced as far as the Elbe. It
+remained, nevertheless, in a state of inactivity.[2] Napoleon
+instantly prepared for war and fortified Dantzig. His continual
+proposals of peace, ever unsatisfactory to the ambition of the czar,
+remaining at length unanswered, he declared war. The Rhenish
+confederation followed as usual in his train, and Austria, from an
+interested motive, the hope of regaining in the East by Napoleon's
+assistance all she had lost by opposing him in the West, or that of
+regaining her station as the third European power when the resources
+of the two ruling powers, whose coalition had threatened her
+existence, had been exhausted by war. Prussia also followed the eagles
+of Napoleon: the Hardenberg party, with a view of conciliating him,
+and, like the Rhenish confederation, from motives of gain: the
+_Tugendbund_, which predominated in the army, with silent but
+implacable hate.
+
+In the spring of 1812, Napoleon, after leaving a sufficient force to
+prosecute the war with activity in Spain and to guard France, Italy,
+and Germany,[3] led half a million men to the Russian frontiers.
+Before taking the field, he convoked all the princes of Germany to
+Dresden, where he treated them with such extreme insolence as even to
+revolt his most favored and warmest partisans. Tears were seen to
+start in ladies' eyes, while men bit their lips with rage at the petty
+humiliations and affronts heaped on them by their powerful but
+momentary lord. The empress of Austria[4] and the king of Prussia[5]
+appear, on this occasion, to have felt this most acutely.
+
+For the first time--an event unknown in the history of the world--the
+whole of Germany was reduced to submission. Napoleon, greater than
+conquering Attila, who took the field at the head of one-half of
+Germany against the other, dragged the whole of Germany in his train.
+The army led by him to the steppes of Russia was principally composed
+of German troops, who were so skilfully mixed up with the French as
+not to be themselves aware of their numerical superiority. The right
+wing, composed of thirty thousand Austrians under Schwarzenberg, was
+destined for the invasion of Volhynia; while the left wing, consisting
+of twenty thousand Prussians under York and several thousand French,
+under the command of Marshal Macdonald, was ordered to advance upon
+the coasts of the Baltic and without loss of time to besiege Riga. The
+centre or main body consisted of the troops of the Rhenish
+confederation, more or less mixed up with French; of thirty-eight
+thousand Bavarians under Wrede and commanded by St. Cyr; of sixteen
+thousand Wurtembergers under Scheeler, over whom Marshal Ney was
+allotted the chief command; single regiments, principally cavalry,
+were drawn off in order more thoroughly to intermix the Germans with
+the French; of seventeen thousand Saxons under Reynier; of eighteen
+thousand Westphalians under Vandamme; also of Hessians, Badeners,
+Frankforters, Wurzburgers, Nassauers, in short, of contingents
+furnished by each of the confederated states. The Swiss were mostly
+concentrated under Oudinot. The Dutch, Hanseatic, Flemish, in fine,
+all the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, were at that time
+crammed among the French troops. Upward of two hundred thousand
+Germans, at the lowest computation, marched against Russia, a number
+far superior to that of the French in the army, the remainder of which
+was made up by several thousand Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards,
+who had been pressed into the service.[6]
+
+The Prussians found themselves in the most degraded position. Their
+army, weak as it was in numbers, was placed under the command of a
+French general. The Prussian fortresses, with the exception of
+Colberg, Graudenz, Schweidnitz, Neisse, and Glatz, were already
+garrisoned with French troops, or, like Pillau near Koenigsberg, newly
+occupied by them. In Berlin, the French had unlimited sway. Marshal
+Augereau was stationed with sixty thousand men in Northern Germany for
+the purpose of keeping that part of the country, and more particularly
+Prussia, in check to Napoleon's rear; the Danish forces also stood in
+readiness to support him in case of necessity. Napoleon's entire army
+moreover marched through Prussia and completely drained that country
+of its last resources. Napoleon deemed it unnecessary to take measures
+equal in severity toward Austria, where the favor of the court seemed
+to be secured by his marriage, and the allegiance of the army by the
+presence of Schwarzenberg, who neither rejected nor returned his
+confidence. A rich compensation was, by a secret compact, secured to
+Austria in case the cession of Galicia should be necessitated by the
+expected restoration of the kingdom of Poland, with which Napoleon had
+long flattered the Poles, who, misled by his promises, served him with
+the greatest enthusiasm. But, notwithstanding the removal of the only
+obstacle, the jealousy of Austria in regard to Galicia, by this secret
+compact, his promises remained unfulfilled, and he took possession of
+the whole of Poland without restoring her ancient independence. The
+petitions addressed to him on this subject by the Poles received
+dubious replies, and he pursued toward his unfortunate dupes his
+ancient system of dismembering and intermingling nations, of
+tolerating no national unity. Napoleon's principal motive, however,
+was his expectation of compelling the emperor by a well-aimed blow to
+conclude peace, and of forming with him an alliance upon still more
+favorable terms against the rest of the European powers. The
+friendship of Russia was of far more import to him than all the
+enthusiasm of the Poles.
+
+The deep conviction harbored by Napoleon of his irresistible power led
+him to repay every service and to regard every antagonist with
+contempt. Confident of victory, he deviated from the strict military
+discipline he had at one time enforced and of which he had given an
+example in his own person, dragged in his train a multitude of useless
+attendants fitted but for pomp and luxury, permitted his marshals and
+generals to do the same, and an incredible number of private
+carriages, servants, women, etc., to follow in the rear of the army,
+to hamper its movements, create confusion, and aid in consuming the
+army stores, which being, moreover, merely provided for a short
+campaign, speedily became insufficient for the maintenance of the
+enormous mass. Even in Eastern Prussia, numbers of the soldiery were
+constrained by want to plunder the villages.--On the 24th of June,
+1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, the Russian frontier, not far from
+Kowno. The season was already too far advanced. It may be that,
+deceived by the mildness of the winter of 1806 to 1807, he imagined it
+possible to protract the campaign without peril to himself until the
+winter months. No enemy appeared to oppose his progress. Barclay de
+Tolly,[7] the Russian commander-in-chief, pursued the system followed
+by the Scythians against Darius, and, perpetually retiring before the
+enemy, gradually drew him deep into the dreary and deserted steppes.
+This plan originated with Scharnhorst, by whom General Lieven was
+advised not to hazard an engagement until the winter, and to turn a
+deaf ear to every proposal of peace.[8] General Lieven, on reaching
+Barclay's headquarters, took Colonel Toll, a German, Barclay's right
+hand, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, also a German, afterward
+noted for his strategical works, into his confidence. General Pfull,
+another German, at that time high in the emperor's confidence, and
+almost all the Russian generals opposed Scharnhorst's plan and
+continued to advance with a view of giving battle; but, on Napoleon's
+appearance at the head of an army greatly their superior in number
+before the Russians had been able to concentrate their forces, they
+were naturally compelled to retire before him, and, on the prevention,
+for some weeks, of the junction of a newly-levied Russian army under
+Prince Bragation with the forces under Barclay, owing to the rapidity
+of Napoleon's advance, Scharnhorst's plan was adopted as the only one
+feasible.
+
+Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians and of compelling
+them to give battle, pushed onward by forced marches; the supplies
+were unable to follow, and numbers of the men and horses sank from
+exhaustion owing to over-fatigue, heat, and hunger.[9] On the arrival
+of Napoleon in Witebst, of Schwarzenberg in Volhynia, of the Prussians
+before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland have been
+organized, the men put into winter quarters, the army have again taken
+the field early in the spring, and the conquest of Russia have been
+slowly but surely completed. But Napoleon had resolved upon
+terminating the war in one rapid campaign, upon defeating the
+Russians, seizing their metropolis, and dictating terms of peace, and
+incessantly pursued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were
+marked by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated
+country to their rear. The first serious opposition was made at
+Smolensko,[10] whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after
+setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had
+diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter--in
+which General Deroy, formerly distinguished for his services in the
+Tyrol, was killed--at Poloczk with a body of Russian troops under
+Wittgenstein. The Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the
+country for the purpose of watching the movements of that general,
+while Napoleon, careless of the peril with which he was threatened by
+the approach of winter and by the multitude of enemies gathering to
+his rear, advanced with the main body of the grand army from Smolensko
+across the wasted country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the
+Russian empire.
+
+Russia, at that time engaged in a war with Turkey, whose frontiers
+were watched by an immense army under Kutusow, used her utmost
+efforts, in which she was aided by England, to conciliate the Porte in
+order to turn the whole of her forces against Napoleon. By a
+master-stroke of political intrigue,[11] the Porte, besides concluding
+peace at Bucharest on the 28th of May, ceded the province of
+Bessarabia (not Moldavia and Wallachia) to Russia. A Russian army
+under Tschitschakow was now enabled to drive the Austrians out of
+Volhynia, while a considerable force under Kutusow joined Barclay. Had
+the Russians at this time hazarded an engagement, their defeat was
+certain. Moscow could not have been saved. Barclay consequently
+resolved not to come to an engagement, but to husband his forces and
+to attack the French during the winter. The intended surrender of
+Moscow without a blow was, nevertheless, deeply resented as a national
+disgrace; the army and the people[12] raised a clamor, the venerable
+Kutusow was nominated commander-in-chief, and, taking up a position on
+the little river Moskwa near Borodino, about two days' journey from
+Moscow, a bloody engagement took place there on the 7th of September,
+in which Napoleon, in order to spare his guards, neglected to follow
+up his advantage with his usual energy and allowed the defeated
+Russians, whom he might have totally annihilated, to escape. Napoleon
+triumphed; but at what a price! After a fearful struggle, in which he
+lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded,[13] the latter of whom
+perished almost to a man, owing to want and neglect.[14]
+
+Moscow was now both defenceless and void of inhabitants. Napoleon
+traversed this enormous city, containing two hundred and ninety-five
+churches and fifteen hundred palaces rising from amid a sea of
+inferior dwellings, and took possession of the residence of the czars,
+the 14th of November, 1812. The whole city was, however, deserted, and
+scarcely had the French army taken up its quarters in it than flames
+burst from the empty and closely shut-up houses, and, ere long, the
+whole of the immense city became a sea of fire and was reduced, before
+Napoleon's eyes, to ashes. Every attempt to extinguish the flames
+proved unavailing. Rostopchin, the commandant of Moscow, had,
+previously to his retreat, put combustible materials, which were
+ignited on the entrance of the French by men secreted for that
+purpose, into the houses.[15] A violent wind aided the work of
+destruction. The patriotic sacrifice was performed, nor failed in its
+object. Napoleon, instead of peace and plenty, merely found ashes in
+Moscow.
+
+Instead of pursuing the defeated Russians to Kaluga, where, in
+pursuance of Toll's first laid-down plan, they took up a position
+close upon the flank of the French and threatened to impede their
+retreat; instead of taking up his winter quarters in the fertile South
+or of quickly turning and fixing himself in Lithuania in order to
+collect reinforcements for the ensuing year, Napoleon remained in a
+state of inaction at Moscow until the 19th of October, in expectation
+of proposals of peace from Alexander. The terms of peace offered by
+him on his part to the Russians did not even elicit a reply. His
+cavalry, already reduced to a great state of exhaustion, were, in the
+beginning of October, surprised before the city of Tarutino and
+repulsed with considerable loss. This at length decided Napoleon upon
+marching upon Kaluga, but the moment for success had already passed.
+The reinforced and inspirited Russians made such a desperate
+resistance at Malo-Jaroslawez that he resolved to retire by the
+nearest route, that by which he had penetrated up the country, marked
+by ashes and pestilential corpses, into Lithuania. Winter had not yet
+set in, and his ranks were already thinned by famine.[16] Kutusow,
+with the main body of the Russian army, pursued the retreating French
+and again overtook them at Wiazma, the 3d November. Napoleon's hopes
+now rested on the separate _corps d'armée_ left to his rear on his
+advance upon Moscow, but they were, notwithstanding the defeat of
+Wittgenstein's corps by the Bavarians under Wrede, kept in check by
+fresh Russian armies and exposed to all the horrors of winter.[17] In
+Volhynia, Schwarzenberg had zealously endeavored to spare his
+troops,[18] and had, by his retreat toward the grandduchy of Warsaw,
+left Tschitschakow at liberty to turn his arms against Napoleon,
+against whom Wittgenstein also advanced in the design of blocking up
+his route, while Kutusow incessantly assailed his flank and rear. On
+the 6th of November, the frost suddenly set in. The horses died by
+thousands in a single night; the greater part of the cavalry was
+consequently dismounted, and it was found necessary to abandon part of
+the booty and artillery. A deep snow shortly afterward fell and
+obstructed the path of the fugitive army. The frost became more and
+more rigorous; but few of the men had sufficient strength left to
+continue to carry their arms and to cover the flight of the rest. Most
+of the soldiers threw away their arms and merely endeavored to
+preserve life. Napoleon's grand army was scattered over the boundless
+snow-covered steppes, whose dreary monotony was solely broken by some
+desolate half-burned village. Gaunt forms of famine, wan, hollow-eyed,
+wrapped in strange garments of misery, skins, women's clothes, etc.,
+and with long-grown beards, dragged their faint and weary limbs along,
+fought for a dead horse whose flesh was greedily torn from the
+carcass, murdered each other for a morsel of bread, and fell one after
+the other in the deep snow, never again to rise. Bones of frozen
+corpses lay each morn around the dead ashes of the night fires.[19]
+Numbers were seen to spring, with a horrid cry of mad exultation, into
+the flaming houses. Numbers fell into the hands of the Russian boors,
+who stripped them naked and chased them through the snow. Smolensko
+was at length reached, but the loss of the greater part of the cannon,
+the want of ammunition and provisions, rendered their stay in that
+deserted and half-consumed city impossible. The flight was continued,
+the Russians incessantly pursuing and harassing the worn-out troops,
+whose retreat was covered by Ney with all the men still under arms.
+Cut off at Smolensko, he escaped almost by miracle, by creeping during
+the night along the banks of the Dnieper and successively repulsing
+the several Russian corps that threw themselves in his way.[20] A thaw
+now took place, and the Beresina, which it was necessary to cross, was
+full of drift-ice, its banks were slippery and impassable, and
+moreover commanded by Tschitschakow's artillery, while the roar of
+cannon to the rear announced Wittgenstein's approach. Kutusow had this
+time failed to advance with sufficient rapidity, and Napoleon, the
+river to his front and enclosed between the Russian armies, owed his
+escape to the most extraordinary good luck. The _corps d'armée_ under
+Oudinot and Victor, that had been left behind on his advance upon
+Moscow, came at the moment of need with fresh troops to his aid.
+Tschitschakow quitted the bank at the spot where Napoleon intended to
+make the passage of the Beresina under an idea of the attempt being
+made at another point. Napoleon instantly threw two bridges across the
+stream, and all the able-bodied men crossed in safety. At the moment
+when the bridges, that had several times given way, were choked up by
+the countless throng bringing up the rear, Wittgenstein appeared and
+directed his heavy artillery upon the motionless and unarmed crowd.
+Some regiments, forming the rearguard, fell, together with all still
+remaining on the other side of the river, into the hands of the
+Russians.
+
+The fugitive army was, after this fearful day, relieved, but the
+temperature again fell to twenty-seven degrees below zero, and the
+stoutest hearts and frames sank. On the 5th of December, Napoleon,
+placing himself in a sledge, hurried in advance of his army, nay,
+preceded the news of his disaster, in order at all events to insure
+his personal safety and to pass through Germany before measures could
+be taken for his capture.[21] His fugitive army shortly afterward
+reached Wilna, but was too exhausted to maintain that position.
+Enormous magazines, several prisoners, and the rest of the booty,
+besides six million francs in silver money, fell here into the hands
+of the Russians. Part of the fugitives escaped to Dantzig, but few
+crossed the Oder; the Saxons under Reynier were routed and dispersed
+in a last engagement at Calisch; Poniatowsky and the Poles retired to
+Cracow on the Austrian frontier, as it were, protected by
+Schwarzenberg, who remained unassailed by the Russians, and whose
+neutrality was, not long afterward, formally recognized.
+
+The Prussians, who had been, meanwhile, occupied with the unsuccessful
+siege of Riga, and who, like the Austrians, had comparatively
+husbanded their strength,[22] were now the only hope of the fugitive
+French. The troops under Macdonald, accordingly, received orders to
+cover the retreat of the grand army, but York, instead of obeying,
+concluded a neutral treaty with the Russians commanded by Diebitsch of
+Silesia and remained stationary in Eastern Prussia. The king of
+Prussia, at that time still at Berlin and in the power of the French,
+publicly[23] disapproved of the step taken by his general,[24] who
+was, on the evacuation of Berlin by the French, as publicly rewarded.
+
+The immense army of the conqueror of the world was totally
+annihilated. Of those who entered Moscow scarcely twenty thousand, of
+the half million of men who crossed the Russian frontier but eighty
+thousand, returned.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide Bignon.]
+
+[Footnote 2: From a letter of Count Minister in Hormayr's Sketches of
+Life, it appears that Russia still cherished the hope of great
+concessions being made by Napoleon in order to avoid war and was
+therefore still reserved in her relations with England and the
+Prussian patriots.]
+
+[Footnote 3: French troops garrisoned German fortresses and
+perpetually passed along the principal roads, which were for that
+purpose essentially improved by Napoleon. In 1810, a great part of the
+town of Eisenach was destroyed by the bursting of some French
+powder-carts that were carelessly brought through, and by which great
+numbers of people were killed.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Who was far surpassed in splendor by her stepdaughter of
+France.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Segur relates that he was received politely but with
+distant coolness by Napoleon. There is said to have been question
+between them concerning the marriage of the crown prince of Prussia
+with one of Napoleon's nieces, and of an incorporation of the still
+unconquered Russian provinces on the Baltic, Livonia, Courland, and
+Esthonia, with Prussia. All was, however, empty show. Napoleon hoped
+by the rapidity of his successes to constrain the emperor of Russia to
+conclude not only peace, but a still closer alliance with France, in
+which case it was as far from his intention to concede the
+above-mentioned provinces to Prussia as to emancipate the Poles.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Napoleon said at that time to a Russian, "Si vous perdez
+cinq Russes, ne perds qu un Francais et quatre cochons."]
+
+[Footnote 7: This general, on the opening of the war, published a
+proclamation to the Germans, summoning them to throw off the yoke of
+Napoleon.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 327_. Napoleon replied with, "Whom
+are you addressing? There are no Germans, there are only Austrians,
+Prussians, Bavarians, etc."--_All. Zeitung, No. 228._]
+
+[Footnote 8: Vide Clausewitz's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 9: At each encampment the men were left in such numbers in
+hastily erected hospitals that, of thirty-eight thousand Bavarians,
+for instance, but ten thousand, of sixteen thousand Würtembergers, but
+thirteen hundred, reached Smolensko.]
+
+[Footnote 10: The Würtembergers distinguished themselves here by
+storming the faubourgs and the bridges across the Dnieper.]
+
+[Footnote 11: The Greek prince, Moruzi, who at that time conducted
+Turkish diplomacy, accepted a bribe, and concluded peace in the
+expectation of becoming Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia. Sultan
+Mahmud refusing to ratify this disgraceful treaty, gold was showered
+upon the Turkish army, which suddenly dispersed, and the deserted
+sultan was compelled to yield. Moruzi was deprived of his head, but
+the Russians had gained their object. It must, moreover, be considered
+that Napoleon was regarded with distrust by the Porte, against which
+he had fought in Egypt, which he had afterward enticed into a war with
+Russia, and had, by the alliance formed at Erfurt with that power,
+abandoned.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Colonel Toll was insulted during the discussion by
+Prince Bragation for the firmness with which he upheld Scharnhorst's
+plan, and avoided hazarding a useless engagement. Prince Bragation was
+killed in the battle.]
+
+[Footnote 13: A Russian redoubt, the key of the field of battle, was
+taken and again lost. A Würtemberg regiment instantly pushed through
+the fugitive French, retook the redoubt and retained possession of it.
+It also, on this occasion, saved the life of the king of Naples and
+delivered him out of the hands of the Russians, who had already taken
+him prisoner.--_Ten Campaigns of the Wurtembergers._]
+
+[Footnote 14: Everything was wanting, lint, linen, even necessary
+food. The wounded men lay for days and weeks under the open sky and
+fed upon the carcasses of horses.]
+
+[Footnote 15: This combustible matter had been prepared by Schmid, the
+Dutchman, under pretext of preparing an enormous balloon from which
+fire was to be scattered upon the French army.]
+
+[Footnote 16: As early as the 2d of November the remainder of the
+Würtembergers tore off their colors and concealed them in their
+knapsacks.--_Roos's Memorabilia of 1812._]
+
+[Footnote 17: On the 18th of October, the Bavarians, who were
+intermixed with Swiss, performed prodigies of valor, but were so
+reduced by sufferings of every description as to be unable to maintain
+Poloczk. Segur says in his History of the War that St. Cyr left
+Wrede's gallant conduct unmentioned in the military despatches, and
+that when, on St. Cyr's being disabled by his wounds, Wrede applied
+for the chief command, which naturally reverted to him, the army being
+almost entirely composed of Bavarians, Napoleon refused his request.
+Völderndorf says in his Bavarian Campaigns that St. Cyr faithlessly
+abandoned the Bavarians in their utmost extremity, and when all peril
+was over returned to Poland in order to retake the command. During the
+retreat from Poloczk he had ordered the bridges to be pulled down,
+leaving on the other side a Bavarian park of artillery with the army
+chest and two-and-twenty ensigns, which for better security had been
+packed upon a carriage. The whole of these trophies fell, owing to St.
+Cyr's negligence or ill-will, into the hands of the Russians. "The
+Bavarians with difficulty concealed their antipathy toward the
+French." On St. Cyr's flight, Wrede kept the remainder of the
+Bavarians together, covered Napoleon's retreat, and, in conjunction
+with the Westphalians and Hessians, stood another encounter with the
+Russians at Wilna. Misery and want at length scattered his forces; he,
+nevertheless, reassembled them in Poland and was able to place four
+thousand men, on St. Cyr's return, under his command. He returned home
+to Bavaria sick. Of these four thousand Bavarians but one thousand and
+fifty were led by Count Rechberg back to their native soil. A great
+number of Bavarians, however, remained under General Zoller to
+garrison Thorn, and about fifteen hundred of them returned home.--At
+the passage of the Beresina, the Würtembergers had still about eighty
+men under arms, and in Poland about three hundred assembled, the only
+ones who returned free. Some were afterward liberated from
+imprisonment in Russia.]
+
+[Footnote 18: This was Austria's natural policy. In the French
+despatches, Schwarzenberg was charged with having allowed
+Tschitschakow to escape in order to pursue the inconsiderable force
+under Sacken.]
+
+[Footnote 19: The following anecdote is related of the Hessians
+commanded by Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. The prince had fallen asleep
+in the snow, and four Hessian dragoons, in order to screen him from
+the north wind, held their cloaks as a wall around him and were found
+next morning in the same position--frozen to death. Dead bodies were
+seen frozen into the most extraordinary positions, gnawing their own
+hands, gnawing the torn corpses of their comrades. The dead were often
+covered with snow, and the number of little heaps lying around alone
+told that of the victims of a single night.]
+
+[Footnote 20: Napoleon said, "There are two hundred millions lying in
+the cellars of the Tuileries; how willingly would I give them to save
+Ney!"]
+
+[Footnote 21: He passed with extreme rapidity, incognito, through
+Germany. In Dresden he had a short interview with the king of Saxony,
+who, had he shut him up in Königstein, would have saved Europe a good
+deal of trouble.--Napoleon no sooner reached Paris in safety than, in
+his twenty-ninth bulletin, he, for the first time, acquainted the
+astonished world, hitherto deceived by his false accounts of victory,
+with the disastrous termination of the campaign. This bulletin was
+also replete with falsehood and insolence. In his contempt of humanity
+he even said, "Merely the cowards in the army were depressed in spirit
+and dreamed of misfortune, the brave were ever cheerful." Thus wrote
+the man who had both seen and caused all this immeasurable misery! The
+bulletin concluded with, "His Imperial Majesty never enjoyed better
+health."]
+
+[Footnote 22: In the French despatches, General Hünerbein was accused
+of not having pursued the Russians under General Lewis.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The secret history of those days is still not
+sufficiently brought to light. Bagnon speaks of fresh treaties between
+Hardenberg and Napoleon, in which he is corroborated by Fain. These
+two Frenchmen, the former of whom was a diplomatist, the other one of
+Napoleon's private secretaries, admit that Prussia's object at that
+time was to take advantage of Napoleon's embarrassment and to offer
+him aid on certain important considerations. Prussian historians are
+silent in this matter. In Von Rauschnik's biographical account of
+Blücher, the great internal schism at that time caused in Prussia by
+the Hardenberg party and that of the _Tugendbund_ is merely slightly
+hinted at; the former still managed diplomatic affairs, while York, a
+member of the latter, had already acted on his own responsibility.
+Shortly afterward affairs took a different aspect, as if Hardenberg's
+diplomacy had merely been a mask, and he placed himself at the head of
+the movement against France. In a memorial of 1811, given by Hormayr
+in the Sketches from the War of Liberation, Hardenberg declared
+decisively in favor of the alliance with Russia against France.]
+
+[Footnote 24: Hans Louis David von York, a native of Pomerania, having
+ventured, when a lieutenant in the Prussian service, indignantly to
+blame the base conduct of one of his superiors in command, became
+implicated in a duel, was confined in a fortress, abandoned his
+country, entered the Dutch service, visited the Cape and Ceylon,
+fought against the Mahrattas, was wounded, returned home and
+re-entered the Prussian service in 1794.]
+
+
+
+CCLX. The Spring of 1813
+
+
+The king of Prussia had suddenly abandoned Berlin, which was still in
+the hands of the French, for Breslau, whence he declared war against
+France. A conference also took place between him and the emperor
+Alexander at Calisch, and, on the 28th of February, 1813, an offensive
+and defensive alliance was concluded between them. The hour for
+vengeance had at length arrived. The whole Prussian nation, eager to
+throw off the hated yoke of the foreigner, to obliterate their
+disgrace in 1806, to regain their ancient name, cheerfully hastened to
+place their lives and property at the service of the impoverished
+government. The whole of the able-bodied population was put under
+arms. The standing army was increased: to each regiment were appended
+troops of volunteers, _Joegers_, composed of young men belonging to
+the higher classes, who furnished their own equipments: a numerous
+_Landwehr_, a sort of militia, was, as in Austria, raised besides the
+standing army, and measures were even taken to call out, in case of
+necessity, the heads of families and elderly men remaining at home,
+under the name of the _Landsturm_.[1] The enthusiastic people, besides
+furnishing the customary supplies and paying the taxes, contributed to
+the full extent of their means toward defraying the immense expense of
+this general arming. Every heart throbbed high with pride and hope.
+Who would not wish to have lived at such a period, when man's noblest
+and highest energies were thus called forth! More loudly than even in
+1809 in Austria was the German cause now discussed, the great name of
+the German empire now invoked in Prussia, for in that name alone could
+all the races of Germany be united against their hereditary foe. The
+following celebrated proclamation, promising external and internal
+liberty to Germany, was, with this view, published at Calisch, by
+Prussia and Russia, on the 25th of March, 1813. It was signed by
+Prince Kutusow and drawn up by Baron Rehdiger of Silesia.
+
+"The victorious troops of Russia, together with those of his Majesty
+the king of Prussia, having set foot on German soil, the emperor of
+Russia and his Majesty the king of Prussia announce simultaneously the
+return of liberty and independence to the princes and nations of
+Germany. They come with the sole and sacred purpose of aiding them to
+regain the hereditary and inalienable national rights of which they
+have been deprived, to afford potent protection and to secure
+durability to a newly-restored empire. This great object, free from
+every interested motive and therefore alone worthy of their Majesties,
+has solely induced the advance and solely guides the movements of
+their armies.--These armies, led by generals under the eyes of both
+monarchs, trust in an omnipotent, just God, and hope to free the whole
+world and Germany irrevocably from the disgraceful yoke they have so
+gloriously thrown off. They press forward animated by enthusiasm.
+Their watchword is 'Honor and Liberty.' May every German, desirous of
+proving himself worthy of the name, speedily and spiritedly join their
+ranks. May every individual, whether prince, noble, or citizen, aid
+the plans of liberation, formed by Russia and Prussia, with heart and
+soul, with person and property, to the last drop of his blood!--The
+expectation cherished by their Majesties of meeting with these
+sentiments, this zeal, in every German heart, they deem warranted by
+the spirit so clearly betokened by the victories gained by Russia over
+the enslaver of the world.--They therefore demand faithful
+cooperation, more especially from every German prince, and willingly
+presuppose that none among them will be found, who, by being and
+remaining apostate to the German cause, will prove himself deserving
+of annihilation by the power of public opinion and of just arms. The
+Rhenish alliance, that deceitful chain lately cast by the breeder of
+universal discord around ruined Germany to the destruction of her
+ancient name, can, as the effect of foreign tyranny and the tool of
+foreign influence, be no longer tolerated. Their Majesties believe
+that the declaration of the dissolution of this alliance being their
+fixed intention will meet the long-harbored and universal desire with
+difficulty retained within the sorrowing hearts of the people.--The
+relation in which it is the intention of his Majesty, the emperor of
+all the Russias, to stand toward Germany and toward her constitution
+is, at the same time, here declared. From his desire to see the
+influence of the foreigner destroyed, it can be no other than that of
+placing a protecting hand on a work whose form is committed to the
+free, unbiased will of the princes and people of Germany. The more
+closely this work, in principle, features and outline, coincides with
+the once distinct character of the German nation, the more surely will
+united Germany retake her place with renovated and redoubled vigor
+among the empires of Europe.--His Majesty and his ally, between whom
+there reigns a perfect accordance in the sentiments and views hereby
+explained, are at all times ready to exert their utmost power in
+pursuance of their sacred aim, the liberation of Germany from a
+foreign yoke.--May France, strong and beauteous in herself,
+henceforward seek to consolidate her internal prosperity! No external
+power will disturb her internal peace, no enemy will encroach upon her
+rightful frontiers.--But may France also learn that the other powers
+of Europe aspire to the attainment of durable repose for their
+subjects, and will not lay down their arms until the independence of
+every state in Europe shall have been firmly secured."
+
+Nor was the appeal vain. It found an echo in every German heart, and
+such plain demonstrations of the state of the popular feeling on this
+side the Rhine were made that Davoust sent serious warning to
+Napoleon, who contemptuously replied, "Pah! Germans never can become
+Spaniards!" With his customary rapidity, he levied in France a fresh
+army three hundred thousand strong, with which he so completely awed
+the Rhenish confederation as to compel it once more to take the field
+with thousands of Germans against their brother Germans. The troops,
+however, reluctantly obeyed, and even the traitors were but lukewarm,
+for they doubted of success. Mecklenburg alone sided with Prussia.
+Austria remained neutral.
+
+A Russian corps under General Tettenborn had preceded the rest of the
+troops and reached the coasts of the Baltic. As early as the 24th of
+March, 1813, it appeared in Hamburg and expelled the French
+authorities from the city. The heavily oppressed people of Hamburg,[2]
+whose commerce had been totally annihilated by the continental system,
+gave way to the utmost demonstrations of delight, received their
+deliverers with open arms, revived their ancient rights, and
+immediately raised a Hanseatic corps, destined to take the field
+against Napoleon. Dornberg, the ancient foe to France, with another
+flying squadron took the French division under Morand prisoner, and
+the Prussian, Major Hellwig (the same who, in 1806, liberated the
+garrison of Erfurt), dispersed, with merely one hundred and twenty
+hussars, a Bavarian regiment one thousand three hundred strong and
+captured five pieces of artillery. In January, the peasantry of the
+upper country had already revolted against the conscription,[3] and,
+in February, patriotic proclamations had been disseminated throughout
+Westphalia under the signature of the Baron von Stein. In this month,
+also, Captain Maas and two other patriots, who had attempted to raise
+a rebellion, were executed. As the army advanced, Stein was nominated
+chief of the provisional government of the still unconquered provinces
+of Western Germany.
+
+The first Russian army, seventeen thousand strong, under Wittgenstein,
+pushed forward to Magdeburg, and, at Mokern, repulsed forty thousand
+French, who were advancing upon Berlin. The Prussians, under their
+veteran general, Blucher, entered Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on
+the 27th of March, 1813; an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe
+having been uselessly blown up by the French. Blucher, whose gallantry
+in the former wars had gained for him the general esteem, and whose
+kind and generous disposition had won the affection of the soldiery,
+was nominated generalissimo of the Prussian forces, but subordinate in
+command to Wittgenstein, who replaced Kutusow[4] as generalissimo of
+the united forces of Russia and Prussia. The emperor of Russia and the
+king of Prussia accompanied the army and were received with loud
+acclamations by the people of Dresden and Leipzig. The allied army was
+merely seventy thousand strong, and Blucher had not formed a junction
+with Wittgenstein when Napoleon invaded the country by Erfurt and
+Merseburg at the head of one hundred and sixty thousand men. Ney
+attacked, with forty thousand men, the Russian vanguard under
+Winzingerode, which, after gallantly defending a defile near
+Weissenfels, made an orderly retreat before forces far their superior
+in number. The French, on this occasion, lost Marshal Bessieres.
+Napoleon, incredulous of attack, marched in long columns upon Leipzig,
+and Wittgenstein, falling upon his right flank, committed great havoc
+among the forty thousand men under Ney, which he had first of all
+encountered, at Gross-Gorschen. This place was alternately lost and
+regained owing to his ill-judged plan of attack by single brigades,
+instead of breaking Napoleon's lines by charging them at once with the
+whole of his forces. The young Prussian volunteers here measured their
+strength in a murderous conflict, hand to hand, with the young French
+conscripts, and excited by their martial spirit the astonishment of
+the veterans. Wittgenstein's delay and Blucher's too late arrival on
+the field[5] gave Napoleon time to wheel his long lines round and to
+encircle the allied forces, which immediately retired. On the eve of
+the bloody engagement of the 2d of May, the allied cavalry attempted a
+general attack in the dark, which was also unsuccessful on account of
+the superiority of the enemy's forces. The allies had, nevertheless,
+captured some cannons, the French, none. The most painful loss was
+that of the noble Scharnhorst, who was mortally wounded. Bulow had, on
+the same day, stormed Halle with a Prussian corps, but was now
+compelled to resolve upon a retreat, which was conducted in the most
+orderly manner by the allies. At Koldiz, the Prussian rearguard
+repulsed the French van in a bloody engagement on the 5th of May. The
+allies marched through Dresden[6] and took up a firm position in and
+about Bautzen, after being joined by a reinforcement of eighty
+thousand Bavarians. Napoleon was also reinforced by a number of
+French, Bavarian, Wurtemberg, and Saxon troops,[7] and despatched
+Lauriston and Ney toward Berlin; but the former encountering the
+Russians under Barclay de Tolly at Konigswartha, and the latter the
+Prussians under York at Weissig, both were constrained to retreat.
+Napoleon attacked the position at Bautzen from the 19th to the 21st of
+May, but was gloriously repulsed by the Prussians under Kleist, while
+Blücher, who was in danger of being completely surrounded, undauntedly
+defended himself on three sides. The allies lost not a cannon, not a
+single prisoner, although again compelled to retire before the
+superior forces of the enemy. The French had suffered an immense loss;
+eighteen thousand of their wounded were sent to Dresden. Napoleon's
+favorite, Marshal Duroc, and General Kirchner, a native of Alsace,
+were killed, close to his side, by a cannon ball. The allied troops,
+forced to retire after an obstinate encounter, neither fled nor
+dispersed, but withdrew in close column and repelling each successive
+attack.[8] The French avant-garde under Maison was, when in close
+pursuit of the allied force, almost entirely cut to pieces by the
+Prussian cavalry, which unexpectedly fell upon it at Heinau. The main
+body of the Russo-Prussian army, on entering Silesia, took a slanting
+direction toward the Riesengebirge and retired behind the fortress of
+Schweidnitz. In this strong position they were at once partially
+secure from attack, and, by their vicinity to the Bohemian frontier,
+enabled to keep up a communication, and, if necessary, to form a
+junction with the Austrian forces. The whole of the lowlands of
+Silesia lay open to the French, who entered Breslau on the 1st of
+June.[9] Berlin was also merely covered by a comparatively weak army
+under General Bulow,[10] who, notwithstanding the check given by him
+to Marshal Oudinot in the battles of Hoyerswerda and Luckau, was not
+in sufficient force to offer assistance to the main body of the French
+in case Napoleon chose to pass through Berlin on his way to Poland.
+Napoleon, however, did not as yet venture to make use of his
+advantage. By the seizure of Prussia and Poland, both of which lay
+open to him, the main body of the allied army and the Austrians, who
+had not yet declared themselves, would have been left to the rear of
+his right flank and could easily have cut off his retreat. His troops,
+principally young conscripts, were moreover worn out with fatigue, nor
+had the whole of his reinforcements arrived. To his rear was a
+multitude of bold partisans, Tettenborn, the Hanseatic legion,
+Czernitscheff, who, at Halberstadt, captured General Ochs together
+with the whole of the Westphalian corps and fourteen pieces of
+artillery, Colomb, the Herculean captain of horse, who took a convoy
+and twenty-four guns at Zwickau, and the Black Prussian squadron under
+Lutzow. Napoleon consequently remained stationary, and, with a view of
+completing his preparations and of awaiting the decision of Austria,
+demanded an armistice, to which the allies, whose force was still
+incomplete and to whom the decision of Austria was of equal
+importance, gladly assented.
+
+On this celebrated armistice, concluded on the 4th of June, 1813, at
+the village of Pleisswitz, the fate of Europe was to depend. To the
+side that could raise the most powerful force, that on which Austria
+ranged herself, numerical superiority insured success. Napoleon's
+power was still terrible; fresh victory had obliterated the disgrace
+of his flight from Russia; he stood once more an invincible leader on
+German soil. The French were animated by success and blindly devoted
+to their emperor. Italy and Denmark were prostrate at his feet. The
+Rhenish confederation was also faithful to his standard. Councillor
+Crome published at Giessen, in obedience to Napoleon's mandate and
+with the knowledge of the government at Darmstadt, a pamphlet entitled
+"Germany's Crisis and Salvation," in which he declared that Germany
+was saved by the fresh victories of Napoleon, and promised mountains
+of gold to the Germans if they remained true to him.[11] Crome was at
+that time graciously thanked in autograph letters by the sovereigns of
+Bavaria and Wurtemberg. Lutzow's volunteer corps was, during the
+armistice, surprised at Kitzen by a superior corps of Wurtembergers
+under Normann and cut to pieces. Germans at that period opposed
+Germans without any feeling for their common fatherland.[12] The king
+of Saxony, who had already repaired to Prague under the protection of
+Austria, also returned thence, was received at Dresden with extreme
+magnificence by Napoleon, and, in fresh token of amity, ceded the
+fortress of Torgau to the French.[13] These occurrences caused the
+Saxon minister, Senfft von Pilsach, and the Saxon general, Thielmann,
+who had already devoted themselves to the German cause, to resign
+office. The Polish army under Prince Poniatowsky (vassal to the king
+of Saxony, who was also grandduke of Warsaw) received permission (it
+had at an earlier period fallen back upon Schwarzenberg) to march,
+unarmed, through the Austrian territory to Dresden, in order to join
+the main body of the French under Napoleon. The declaration of the
+emperor of Austria in favor of his son-in-law, who, moreover, was
+lavish of his promises, and, among other things, offered to restore
+Silesia, was, consequently, at the opening of the armistice, deemed
+certain.
+
+The armistice was, meanwhile, still more beneficial to the allies. The
+Russians had time to concentrate their scattered troops, the Prussians
+completed the equipment of their numerous _Landwehren_, and the Swedes
+also took the field. Bernadotte landed on the 18th of May in
+Pomerania, and advanced with his troops into Brandenburg for the
+purpose, in conjunction with Bulow, of covering Berlin. A German
+auxiliary corps, in the pay of England, was also formed, under
+Wallmoden, on the Baltic. The defence of Hamburg was extremely easy;
+but the base intrigues of foreigners, who, as during the time of the
+thirty years' war, paid themselves for their aid by the seizure of
+German provinces and towns, delivered that splendid city into the
+hands of the French. Bernadotte had sold himself to Russia for the
+price of Norway, which Denmark refused to cede unless Hamburg and
+Lubeck were given in exchange. This agreement had already been made by
+Prince Dolgorucki in the name of the emperor Alexander, and Tettenborn
+yielded Hamburg to the Danes, who marched in under pretext of
+protecting the city and were received with delight by the unsuspecting
+citizens. The non-advance of the Swedes proceeded from the same cause.
+The increase of the Danish marine by means of the Hanse towns,
+however, proved displeasing to England; the whole of the commerce was
+broken up, and the Danes, hastily resolving to maintain faith with
+Napoleon, delivered luckless Hamburg to the French, who instantly took
+a most terrible revenge. Davoust, as he himself boasted, merely sent
+twelve German patriots to execution,[14] but expelled twenty-five
+thousand of the inhabitants from the city, while he pulled down their
+houses and converted them into fortifications, at which the principal
+citizens were compelled to work in person. Dissatisfied, moreover,
+with a contribution of eighteen millions, he robbed the great Hamburg
+bank, treading underfoot every private and national right, all, as he,
+miserable slave as he was,[15] declared, in obedience to the mandate
+of his lord.
+
+Austria, at first, instead of aiding the allies, allowed the Poles[16]
+to range themselves beneath the standard of Napoleon, whom she
+overwhelmed with protestations of friendship, which served to mask her
+real intentions, and meanwhile gave her time to arm herself to the
+teeth and to make the allies sensible of the fact of their utter
+impotency against Napoleon unless aided by her. The interests of
+Austria favored her alliance with France, but Napoleon, instead of
+confidence, inspired mistrust. Austria, notwithstanding the marriage
+between him and Maria Louisa, was, as had been shown at the congress
+of Dresden, merely treated as a tributary to France, and Napoleon's
+ambition offered no guarantee to the ancient imperial dynasty. There
+was no security that the provinces bestowed in momentary reward for
+her alliance must not, on the first occasion, be restored. Nor was
+public opinion entirely without weight.[17] Napoleon's star was on the
+wane, whole nations stood like to a dark and ominous cloud threatening
+on the horizon, and Count Metternich prudently chose rather to attempt
+to guide the storm ere it burst than trust to a falling star. Austria
+had, as early as the 27th of June, 1813, signed a treaty, at
+Reichenbach in Silesia, with Russia and Prussia, by which she bound
+herself to declare war against France, in case Napoleon had not,
+before the 20th of July, accepted the terms of peace about to be
+proposed to him. Already had the sovereigns and generals of Russia and
+Prussia sketched, during a conference held with the crown prince of
+Sweden, the 11th July, at Trachenberg, the plan for the approaching
+campaign, and, with the permission of Austria, assigned to her the
+part she was to take as one of the allies against Napoleon, when
+Metternich again visited Dresden in person for the purpose of
+repeating his assurances of amity, for the armistice had but just
+commenced, to Napoleon. The French emperor had an indistinct idea of
+the transactions then passing, and bluntly said to the Count, "As you
+wish to mediate, you are no longer on my side." He hoped partly to win
+Austria over by redoubling his promises, partly to terrify her by the
+dread of the future ascendency of Russia, but, perceiving how
+Metternich evaded him by his artful diplomacy, he suddenly asked him,
+"Well, Metternich, how much has England given you in order to engage
+you to play this part toward me?" This trait of insolence toward an
+antagonist of whose superiority he felt conscious, and of the most
+deadly hatred masked by contempt, was peculiarly characteristic of the
+Corsican, who, besides the qualities of the lion, fully possessed
+those of the cat. Napoleon let his hat drop in order to see whether
+Metternich would raise it. He did not, and war was resolved upon. A
+pretended congress for the conclusion of peace was again arranged by
+both sides; by Napoleon, in order to elude the reproach cast upon him
+of an insurmountable and eternal desire for war, and by the allies, in
+order to prove to the whole world their desire for peace. Each side
+was, however, fully aware that the palm of peace was alone to be found
+on the other side of the battle-field. Napoleon was generous in his
+concessions, but delayed granting full powers to his envoy, an
+opportune circumstance for the allies, who were by this means able to
+charge him with the whole blame of procrastination. Napoleon, in all
+his concessions, merely included Russia and Austria to the exclusion
+of Prussia.[18] But neither Russia nor Austria trusted to his
+promises, and the negotiations were broken off on the termination of
+the armistice, when Napoleon sent full powers to his plenipotentiary.
+Now, was it said, it is too late. The art with which Metternich passed
+from the alliance with Napoleon to neutrality, to mediation, and
+finally to the coalition against him, will, in every age, be
+acknowledged a master-piece of diplomacy. Austria, while coalescing
+with Russia and Prussia, in a certain degree assumed a rank
+conventionally superior to both. The whole of the allied armies was
+placed under the command of an Austrian general, Prince von
+Schwarzenberg, and if the proclamation published at Calisch had merely
+summoned the people of Germany to assert their independence, the
+manifesto of Count Metternich spoke already in the tone of the future
+regulator of the affairs of Europe.[19] Austria declared herself on
+the 12th of August, 1813, two days after the termination of the
+armistice.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Literally, the general levy of the people.--_Trans._]
+
+[Footnote 2: The exasperation of the people had risen to the utmost
+pitch. The French rascals in office, especially the custom-house
+officers, set no bounds to their tyranny and license. No woman of
+whatever rank was allowed to pass the gates without being subjected to
+the most indecent inquisition. Goods that had long been redeemed were
+continually taken from the tradesmen's shops and confiscated. The
+arbitrary enrolment of a number of young men as conscripts at length
+produced an insurrection, in which the guard-houses, etc., were
+destroyed. It was, however, quelled by General St. Cyr, and six of the
+citizens were executed. On the approach of the Russians, St. Cyr fled
+with the whole of his troops. The bookseller Perthes, Prell, and von
+Hess, formed a civic guard.--_Von Hess's Agonies_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The people rose _en masse_ at Ronsdorf, Solingen, and
+Barmen, and marched tumultuously to Elberfeld, the great manufacturing
+town, but were dispersed by the French troops. The French authorities
+afterward declared that the sole object of the revolt was to smuggle
+in English goods, and, under this pretext, seized all the foreign
+goods in Elberfeld.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Kutusow had, just at that conjuncture, expired at
+Bautzen.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The nature of the ground rendered a night march
+impossible. The Russian, Michaelofski Danilefski, however, throws the
+blame upon an officer in Blucher's headquarters, who laid the
+important orders committed to his charge under his pillow and
+overslept himself.]
+
+[Footnote 6: It may here be mentioned as a remarkable characteristic
+of those times that Goethe, Ernest Maurice Arndt, and Theodore Körner
+at that period met at Dresden. The youthful Körner, a volunteer Jĉger,
+was the Tyrtĉus of those days: his military songs were universally
+sung: his father also expressed great enthusiasm. Goethe said almost
+angrily, "Well, well, shake your chains, the man (Napoleon) is too
+strong for you, you will not break them!"--_E. M. Arndt's
+Reminiscences._]
+
+[Footnote 7: "Unfortunately there were German princes who, even this
+time, again sent their troops to swell the ranks of the oppressor;
+Austria had, unfortunately, not yet concluded her preparations;
+consequently, it was only possible to clog the advance of the
+conqueror by a gallant resistance."--_Clausewitz_. The Bavarians stood
+under Raglowich, the Würtembergers under Franquemont, the Saxons under
+Reynier. There was also a contingent of Westphalians and Badeners.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Blücher exclaimed on this occasion: "He's a rascally
+fellow that dares to say we fly." Even Fain, the Frenchman, confesses
+in his manuscript of 1813, in which he certainly does not favor the
+Germans: "The best Marshals, as it were, killed by spent balls. Great
+victories without trophies. All the villages on our route in flames
+which obstructed our advance. 'What a war! We shall all fall victims
+to it!' are the disgraceful expressions uttered by many, for the iron
+hearts of the warriors of France are rust-grown." Napoleon exclaimed
+after the battle, "How! no result after such a massacre? No prisoners?
+They leave me not even a nail!" Duroc's death added to the
+catastrophe. Napoleon was so struck that for the first time in his
+life he could give no orders, but deferred everything until the
+morrow.]
+
+[Footnote 9: But they merely encamped in the streets, showed
+themselves more anxious than threatening, and were seized with a
+terrible panic on a sudden conflagration breaking out during the
+night, which they mistook for a signal to bring the _Landsturm_ upon
+them. And yet there were thirty thousand French in the city. How
+different to their spirit in 1807!]
+
+[Footnote 10: Brother to the unfortunate Henry von Bulow.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Crome was afterward barefaced enough to boast of this
+work in his Autobiography, published in 1833. Napoleon dictated the
+fundamental ideas of this work to him from his headquarters. His
+object was to pacify the Germans. He promised them henceforward to
+desist from enforcing his continental system, to restore liberty to
+commerce, no longer to force the laws and language of France upon
+Germany. L'empereur se fera aimer des Allemands. The Germans were, on
+the other hand, warned that the allies had no intention to render
+Germany free and independent, they being much more interested in
+retaining Germany in a state of division and subjection. The unity of
+Germany, it was also declared, was alone possible under Napoleon,
+etc.]
+
+[Footnote 12: This arose from hatred to the party that dared to uphold
+the German cause instead of a Prussian, Saxon, etc., one, and by no
+means by chance, but, as Manso remarks, intentionally, "through low
+cunning and injustice."]
+
+[Footnote 13: The king of Saxony was, in return, insulted by Napoleon,
+in an address to the ministers was termed _une veille hête_, and
+compelled to countenance immoral theatrical performances by his
+presence, a sin for which he each evening received absolution from his
+confessor. Vide Stein's Letter to Münster in the Sketches of the War
+of Liberation.]
+
+[Footnote 14: He also said, like his master, "I know of no Germans, I
+only know of Bavarians, Würtembergers, Westphalians," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 15: His written defence, in which he so lyingly, so humbly
+and mournfully exculpates himself that one really "compassionates the
+devil," is a sort of satisfaction for the Germans.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Poniatowsky's dismissal with the Polish army from Poland
+was apparently a service rendered to Napoleon, but was in reality done
+with a view of disarming Poland. Poniatowsky might have organized an
+insurrection to the rear of the allies, and would in that case have
+been far more dangerous to them than when ranged beneath the standard
+of Napoleon.]
+
+[Footnote 17: The people in Austria fully sympathized with passing
+events. How could those be apathetic who had such a burden of disgrace
+to redeem, such deep revenge to satisfy? An extremely popular song
+contained the following lines:
+
+  "Awake, Franciscus! Hark! thy people call!
+  Awake! acknowledge the avenger's hand!
+  Still groans beneath the foreign courser's hoof
+  The soil of Germany, our fatherland.
+
+  "To arms! so long as sacred Germany
+  Feels but a finger of Napoleon.
+  Franciscus! up! Cast off each private tie!
+  The patriot has no kindred, has no son."
+
+All the able-bodied men, as in Prussia, crowded beneath the imperial
+standard and the whole empire made the most patriotic sacrifices.
+Hungary summoned the whole of her male population, the insurrection,
+as it was termed, to the field.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Russia was to receive the whole of Poland, the
+grandduchy of Warsaw was to be annihilated. Such was Napoleon's
+gratitude toward the Poles!--Illyria was to be restored to Austria.
+Prussia, however, was not only to be excluded from all participation
+in the spoil, but the Rhenish confederation was to be extended as far
+as the Oder. Prussia would have been compelled to pay the expenses of
+the alliance between France, Russia, and Austria.]
+
+[Footnote 19: "Everywhere," said this manifesto, "do the impatient
+wishes of the people anticipate the regular proceedings of the
+government. On all sides, the desire for independence under separate
+laws, the feeling of insulted nationality, rage against the heavy
+abuses inflicted by a foreign tyrant, burst simultaneously forth. His
+Majesty the emperor, too clear-sighted not to view this turn in
+affairs as the natural and necessary result of a preceding and violent
+state of exaggeration, and too just to view it with displeasure, had
+rendered it his principal object to turn it to the general advantage,
+and, by well-weighed and well-combined measures, to promote the true
+and lasting interests of the whole commonwealth of Europe."]
+
+
+
+CCLXI. The Battle of Leipzig
+
+
+Immediately after this--for all had been previously arranged--the
+monarchs of Russia and Prussia passed the Riesengebirge with a
+division of their forces into Bohemia, and joined the emperor Francis
+and the great Austrian army at Prague. The celebrated general, Moreau,
+who had returned from America, where he had hitherto dwelt incognito,
+in order to take up arms against Napoleon, was in the train of the
+czar. His example, it was hoped, would induce many of his countrymen
+to abandon Napoleon. The plan of the allies was to advance, with their
+main body under Schwarzenberg, consisting of one hundred and twenty
+thousand Austrians and seventy thousand Russians and Prussians,
+through the Erzgebirge to Napoleon's rear. A lesser Prussian force,
+principally Silesian _Landwehr_, under Blucher, eighty thousand
+strong, besides a small Russian corps, was, meanwhile, to cover
+Silesia, or, in case of an attack by Napoleon's main body, to retire
+before it and draw it further eastward. A third division, under the
+crown prince of Sweden, principally Swedes, with some Prussian troops,
+mostly Pomeranian and Brandenburg _Landwehr_ under Bulow, and some
+Russians, in all ninety thousand men, was destined to cover Berlin,
+and in case of a victory to form a junction to Napoleon's rear with
+the main body of the allied army. A still lesser and equally mixed
+division under Wallmoden, thirty thousand strong, was destined to
+watch Davoust in Hamburg, while an Austrian corps of twenty-five
+thousand men under Prince Reuss watched the movements of the
+Bavarians, and another Austrian force of forty thousand, under Hiller,
+those of the viceroy Eugene in Italy.
+
+Napoleon had concentrated his main body, that still consisted of two
+hundred and fifty thousand men, in and around Dresden. Davoust
+received orders to advance with thirty thousand men from Hamburg upon
+Berlin; in Bavaria, there were thirty thousand men under Wrede; in
+Italy, forty thousand under Eugene. The German fortresses were,
+moreover, strongly garrisoned with French troops. Napoleon had it in
+his power to throw himself with his main body, which neither Blucher
+nor the Swedes could have withstood, into Poland, to levy the people
+_en masse_ and render that country the theatre of war, but the dread
+of the defection of the Rhenish confederation and of a part of the
+French themselves, were the country to his rear to be left open to the
+allies and to Moreau, coupled with his disinclination to declare the
+independence of Poland, owing to a lingering hope of being still able
+to bring about a reconciliation with Russia and Austria by the
+sacrifice of that country and of Prussia, caused that idea to be
+renounced, and he accordingly took up a defensive position with his
+main body at Dresden, whence he could watch the proceedings and take
+advantage of any indiscretion on the part of his opponents. A body of
+ninety thousand men under Oudinot meantime acted on the offensive,
+being directed to advance, simultaneously with Davoust from Hamburg
+and with Girard from Magdeburg, upon Berlin, and to take possession of
+that metropolis. Napoleon hoped, when master of the ancient Prussian
+provinces, to be able to suppress German enthusiasm at its source and
+to induce Russia and Austria to conclude a separate peace at the
+expense of Prussia.
+
+In August, 1813, the tempest of war broke loose on every side, and all
+Europe prepared for a decisive struggle. About this time, the whole of
+Northern Germany was visited for some weeks, as was the case on the
+defeat of Varus in the Teutoburg forest, with heavy rains and violent
+storms. The elements seemed to combine, as in Russia, their efforts
+with those of man against Napoleon. There his soldiers fell victims to
+frost and snow, here they sank into the boggy soil and were carried
+away by the swollen rivers. In the midst of the uproar of the
+elements, bloody engagements continually took place, in which the
+bayonet and the butt-end of the firelock were almost alone used, the
+muskets being rendered unserviceable by the wet. The first engagement
+of importance was that of the 21st of August between Wallmoden and
+Davoust at Vellahn. A few days afterward, Theodore Korner, the
+youthful poet and hero, fell in a skirmish between the French and
+Wallmoden's outpost at Gadebusch.--Oudinot advanced close upon Berlin,
+which was protected by the crown prince of Sweden. A murderous
+conflict took place, on the 23d of August, at Gross-Beeren between the
+Prussian division under General von Bulow and the French. The Swedes,
+a troop of horse artillery alone excepted, were not brought into
+action, and the Prussians, unaided, repulsed the greatly superior
+forces of the French. The almost untrained peasantry comprising the
+_Landwehr_ of the Mark and of Pomerania rushed upon the enemy, and,
+unhabituated to the use of the bayonet and firelock, beat down entire
+battalions of the French with the butt-end of their muskets. After a
+frightful massacre, the French were utterly routed and fled in wild
+disorder, but the gallant Prussians vainly expected the Swedes to aid
+in the pursuit. The crown prince, partly from a desire to spare his
+troops and partly from a feeling of shame--he was also a
+Frenchman--remained motionless. Oudinot, nevertheless, lost two
+thousand four hundred prisoners. Davoust, from this disaster, returned
+once more to Hamburg. Girard, who had advanced with eight thousand men
+from Magdeburg, was, on the 27th, put to flight by the Prussian
+_Landwehr_ under General Hirschfeld.
+
+Napoleon's plan of attack against Prussia had completely failed, and
+his sole alternative was to act on the defensive. But on perceiving
+that the main body of the allied forces under Schwarzenberg was
+advancing to his rear, while Blucher was stationed with merely a weak
+division in Silesia, he took the field with immensely superior forces
+against the latter, under an idea of being able easily to vanquish his
+weak antagonist and to fall back again in time upon Dresden. Blucher
+cautiously retired, but, unable to restrain the martial spirit of the
+soldiery, who obstinately defended every position whence they were
+driven, lost two thousand of his men on the 21st of August. The news
+of Napoleon's advance upon Silesia and of the numerical weakness of
+the garrison left at Dresden reached Schwarzenberg just as he had
+crossed the Erzgebirge, and induced him and the allied sovereigns
+assembled within his camp to change their plan of operations and to
+march straight upon the Saxon capital. Napoleon, who had pursued
+Blucher as far as the Katzbach near Goldberg, instantly returned and
+boldly resolved to cross the Elbe above Dresden, to seize the passes
+of the Bohemian mountains, and to fall upon the rear of the main body
+of the allied army. Vandamme's _corps d'armee_ had already set forward
+with this design, when Napoleon learned that Dresden could no longer
+hold out unless he returned thither with a division of his army, and,
+in order to preserve that city and the centre of his position, he
+hastily returned thither in the hope of defeating the allied army and
+of bringing it between two fires, as Vandamme must meanwhile have
+occupied the narrow outlets of the Erzgebirge with thirty thousand men
+and by that means have cut off the retreat of the allied army. The
+plan was on a grand scale, and, as far as related to Napoleon in
+person, was executed, to the extreme discomfiture of the allies, with
+his usual success. Schwarzenberg had, with true Austrian
+procrastination, allowed the 25th of August, when, as the French
+themselves confess, Dresden, in her then ill-defended state, might
+have been taken almost without a stroke, to pass in inaction, and,
+when he attempted to storm the city on the 26th, Napoleon, who had
+meanwhile arrived, calmly awaited the onset of the thick masses of the
+enemy in order to open a murderous discharge of grape upon them on
+every side. They were repulsed after suffering a frightful loss. On
+the following day, destined to end in still more terrible bloodshed,
+Napoleon assumed the offensive, separated the retiring allied army by
+well-combined sallies, cut off its left wing, and made an immense
+number of prisoners, chiefly Austrians. The unfortunate Moreau had
+both his legs shot off in the very first encounter. His death was an
+act of justice, for he had taken up arms against his fellow-
+countrymen, and was moreover a gain for the Germans, the Russians
+merely making use of him in order to obscure the fame of the German
+leaders, and, it may be, with a view of placing the future destinies
+of France in his hands. The main body of the allied army retreated on
+every side; part of the troops disbanded, the rest were exposed to
+extreme hardship owing to the torrents of rain that fell without
+intermission and the scarcity of provisions. Their annihilation must
+have inevitably followed had Vandamme executed Napoleon's commands and
+blocked up the mountain passes, in which he was unsuccessful, owing to
+the gallantry with which he was held in check at Culm by eight
+thousand Russian guards, headed by Ostermann,[1] who, although merely
+amounting in number to a fourth of his army, fought during a whole day
+without receding a step, though almost the whole of them were cut to
+pieces and Ostermann was deprived of an arm, until the first corps of
+the main body, in full retreat, reached the mountains. Vandamme was
+now in turn overwhelmed by superior numbers. One way of escape, a
+still unoccupied height, on which he hastened to post himself, alone
+remained, but Kleist's corps, also in full retreat, unexpectedly but
+opportunely appeared above his head and took him and the whole of his
+corps prisoners, the 29th of August, 1813.[2]
+
+At the same time, the 26th of August, a most glorious victory was
+gained by Blucher in Silesia. After having drawn Macdonald across the
+Katzbach and the foaming Neisse, he drove him, after a desperate and
+bloody engagement, into those rivers, which were greatly swollen by
+the incessant rains. The muskets of the soldiery had been rendered
+unserviceable by the wet, and Blucher, drawing his sabre from beneath
+his cloak, dashed forward exclaiming, "Forward!" Several thousand of
+the French were drowned or fell by the bayonet, or beneath the heavy
+blows dealt by the _Landwehr_ with the butt-end of their firelocks. It
+was on this battlefield that the Silesians had formerly opposed the
+Tartars, and the monastery of Wahlstatt, erected in memory of that
+heroic day,[3] was still standing. Blucher was rewarded with the title
+of Prince von der Wahlstatt, but his soldiers surnamed him Marshal
+Vorwarts. On the decline of the floods, the banks of the rivers were
+strewn with corpses sticking in horrid distortion out of the mud. A
+part of the French fled for a couple of days in terrible disorder
+along the right bank and were then taken prisoner together with their
+general, Puthod.[4] The French lost one hundred and three guns,
+eighteen thousand prisoners, and a still greater number in killed; the
+loss on the side of the Prussians merely amounted to one thousand men.
+Macdonald returned almost totally unattended to Dresden and brought
+the melancholy intelligence to Napoleon, "Votre armé du Bobre n'existe
+plus."
+
+The crown prince of Sweden and Bulow had meanwhile pursued Oudinot's
+retreating corps in the direction of the Elbe. Napoleon despatched Ney
+against them, but he met with the fate of his predecessor, at
+Dennewitz, on the 6th of September. The Prussians, on this occasion,
+again triumphed, unaided by their confederates.[5] Bulow and
+Tauenzien, with twenty thousand men, defeated the French army, seventy
+thousand strong. The crown prince of Sweden not only remained to the
+rear with the whole of his troops, but gave perfectly useless orders
+to the advancing Prussian squadron under General Borstel, who, without
+attending to them, hurried on to Bulow's assistance, and the French
+were, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, completely driven
+off the field, which the crown prince reached just in time to witness
+the dispersion of his countrymen. The French lost eighteen thousand
+men and eighty guns. The rout was complete. The rearguard, consisting
+of the Wurtembergers under Franquemont, was again overtaken at the
+head of the bridge at Zwettau, and, after a frightful carnage, driven
+in wild confusion across the dam to Torgau. The Bavarians under
+Raglowich, who, probably owing to secret orders, had remained, during
+the battle, almost in a state of inactivity, withdrew in another
+direction and escaped.[6] Davoust also again retired upon Hamburg, and
+his rearguard under Pecheux was attacked by Wallmoden, on the 16th of
+September, on the Gorde, and suffered a trifling loss. On the 29th of
+September, eight thousand French were also defeated by Platow, the
+Hetman of the Cossacks, at Zeitz: on the 30th, Czernitscheff
+penetrated into Cassel and expelled Jerome. Thielemann, the Saxon
+general, also infested the country to Napoleon's rear, intercepted his
+convoys at Leipzig, and at Weissenfels took one thousand two hundred,
+at Merseburg two thousand, French prisoners; he was, however, deprived
+of his booty by a strong force under Lefebvre-Desnouettes, by whom he
+was incessantly harassed until Platow's arrival with the Cossacks,
+who, in conjunction with Thielemann, repulsed Lefebvre with great
+slaughter at Altenburg. On this occasion, a Baden battalion, that had
+been drawn up apart from the French, turned their fire upon their
+unnatural confederates and aided in their dispersion.[7]
+
+Napoleon's generals had been thrown back in every quarter, with
+immense loss, upon Dresden, toward which the allies now advanced,
+threatening to enclose it on every side. Napoleon manoeuvred until the
+beginning of October with the view of executing a _coup de main_
+against Schwarzenberg and Blucher; the allies were, however, on their
+guard, and he was constantly reduced to the necessity of recalling his
+troops, sent for that purpose into the field, to Dresden. The danger
+in which he now stood of being completely surrounded and cut off from
+the Rhine at length rendered retreat his sole alternative. Blucher had
+already crossed the Elbe on the 5th of October, and, in conjunction
+with the crown prince of Sweden, had approached the head of the main
+body of the allied army under Schwarzenberg, which was advancing from
+the Erzgebirge. On the 7th of October, Napoleon quitted Dresden,
+leaving a garrison of thirty thousand French under St. Cyr, and
+removed his headquarters to Duben, on the road leading from Leipzig to
+Berlin, in the hope of drawing Blucher and the Swedes once more on the
+right side of the Elbe, in which case he intended to turn unexpectedly
+upon the Austrians; Blucher, however, eluded him, without quitting the
+left bank. Napoleon's plan was to take advantage of the absence of
+Blucher and of the Swedes from Berlin in order to hasten across the
+defenceless country, for the purpose of inflicting punishment upon
+Prussia, of raising Poland, etc. But his plan met with opposition in
+his own military council. His ill success had caused those who had
+hitherto followed his fortunes to waver. The king of Bavaria declared
+against him on the 8th of October,[8] and the Bavarian army under
+Wrede united with instead of opposing the Austrian army and was sent
+to the Maine in order to cut off Napoleon's retreat. The news of this
+defection speedily reached the French camp and caused the rest of the
+troops of the Rhenish confederation to waver in their allegiance;
+while the French, wearied with useless manoeuvres, beaten in every
+quarter, opposed by an enemy greatly their superior in number and
+glowing with revenge, despaired of the event and sighed for peace and
+their quiet homes. All refused to march upon Berlin, nay, the very
+idea of removing further from Paris almost produced a mutiny in the
+camp.[9] Four days, from the 11th to the 14th of October, were passed
+by Napoleon in a state of melancholy irresolution, when he appeared as
+if suddenly inspired by the idea of there still being time to execute
+a _coup de main_ upon the main body of the allied army under
+Schwarzenberg before its junction with Blucher and the Swedes.
+Schwarzenberg was slowly advancing from Bohemia and had already
+allowed himself to be defeated before Dresden. Napoleon intended to
+fall upon him on his arrival in the vicinity of Leipzig, but it was
+already too late.--Blucher was at hand. On the 14th of October,[10]
+the flower of the French cavalry, headed by the king of Naples,
+encountered Blucher's and Wittgenstein's cavalry at Wachau, not far
+from Leipzig. The contest was broken off, both sides being desirous of
+husbanding their strength, but terminated to the disadvantage of the
+French, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, besides proving
+the vicinity of the Prussians. This was the most important cavalry
+fight that took place during this war.
+
+On the 16th of October, while Napoleon was merely awaiting the arrival
+of Macdonald's corps, that had remained behind, before proceeding to
+attack Schwarzenberg's Bohemian army, he was unexpectedly attacked on
+the right bank of the Pleisse, at Liebert-wolkwitz, by the Austrians,
+who were, however, compelled to retire before a superior force. The
+French cavalry under Latour-Maubourg pressed so closely upon the
+emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia that they merely owed their
+escape to the gallantry of the Russian, Orlow Denisow, and to Latour's
+fall. Napoleon had already ordered all the bells in Leipzig to be
+rung, had sent the news of his victory to Paris, and seems to have
+expected a complete triumph when joyfully exclaiming, "Le monde tourne
+pour nous!" But his victory had been only partial, and he had been
+unable to follow up his advantage, another division of the Austrian
+army, under General Meerveldt, having simultaneously occupied him and
+compelled him to cross the Pleisse at Dolnitz; and, although Meerveldt
+had been in his turn repulsed with severe loss and been himself taken
+prisoner, the diversion proved of service to the Austrians by keeping
+Napoleon in check until the arrival of Blücher, who threw himself upon
+the division of the French army opposed to him at Möckern by Marshal
+Marmont. Napoleon, while thus occupied with the Austrians, was unable
+to meet the attack of the Prussians with sufficient force. Marmont,
+after a massacre of some hours' duration in and around Möckern, was
+compelled to retire with a loss of forty guns. The second Prussian
+brigade lost, either in killed or wounded, all its officers except
+one.
+
+The battle had, on the 16th of October, raged around Leipzig; Napoleon
+had triumphed over the Austrians, whom he had solely intended to
+attack, but had, at the same time, been attacked and defeated by the
+Prussians, and now found himself opposed and almost surrounded--one
+road for retreat alone remaining open--by the whole allied force. He
+instantly gave orders to General Bertrand to occupy Weissenfels during
+the night, in order to secure his retreat through Thuringia; but,
+during the following day, the 17th of October, neither seized that
+opportunity in order to effect a retreat or to make a last and
+energetic attack upon the allies, whose forces were not yet completely
+concentrated, ere the circle had been fully drawn around him. The
+Swedes, the Russians under Bennigsen, and a large Austrian division
+under Colloredo, had not yet arrived. Napoleon might with advantage
+have again attacked the defeated Austrians under Schwarzenberg or have
+thrown himself with the whole of his forces upon Blücher. He had still
+an opportunity of making an orderly retreat without any great exposure
+to danger. But he did neither. He remained motionless during the whole
+day, which was also passed in tranquillity by the allies, who thus
+gained time to receive fresh reinforcements. Napoleon's inactivity was
+caused by his having sent his prisoner, General Meerveldt, to the
+emperor of Austria, whom he still hoped to induce, by means of great
+assurances, to secede from the coalition and to make peace. Not even a
+reply was vouchsafed. On the very day, thus futilely lost by Napoleon,
+the allied army was reintegrated by the arrival of the masses
+commanded by the crown prince, by Bennigsen and Colloredo, and was
+consequently raised to double the strength of that of France, which
+now merely amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand men. On the
+18th, a murderous conflict began on both sides. Napoleon long and
+skilfully opposed the fierce onset of the allied troops, but was at
+length driven off the field by their superior weight and persevering
+efforts. The Austrians, stationed on the left wing of the allied army,
+were opposed by Oudinot, Augereau, and Poniatowsky; the Prussians,
+stationed on the right wing, by Marmont and Ney; the Russians and
+Swedes in the centre, by Murat and Regnier. In the hottest of the
+battle, two Saxon cavalry regiments went over to Blücher, and General
+Normann, when about to be charged at Taucha by the Prussian cavalry
+under Billow, also deserted to him with two Würtemberg cavalry
+regiments, in order to avoid an unpleasant reminiscence of the
+treacherous ill-treatment of Lützow's corps. The whole of the Saxon
+infantry, commanded by Regnier, shortly afterward went, with
+thirty-eight guns, over to the Swedes, five hundred men and General
+Zeschau alone remaining true to Napoleon. The Saxons stationed
+themselves behind the lines of the allies, but their guns were
+instantly turned upon the enemy.[11]
+
+In the evening of this terrible day, the French were driven back close
+upon the walls of Leipzig.[12] On the certainty of victory being
+announced by Schwarzenberg to the three monarchs, who had watched the
+progress of the battle, they knelt on the open field and returned
+thanks to God. Napoleon, before nightfall, gave orders for full
+retreat; but, on the morning of the 19th, recommenced the battle and
+sacrificed some of his _corps d'armee_ in order to save the remainder.
+He had, however, foolishly left but one bridge across the Elster open,
+and the retreat was consequently retarded. Leipzig was stormed by the
+Prussians, and, while the French rearguard was still battling on that
+side of the bridge, Napoleon fled, and had no sooner crossed the
+bridge than it was blown up with a tremendous explosion, owing to the
+inadvertence of a subaltern, who is said to have fired the train too
+hastily. The troops engaged on the opposite bank were irremediably
+lost. Prince Poniatowsky plunged on horseback into the Elster in order
+to swim across, but sank in the deep mud. The king of Saxony, who to
+the last had remained true to Napoleon, was among the prisoners. The
+loss during this battle, which raged for four days, and in which
+almost every nation in Europe stood opposed to each other, was immense
+on both sides. The total loss in dead was computed at eighty thousand.
+The French lost, moreover, three hundred guns and a multitude of
+prisoners; in the city of Leipzig alone twenty-three thousand sick,
+without reckoning the innumerable wounded. Numbers of these
+unfortunates lay bleeding and starving to death during the cold
+October nights on the field of battle, it being found impossible to
+erect a sufficient number of lazaretti for their accommodation.
+Napoleon made a hasty and disorderly retreat with the remainder of his
+troops, but was overtaken at Freiburg on the Unstrutt, where the
+bridge broke, and a repetition of the disastrous passage of the
+Beresina occurred. The fugitives collected into a dense mass, upon
+which the Prussian artillery played with murderous effect. The French
+lost forty of their guns. At Hanau, Wrede, Napoleon's former favorite,
+after taking Würzburg, watched the movements of his ancient patron,
+and, had he occupied the pass at Gelnhausen, might have annihilated
+him. Napoleon, however, furiously charged his flank, and, on the 20th
+of October, succeeded in forcing a passage and in sending seventy
+thousand men across the Rhine. Wrede was dangerously wounded.[13] On
+the 9th of November, the last French corps was defeated at Hochheim
+and driven back upon Mayence.
+
+In the November of this ever memorable year, 1813, Germany, as far as
+the Rhine, was completely freed from the French.[14] Above a hundred
+thousand French troops, still shut up in the fortresses and cut off
+from all communication with France, gradually surrendered. In October,
+the allies took Bremen; in November, Stettin, Zamosk, Modlin, and
+those two important points, Dresden and Dantzig. In Dresden, Gouvion
+St. Cyr capitulated to Count Klenau, who granted him free egress on
+condition of the delivery of the whole of the army stores. St. Cyr,
+however, infringed the terms of capitulation by destroying several of
+the guns and sinking the gunpowder in the Elbe; consequently, on the
+non-recognition of the capitulation by the generalissimo,
+Schwarzenberg, he found himself without means of defence and was
+compelled to surrender at discretion with a garrison thirty-five
+thousand strong. Rapp, the Alsatian, commanded in Dantzig. This city
+had already fearfully suffered from the commercial interdiction, from
+the exactions and the scandalous license of its French protectors,
+whom the ravages of famine and pestilence finally compelled to
+yield.[15] Lubeck and Torgau fell in December; the typhus, which had
+never ceased to accompany the armies, raged there in the crowded
+hospitals, carrying off thousands, and greater numbers fell victims to
+this pestilential disease than to the war, not only among the troops,
+but in every part of the country through which they passed.
+Wittenberg, whose inhabitants had been shamefully abused by the French
+under Lapoype, Custrin, Glogau, Wesel, Erfurt, fell in the beginning
+of 1814; Magdeburg and Bremen, after the conclusion of the war.
+
+The Rhenish confederation was dissolved, each of the princes securing
+his hereditary possessions by a timely secession. The kings of
+Westphalia and Saxony, Dalberg, grand-duke of Frankfort, and the
+princes of Isenburg and von der Leyen, who had too heavily sinned
+against Germany, were alone excluded from pardon. The king of Saxony
+was at first carried prisoner to Berlin, and afterward, under the
+protection of Austria, to Prague. Denmark also concluded peace at Kiel
+and ceded Norway to Sweden, upon which the Swedes, _quasi re bene
+gesta_, returned home.[16]
+
+
+[Footnote 1: This general belonged to a German family long naturalized
+in Russia.]
+
+[Footnote 2: He was led through Silesia, which he had once so
+shamefully plundered, and, although no physical punishment was
+inflicted upon him, he was often compelled to hear the voice of public
+opinion, and was exposed to the view of the people to whom he had once
+said, "Nothing shall be left to you except your eyes, that you may be
+able to weep over your wretchedness."--_Manso's History of Prussia._]
+
+[Footnote 3: An ancient battle-axe of serpentine stone was found on
+the site fixed upon for the erection of a fresh monument in honor of
+the present victory.--_Allgemenie Zeitung, 1817._]
+
+[Footnote 4: This piece of good fortune befell Langeron, the Russian
+general, who belonged to the diplomatic party at that time attempting
+to spare the forces of Russia, Austria, and Sweden at the expense of
+Prussia, and, at the same time, to deprive Prussia of her well-won
+laurels. Langeron had not obeyed Blucher's orders, had remained behind
+on his own responsibility, and the scattered French troops fell into
+his hands.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The proud armies of Russia and Sweden (forty-six
+battalions, forty squadrons, and one hundred and fifty guns) followed
+to the rear of the Prussians without firing a shot and remained
+inactive spectators of the action.--_Plotho._]
+
+[Footnote 6: In order to avoid being carried along by the fugitive
+French, they fired upon them whenever their confused masses came too
+close upon them.--_Bölderndorf._]
+
+[Footnote 7: Vide Wagner's Chronicle of Altenburg.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Maximilian Joseph declared in an open manifesto; Bavaria
+was compelled to furnish thirty-eight thousand men for the Russian
+campaign, and, on her expressing a hope that such an immense sacrifice
+would not be requested, France instantly declared the princes of the
+Rhenish confederation her vassals, who were commanded "under
+punishment of felony" unconditionally to obey each of Napoleon's
+demands. The allies would, on the contrary, have acceded to all the
+desires of Bavaria and have guaranteed that kingdom. Even the Austrian
+troops, that stood opposed to Bavaria, were placed under Wrede's
+command.--Raglowich received permission from Napoleon, before the
+battle of Leipzig, to return to Bavaria; but his corps was retained in
+the vicinity of Leipzig without taking part in the action, and
+retired, in the general confusion, under the command of General
+Maillot, upon Torgau, whence it returned home.--_Bolderndorf._ In the
+Tyrol, the brave mountaineers were on the eve of revolt. As early as
+September, Speckbacher, sick and wasted from his wounds, but endued
+with all his former fire and energy, reappeared in the Tyrol, where he
+was commissioned by Austria to organize a revolt. An unexpected
+reconciliation, however, taking place between Bavaria and Austria,
+counter orders arrived, and Speckbacher furiously dashed his bullet-
+worn hat to the ground.--_Brockhaus, 1814._ The restoration of the
+Tyrol to Austria being delayed, a multitude of Tyrolese forced their
+way into Innsbruck and deposed the Bavarian authorities; their leader,
+Kluibenspedel, was, however, persuaded by Austria to submit.
+Speckbacher was, in 1816, raised by the emperor Francis to the rank of
+major; he died in 1820, and was buried at Hall by the south wall of
+the parish church. His son, Andre, who grew up a fine, handsome man,
+died in 1835, at Jenbach (not Zenbach, as Mercy has it in his attacks
+upon the Tyrol), in the Tyrol, where he was employed as superintendent
+of the mines. Mercy's Travels and his account of Speckbacher in the
+Milan Revista Buropea, 1838, are replete with falsehood.]
+
+[Footnote 9: According to Fain and Coulaincourt.]
+
+[Footnote 10: On the evening of the 14th of October (the anniversary
+of the battle of Jena), a hurricane raged in the neighborhood of
+Leipzig, where the French lay, carried away roofs and uprooted trees,
+while, during the whole night, the rain fell in violent floods.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Not so the Badeners and Hessians. The Baden corps was
+captured almost to a man; among others, Prince Emilius of Darmstadt.
+Baden had been governed, since the death of the popular grandduke,
+Charles Frederick, in 1811, by his grandson, Charles.--Franquemont,
+with the Würtemberg infantry, eight to nine thousand strong, acted
+independently of Normann's cavalry. But one thousand of their number
+remained after the battle of Leipzig, and, without going over to the
+allies, returned to Würtemberg. Normann was punished by his
+sovereign.]
+
+[Footnote 12: The city was in a state of utter confusion. "The noise
+caused by the passage of the cavalry, carriages, etc., by the cries of
+the fugitives through the streets, exceeded that of the most terrific
+storm. The earth shook, the windows clattered with the thunder of
+artillery," etc.--_The Terrors of Leipzig, 1813._]
+
+[Footnote 13: The king of Würtemberg, who had fifteen hundred men
+close at hand, did not send them to the aid of the Bavarians, nor did
+he go over to the allies until the 2d of November.]
+
+[Footnote 14: In November, one hundred and forty thousand French
+prisoners and seven hundred and ninety-one guns were in the hands of
+the allies.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Dantzig had formerly sixty thousand inhabitants, the
+population was now reduced to thirteen thousand. Numbers died of
+hunger, Rapp having merely stored the magazines for his troops.
+Fifteen thousand of the French garrison died, and yet fourteen
+generals, upward of a thousand officers, and about as many
+comptrollers belonging to the grand army, who had taken refuge in that
+city, were, on the capitulation of the fortress, made prisoners of
+war.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The injustice thus favored by the first peace was loudly
+complained of.--_Manso._]
+
+
+
+CCLXII. Napoleon's Fall
+
+
+Napoleon was no sooner driven across the Rhine, than the defection of
+the whole of the Rhenish confederation, of Holland, Switzerland, and
+Italy ensued. The whole of the confederated German princes followed
+the example of Bavaria and united their troops with those of the
+allies. Jerome had fled; the kingdom of Westphalia had ceased to
+exist, and the exiled princes of Hesse, Brunswick, and Oldenburg
+returned to their respective territories. The Rhenish provinces were
+instantly occupied by Prussian troops and placed under the patriotic
+administration of Justus Gruner, who was joined by Görres of Coblentz,
+whose Rhenish Mercury so powerfully influenced public opinion that
+Napoleon termed him the fifth great European power.[1] The Dutch
+revolted and took the few French still remaining in the country
+prisoner. Hogendorp was placed at the head of a provisional government
+in the name of William of Orange.[2] The Prussians under Bulow entered
+the country and were received with great acclamation. The whole of the
+Dutch fortresses surrendered, the French garrisons flying
+panic-stricken.
+
+The Swiss remained faithful to Napoleon until the arrival of
+Schwarzenberg with the allied army on their frontiers.[3] Napoleon
+would gladly have beheld the Swiss sacrifice themselves for him for
+the purpose of keeping the allies in check, but Reinhard of Zurich,
+who was at that time _Landammnann_, prudently resolved not to
+persevere in the demand for neutrality, to lay aside every
+manifestation of opposition, and to permit, it being impossible to
+prevent, the entrance of the troops into the country, by which he,
+moreover, ingratiated himself with the allies. The majority of his
+countrymen thanked Heaven for their deliverance from French
+oppression, and if, in their ancient spirit of egotism, they neglected
+to aid the great popular movement throughout Germany, they, at all
+events, sympathized in the general hatred toward France.[4] The
+ancient aristocrats now naturally reappeared and attempted to
+re-establish the oligarchical governments of the foregoing century. A
+Count Senfft von Pilsach, a pretended Austrian envoy, who was speedily
+disavowed, assumed the authority at Berne with so much assurance as to
+succeed in deposing the existing government and reinstating the
+ancient oligarchy. In Zurich, the constitution was also revised and
+the citizens reassumed their authority over the peasantry. The whole
+of Switzerland was in a state of ferment. Ancient claims of the most
+varied description were asserted. The people of the Grisons took up
+arms and invaded the Valtelline in order to retake their ancient
+possession. Pancratius, abbot of St. Gall, demanded the restoration of
+his princely abbey.--Italy, also, deserted Napoleon. Murat, king of
+Naples, in order not to lose his crown, joined the allies. Eugene
+Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, alone remained true to his imperial
+stepfather and gallantly opposed the Austrians under Hiller, who,
+nevertheless, rapidly reduced the whole of Upper Italy to submission.
+
+The allies, when on the point of entering the French territory,
+solemnly declared that their enmity was directed not against the
+French nation, but solely against Napoleon. By this generosity they
+hoped at once to prove the beneficence of their intentions to every
+nation of Europe and to prejudice the French, more particularly,
+against their tyrant; but that people, notwithstanding their immense
+misfortunes, still remained true to Napoleon nor hesitated to
+sacrifice themselves for the man who had raised them to the highest
+rank among the nations of the earth, and thousands flocked anew
+beneath the imperial eagle for the defence of their native soil.
+
+The allies invaded France simultaneously on four sides, Bulow from
+Holland, Blucher, on New Year's eve, 1814, from Coblentz, and the main
+body of the allied army under Schwarzenberg, which was also
+accompanied by the allied sovereigns. A fourth army, consisting of
+English and Spaniards, had already crossed the Pyrenees and marched up
+the country. The great wars in Russia and Germany having compelled
+Napoleon to draw off a considerable number of his forces from Spain,
+Soult had been consequently unable to keep the field against
+Wellington, whose army had been gradually increased. King Joseph fled
+from Madrid. The French hazarded a last engagement at Vittoria, in
+June, 1813, but suffered a terrible defeat. One of the two Nassau
+regiments under Colonel Kruse and the Frankfort battalion deserted
+with their arms and baggage to the English. The other Nassau regiment
+and that of Baden were disarmed by the French and dragged in chains to
+France in reward for their long and severe service.[5] The Hanoverians
+in Wellington's army (the German Legion), particularly the corps of
+Victor von Alten (Charles's brother), brilliantly distinguished
+themselves at Vittoria and again at Bayonne, but were forgotten in the
+despatches, an omission that was loudly complained of by their
+general, Hinuber. Other divisions of Hanoverians, up to this period
+stationed in Sicily, had been sent to garrison Leghorn and
+Genoa.[6]--The crown prince of Sweden followed the Prussian northern
+army, but merely went as far as Liege, whence he turned back in order
+to devote his whole attention to the conquest of Norway.
+
+In the midst of the contest a fresh congress was assembled at
+Chatillon, for the purpose of devising measures for the conclusion of
+the war without further bloodshed. The whole of ancient France was
+offered to Napoleon on condition of his restraining his ambition
+within her limits and of keeping peace, but he refused to cede a foot
+of land, and resolved to lose all or nothing. This congress was in so
+far disadvantageous on account of the rapid movements of the armies
+being checked by its fluctuating diplomacy. Schwarzenberg, for
+instance, pursued a system of procrastination, separated his _corps
+d'armee_ at long intervals, advanced with extreme slowness, or
+remained entirely stationary. Napoleon took advantage of this
+dilatoriness on the part of his opponents to make an unexpected attack
+on Blucher's corps at Brienne on the 29th of January, in which Blucher
+narrowly escaped being made prisoner. The flames of the city, in which
+Napoleon had received his first military lessons, facilitated
+Blucher's retreat. Napoleon, however, neglecting to pursue him on the
+30th of January, Blucher, reinforced by the crown prince of Wurtemberg
+and by Wrede, attacked him at La Rothière with such superior forces as
+to put him completely to the rout. The French left seventy-three guns
+sticking in the mud. Schwarzenberg, nevertheless, instead of pursuing
+the retreating enemy with the whole of his forces, again delayed his
+advance and divided the troops. Blucher, who had meanwhile rapidly
+pushed forward upon Paris, was again unexpectedly attacked by the main
+body of the French army, and the whole of his corps were, as they
+separately advanced, repulsed with considerable loss, the Russians
+under Olsufief at Champeaubert, those under Sacken at Montmirail, the
+Prussians under York at Château-Thierry, and, finally, Blucher himself
+at Beaux-champ, between the 10th and 14th of February. With
+characteristic rapidity, Napoleon instantly fell upon the scattered
+corps of the allied army and inflicted a severe punishment upon
+Schwarzenberg, for the folly of his system. He successively repulsed
+the Russians under Pahlen at Mormant, Wrede at Villeneuve le Comte,
+the crown prince of Wurtemberg, who offered the most obstinate
+resistance, at Montereau, on the 17th and 18th of February.[7]
+Augereau had meantime, with an army levied in the south of France,
+driven the Austrians, under Bubna, into Switzerland; and, although the
+decisive moment had arrived, and Schwarzenberg had simply to form a
+junction with Blucher in order to bring an overwhelming force against
+Napoleon, the allied sovereigns and Schwarzenberg resolved, in a
+council of war held at Troyes, upon a general retreat.
+
+Blucher, upon this, magnanimously resolved to obviate at all hazards
+the disastrous consequences of the retreat of the allied army, and, in
+defiance of all commands, pushed forward alone.[8] This movement, far
+from being rash, was coolly calculated, Blucher being sufficiently
+reinforced on the Marne by Winzingerode and Bulow, by whose aid he, on
+the 9th March, defeated the emperor Napoleon at Laon. The victory was
+still undecided at fall of night. Napoleon allowed his troops to rest,
+but Blucher remained under arms and sent York to surprise him during
+the night. The French were completely dispersed and lost forty-six
+guns. Napoleon, after this miserable defeat, again tried his fortune
+against Schwarzenberg (who, put to shame by Blucher's brilliant
+success, had again halted), and, on the 20th of March, maintained his
+position at Arcis sur Aube, although the crown prince of Wurtemberg
+gallantly led his troops five times to the assault. Neither side was
+victorious.
+
+Napoleon now resorted to a bold _ruse de guerre_. The peasantry, more
+particularly in Lorraine, exasperated by the devastation unavoidable
+during war time, and by the vengeance here and there taken by the
+foreign soldiery, had risen to the rear of the allied army.
+Unfortunately, no one had dreamed of treating the German Alsatians and
+Lothringians as brother Germans. They were treated as French. Long
+unaccustomed to invasion and to the calamities incidental to war, they
+made a spirited but ineffectual resistance to the rapine of the
+soldiery. Whole villages were burned down. The peasantry gathered into
+troops and massacred the foreign soldiery when not in sufficient
+numbers to keep them in check. Napoleon confidently expected that his
+diminished armies would be supported by a general rising _en masse_,
+and that Augereau, who was at that time guarding Lyons, would form a
+junction with him; and, in this expectation, threw himself to the rear
+of the allied forces and took up a position at Troyes with a view of
+cutting them off, perhaps of surrounding them by means of the general
+rising, or, at all events, of drawing them back to the Rhine. But, on
+the self-same day, the 19th of March, Lyons had fallen and Augereau
+had retreated southward. The people did not rise _en masse_, and the
+allies took advantage of Napoleon's absence to form a grand junction,
+and, with flying banners, to march unopposed upon Paris, convinced
+that the possession of the capital of the French empire must
+inevitably bring the war to a favorable conclusion. In Paris, there
+were numerous individuals who already regarded Napoleon's fall as _un
+fait accompli_, and who, ambitious of influencing the future prospects
+of France, were ready to offer their services to the victors. Both
+parties speedily came to an understanding. The _corps d'armee_ under
+Marshals Mortier and Marmont, which were encountered midway, were
+repulsed, and that under Generals Pacthod and Amey captured, together
+with seventy pieces of artillery, at La Fère Ohampenoise. On the 29th
+of March, the dark columns of the allied army defiled within sight of
+Paris. On the 30th, they met with a spirited resistance on the heights
+of Belleville and Montmartre; but the city, in order to escape
+bombardment, capitulated during the night, and, on the 31st, the
+allied sovereigns made a peaceful entry. The empress, accompanied by
+the king of Rome, by Joseph, ex-king of Spain, and by innumerable
+wagons, laden with the spoil of Europe, had already fled to the south
+of France.
+
+Napoleon, completely deceived by Winzingerode and Tettenborn, who had
+remained behind with merely a weak rearguard, first learned the
+advance of the main body upon Paris when too late to overtake it.
+After almost annihilating his weak opponents at St. Dizier, he reached
+Fontainebleau, where he learned the capitulation of Paris, and, giving
+way to the whole fury of his Corsican temperament, offered to yield
+the city for two days to the license of his soldiery would they but
+follow him to the assault. But his own marshals, even his hero, Ney,
+deserted him, and, on the 10th of April, he was compelled to resign
+the imperial crown of France and to withdraw to the island of Elba on
+the coast of Italy, which was placed beneath his sovereignty and
+assigned to him as a residence. The kingdom of France was
+re-established on its former footing; and, on the 4th of May, Louis
+XVIII. entered Paris and mounted the throne of his ancestors.
+
+Davoust was the last to offer resistance. The Russians under Bennigsen
+besieged him in Hamburg, and, on his final surrender, treated him with
+the greatest moderation.[9]
+
+On the 30th of May, 1814, peace was concluded at Paris.[10] France was
+reduced to her limits as in 1792, and consequently retained the
+provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, of which she had, at an earlier
+period, deprived Germany. Not a farthing was paid by way of
+compensation for the ravages suffered by Germany, nay, the French
+prisoners of war were, on their release, maintained on their way home
+at the expense of the German population. None of the _chefs-d'oeuvres_
+of which Europe had been plundered were restored, with the sole
+exception of the group of horses, taken by Napoleon from the
+Brandenburg gate at Berlin. The allied troops instantly evacuated the
+country. France was allowed to regulate her internal affairs without
+the interference of any of the foreign powers, while paragraphs
+concerning the internal economy of Germany were not only admitted into
+the treaty of Paris, and France was on that account not only called
+upon to guarantee and to participate in the internal affairs of
+Germany, but also afterward sent to the great Congress of Vienna an
+ambassador destined to play an important part in the definitive
+settlement of the affairs of Europe, and, more particularly, of those
+of Germany.
+
+The patriots, of whom the governments had made use both before and
+after the war, unable to comprehend that the result of such immense
+exertions and of such a complete triumph should be to bring greater
+profit and glory to France than to Germany, and that their patriotism
+was, on the conclusion of the war, to be renounced, were loud in their
+complaints.[11] But the revival of the German empire, with which the
+individual interests of so many princely houses were plainly
+incompatible, was far from entering into the plans of the allied
+powers. An attempt made by any one among the princes to place himself
+at the head of the whole of Germany would have been frustrated by the
+rest. The policy of the foreign allies was moreover antipathetic to
+such a scheme. England opposed and sought to hinder unity in Germany,
+not only for the sake of retaining possession of Hanover and of
+exercising an influence over the disunited German princes similar to
+that exercised by her over the princes of India, but more particularly
+for that of ruling the commerce of Germany. Russia reverted to her
+Erfurt policy. Her interests, like those of France, led her to promote
+disunion among the German powers, whose weakness, the result of want
+of combination, placed them at the mercy of France, and left Poland,
+Sweden, and the East open to the ambition of Russia. A close alliance
+was in consequence instantly formed between the emperor Alexander and
+Louis XVIII., the former negotiating, as the first condition of peace,
+the continuance of Lorraine and Alsace beneath the sovereignty of
+France.
+
+Austria assented on condition of Italy being placed exclusively
+beneath her control. Austria united too many and too diverse nations
+beneath her sceptre to be able to pursue a policy pre-eminently
+German, and found it more convenient to round off her territories by
+the annexation of Upper Italy than by that of distant Lorraine, at all
+times a possession difficult to maintain. Prussia was too closely
+connected with Russia, and Hardenberg, unlike Blucher at the head of
+the Prussian army, was powerless at the head of Prussian diplomacy.
+The lesser states also exercised no influence upon Germany as a whole,
+and were merely intent upon preserving their individual integrity or
+upon gaining some petty advantage. The Germans, some few discontented
+patriots alone excepted, were more than ever devoted to their ancient
+princes, both to those who had retained their station and to those who
+returned to their respective territories on the fall of Napoleon; and
+the victorious soldiery, adorned with ribbons, medals, and orders (the
+Prussians, for instance, with the iron cross), evinced the same
+unreserved attachment to their prince and zeal for his individual
+interest. This complication of circumstances can alone explain the
+fact of Germany, although triumphant, having made greater concessions
+to France by the treaty of Paris than, when humbled, by that of
+Westphalia.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: His principal thesis consisted of "We are not Prussians,
+Westphalians, Saxons, etc., but Germans."]
+
+[Footnote 2: This prince took the title not of stadtholder, but of
+king, to which he had no claim, but in which he was supported by
+England and Russia, who unwillingly beheld Prussia aggrandized by the
+possession of Holland.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Even in the May of 1813, an ode given in No. 270 of the
+Allgemeine Zeitung, appeared in Switzerland, in which it was said,
+"The brave warriors of Switzerland hasten to reap fresh laurels. With
+their heroic blood have they dyed the distant shores of barbarous
+Haiti, the waters of the Ister and Tagus, etc. The deserts of Sarmatia
+have witnessed the martial glories of the Helvetic legion."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Shortly before this, a report had been spread of the
+nomination of Marshal Berthier, prince of Neufchatel, as perpetual
+Landammann of Switzerland.--_Muralt's Reinhard_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Out of two thousand six hundred and fifty-four Badeners
+but five hundred and six returned from Spain.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Beamisch, History of the Legion.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Several regiments sacrificed themselves in order to cover
+the retreat of the rest. Napoleon ordered a twelve-pounder to be
+loaded and twice directed the gun with his own hand upon the crown
+prince.--_Campaigns of the Würterribergers._]
+
+[Footnote 8: Blücher's conduct simply proceeded from his impatience to
+obtain by force of arms the most honorable terms of peace for Prussia,
+while the other allied powers, who were far more indulgently disposed
+toward France and who began to view the victories gained by Prussia
+with an apprehension which was further strengthened by the increasing
+popularity of that power throughout Germany, were more inclined to
+diplomatize than to fight. Blücher was well aware of these reasons for
+diplomacy and more than once cut the negotiations short with his
+sabre. A well-known diplomatist attempting on one occasion to prove to
+him that Napoleon must, even without the war being continued, "descend
+from his throne," a league having been formed within France herself
+for the restoration of the Bourbons--he answered him to his face, "The
+rascality of the French is no revenge for us. It is we who must pull
+him down--we. You will no doubt do wonders in your wisdom!--Patience!
+You will be led as usual by the nose, and will still go on fawning and
+diplomatizing until we have the nation again upon us, and the storm
+bursts over our heads." He went so far as to set the diplomatists
+actually at defiance. On being, to Napoleon's extreme delight, ordered
+to retreat, he treated the order with contempt and instantly
+advanced.--_Rauschnick's Life of Blücher_. "This second disjunction on
+Blücher's part," observes Clausewitz, the Prussian general, the best
+commentator on this war, "was of infinite consequence, for it checked
+and gave a fresh turn to the whole course of political affairs."]
+
+[Footnote 9: Görres said in the Rhenish Mercury, "It is easy to see
+how all are inclined to conceal beneath the wide mantle of love the
+horrors there perpetrated. The Germans have from time immemorial been
+subjected to this sort of treatment, because ever ready to forgive and
+forget the past." Davoust was arrested merely for form's sake and then
+honorably released. He was allowed to retain the booty he had seized.
+The citizens of Hamburg vainly implored the re-establishment of their
+bank.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Blücher took no part in these affairs. "I have," said he
+to the diplomatists, "done my duty, now do yours! You will be
+responsible both to God and man should your work be done in vain and
+have to be done over again. I have nothing further to do with the
+business!"--Experience had, however, taught him not to expect much
+good from "quill-drivers."]
+
+[Footnote 11: The Rhenish Mercury more than all. It was opposed by the
+Messenger of the Tyrol, which declared that the victory was gained,
+not by the "people," as they were termed, but by the princes and their
+armies.--_July, 1814_.]
+
+
+
+CCLXIII. The Congress of Vienna--Napoleon's Return and End
+
+
+From Paris the sovereigns of Prussia[1] and Russia and the victorious
+field-marshals proceeded, in June, to London, where they, Blucher most
+particularly, were received with every demonstration of delight and
+respect by the English, their oldest and most faithful allies.[2]
+Toward autumn, a great European congress, to which the settlement of
+every point in dispute and the restoration of order throughout Europe
+were to be committed, was convoked at Vienna. At this congress, which,
+in the November of 1814, was opened at Vienna, the emperors of Austria
+and Russia, the kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and
+the greater part of the petty princes of Germany, were present in
+person; the other powers were represented by ambassadors
+extraordinary. The greatest statesmen of that period were here
+assembled; among others, Metternich, the Austrian minister, Hardenberg
+and Humboldt, the Prussian ministers, Castlereagh, the English
+plenipotentiary, Nesselrode, the Russian envoy, Talleyrand and
+Dalberg, Gagern, Bernstorff, and Wrede, the ambassadors of France,
+Holland, Denmark, and Bavaria, etc. The negotiations were of the
+utmost importance, for, although one of the most difficult points, the
+new regulation of affairs in France, was already settled, many
+extremely difficult questions still remained to be solved. Talleyrand,
+who had served under every government, under the republic, under the
+usurper, Napoleon; who had retaken office under the Bourbons and the
+Jesuits who had returned in their train, and who, on this occasion,
+was the representative of the criminal and humbled French nation,
+ventured, nevertheless, to offer his perfidious advice to the victors,
+and, with diabolical art, to sow the seed of discord among them. This
+conduct was the more striking on account of its glaring incongruity
+with the proclamation of Calisch, which expressly declared that the
+internal affairs of Germany were wholly and solely to be arranged by
+the princes and nations of Germany, without foreign, and naturally,
+least of all, without French interference.[3] Talleyrand's first
+object was to suppress the popular spirit of liberty throughout
+Germany, and to rouse against it the jealous apprehensions of the
+princes. He therefore said, "You wish for constitutions; guard against
+them. In France, desire for a constitution produced a revolution, and
+the same will happen to you." He it was who gave to the congress that
+catchword, legitimacy. The object of the past struggle was not the
+restoration of the liberties of the people but that of the ancient
+legitimate dynasties and their absolute sovereignty. The war had been
+directed, not against Napoleon, but against the Revolution, against
+the usurpation of the people. By means of this legitimacy the king of
+Saxony was to be re-established on his throne, and Prussia was on no
+account to be permitted to incorporate Saxony with her dominions.
+Prussia appealed to her services toward Germany, to her enormous
+sacrifices, to the support given to her by public opinion; but the
+power of public opinion was itself questioned. The seeds of discord
+quickly sprang up, and, on the 3d of January, 1815, a secret league
+against Prussia was already formed for the purpose of again humbling
+the state that had sacrificed all for the honor of Germany, of
+frustrating her schemes of aggrandizement, and of quenching the
+patriotic spirit of German idealists and enthusiasts.[4]
+
+The want of unanimity amid the members of the congress had at the same
+time a bad effect upon the ancient Rhenish confederated states. In
+Nassau, the _Landwehr_ was, on its return home after the campaign,
+received with marks of dissatisfaction. In Baden and Hesse, many of
+the officers belonging to the army openly espoused Napoleon's cause.
+In Baden, the volunteer corps was deprived of its horses and sent home
+on foot.[5] In Wurtemberg, King Frederick refused to allow the foreign
+troops and convoys a passage along the highroad through Cannstadt and
+Ludwigsburg, and forbade the attendance of civil surgeons upon the
+wounded belonging to the allied army. In Wurtemberg and Bavaria, the
+Rhenish Mercury was suppressed on account of its patriotic and German
+tendency. At Stuttgard, the festival in commemoration of the battle of
+Leipzig was disallowed; and in Frankfort on the Maine, the editor of a
+French journal ventured, unreprimanded, to turn this festival into
+ridicule.
+
+Switzerland was in a high state of ferment. The people of the Grisons,
+who had taken possession of the Valtelline, and the people of Uri, who
+had seized the Livinenthal, had been respectively driven out of those
+territories by the Austrians. The Valais, Geneva, Neufchatel, and
+Pruntrut were, on the other hand, desirous of joining the
+confederation. The democratic peasantry were almost everywhere at war
+with the aristocratic burghers. Berne revived her claim upon Vaud and
+Aargau, which armed in self-defence.[6] Reinhard of Zurich, the Swiss
+_Landammann_, went, meanwhile, at the head of an embassy to Vienna,
+for the purpose of settling in the congress the future destinies of
+Switzerland by means of the intervention of the great powers.
+Talleyrand, with unparalleled impudence, also interfered in this
+affair, threatened to refuse his recognition to every measure passed
+without his concurrence, and compelled the Swiss to entreat him to
+honor the deliberations with his presence. On Austria's demanding a
+right of conscription in the Grisons alone, France having enjoyed that
+right throughout the whole of Switzerland at an earlier period,
+Talleyrand advised the Swiss to make a most violent opposition against
+an attempt that placed their independence at stake. "Cry out," he
+exclaimed, "cry out, as loud as you can!"[7]
+
+The disputes in the congress raised Napoleon's hopes. In France, his
+party was still powerful, almost the whole of the population being
+blindly devoted to him, and an extensive conspiracy for his
+restoration to the imperial throne was secretly set on foot. Several
+thousands of his veteran soldiery had been released from foreign
+durance; the whole of the military stores, the spoil of Europe, still
+remained in the possession of France; the fortresses were solely
+garrisoned with French troops; Elba was close at hand, and the emperor
+was guarded with criminal negligence. Heavy, indeed, is the
+responsibility of those who, by thus neglecting their charge, once
+more let loose this scourge upon the earth![8] Napoleon quitted his
+island, and, on the 1st of March, 1815, again set foot on the coast of
+France. He was merely accompanied by one thousand five hundred men,
+but the whole of the troops sent against him by Louis XVIII. ranged
+themselves beneath his eagle. He passed, as if in triumph, through his
+former empire. The whole nation received him with acclamations of
+delight. Not a single Frenchman shed a drop of blood for the Bourbon,
+who fled hastily to Ghent; and, on the 20th of March, Napoleon entered
+Paris unopposed. His brother-in-law, Murat, at the same time revolted
+at Naples and advanced into Upper Italy against the Austrians. But all
+the rest of Napoleon's ancient allies, persuaded that he must again
+fall, either remained tranquil or formed a close alliance with the
+combined powers. The Swiss, in particular, showed excessive zeal on
+this occasion, and took up arms against France, in the hope of
+rendering the allied sovereigns favorable to their new constitution,
+The Swiss regiments, which had passed from Napoleon's service to that
+of Louis XVIII., also remained unmoved by Napoleon's blandishments,
+were deprived of their arms and returned separately to Switzerland.
+
+The allied sovereigns were still assembled at Vienna, and at once
+allowed every dispute to drop in order to form a fresh and closer
+coalition. They declared Napoleon an outlaw, a robber, proscribed by
+all Europe, and bound themselves to bring a force more than a million
+strong into the field against him. All Napoleon's cunning attempts to
+bribe and set them at variance were treated with scorn, and the
+combined powers speedily came to an understanding on the points
+hitherto so strongly contested. Saxony was partitioned between her
+ancient sovereign and Prussia, and a revolt that broke out in Liege
+among the Saxon troops, who were by command of Prussia to be divided
+before they had been released from their oath of allegiance to their
+king, is easily explained by the hurry and pressure of the times,
+which caused all minor considerations to be forgotten.[9] Napoleon
+exclusively occupied the mind of every diplomatist, and all agreed in
+the necessity, at all hazards, of his utter annihilation. The lion,
+thus driven at bay, turned upon his pursuers for a last and desperate
+struggle. The French were still faithful to Napoleon, who, with a view
+of reinspiring them with the enthusiastic spirit that had rendered
+them invincible in the first days of the republic, again called forth
+the old republicans, nominated them to the highest appointments,
+re-established several republican institutions, and, on the 1st of
+June, presented to his dazzled subjects the magnificent spectacle of a
+field of May, as in the times of Charlemagne and in the commencement
+of the Revolution, and then led a numerous and spirited army to the
+Dutch frontiers against the enemy.
+
+Here stood a Prussian army under Blucher, and an Anglo-German one
+under Wellington, comprehending the Dutch under the Prince of Orange,
+the Brunswickers under their duke, the recruited Hanoverian Legion
+under Wallmoden. These _corps d'armée_ most imminently threatened
+Paris. The main body of the allied army, under Schwarzenberg, then
+advancing from the south, was still distant. Napoleon consequently
+directed his first attack against the two former. His army had gained
+immensely in strength and spirit by the return of his veteran troops
+from foreign imprisonment. Wellington, ignorant at what point Napoleon
+might cross the frontier, had followed the old and ill-judged plan of
+dividing his forces; an incredible error, the allies having simply to
+unite their forces and to take up a firm position in order to draw
+Napoleon to any given spot. Wellington, moreover, never imagined that
+Napoleon was so near at hand, and was amusing himself at a ball at
+Brussels, when Blucher, who was stationed in and around Namur, was
+attacked on the 14th of June, 1815.[10] Napoleon afterward observed in
+his memoirs that he had attacked Blucher first because he well knew
+that Blucher would not be supported by the over-prudent and
+egotistical English commander, but that Wellington, had he been first
+attacked, would have received every aid from his high-spirited and
+faithful ally. Wellington, after being repeatedly urged by Blucher,
+collected his scattered corps, but neither completely nor with
+sufficient rapidity; and on Blucher's announcement of Napoleon's
+arrival, exerted himself on the following morning so far as to make a
+_reconnaissance_. The duke of Brunswick, with impatience equalling
+that of Blucher, was the only one who had quitted the ball during the
+night and had hurried forward against the enemy. Napoleon, owing to
+Wellington's negligence, gained time to throw himself between him and
+Blucher and to prevent their junction; for he knew the spirit of his
+opponents. He consequently opposed merely a small division of his army
+under Ney to the English and turned with the whole of his main body
+against the Prussians. The veteran Blucher perceived his
+intentions[11] and in consequence urgently demanded aid from the Duke
+of Wellington, who promised to send him a reinforcement of twenty
+thousand men by four o'clock on the 16th. But this aid never arrived,
+Wellington, although Ney was too weak to obstruct the movement, making
+no attempt to perform his promise. Wellington retired with superior
+forces before Ney at Quatre Bras, and allowed the gallant and
+unfortunate Duke William of Brunswick to fall a futile sacrifice.
+Blucher meanwhile yielded to the overwhelming force brought against
+him by Napoleon at Ligny, also on the 16th of June. Vainly did the
+Prussians rush to the attack beneath the murderous fire of the French,
+vainly did Blucher in person head the assault and for five hours
+continue the combat hand to hand in the village of Ligny. Numbers
+prevailed, and Wellington sent no relief. The infantry being at length
+driven back, Blucher led the cavalry once more to the charge, but was
+repulsed and fell senseless beneath his horse, which was shot dead.
+His adjutant, Count Nostitz, alone remained at his side. The French
+cavalry passed close by without perceiving them, twilight and a misty
+rain having begun to fall. The Prussians fortunately missed their
+leader, repulsed the French cavalry, which again galloped past him as
+he lay on the ground, and he was at length drawn from beneath his
+horse. He still lived, but only to behold the complete defeat of his
+army.
+
+Blucher, although a veteran of seventy-three, and wounded and
+shattered by his fall, was not for a moment discouraged.[12] Ever
+vigilant, he assembled his scattered troops with wonderful rapidity,
+inspirited them by his cheerful words, and had the generosity to
+promise aid, by the afternoon of the 18th of June, to Wellington, who
+was now in his turn attacked by the main body of the French under
+Napoleon. What Wellington on the 16th, with a fresh army, could not
+perform, Blucher now effected with troops dejected by defeat, and put
+the English leader to the deepest shame by--keeping his word.[13] He
+consequently fell back upon Wavre in order to remain as close as
+possible in Wellington's vicinity, and also sent orders to Bulow's
+corps, that was then on the advance, to join the English army, while
+Napoleon, in the idea that Blucher was falling back upon the Meuse,
+sent Grouchy in pursuit with a body of thirty-five thousand men.[14]
+
+Napoleon, far from imagining that the Prussians, after having been, as
+he supposed, completely annihilated or panic-stricken by Grouchy,
+could aid the British, wasted the precious moments, and, instead of
+hastily attacking Wellington, spent the whole of the morning of the
+18th in uselessly parading his troops, possibly with a view of
+intimidating his opponents and of inducing them to retreat without
+hazarding an engagement. His well-dressed lines glittered in the
+sunbeams; the infantry raised their tschakos on their bayonet points,
+the cavalry their helmets on their sabres, and gave a general cheer
+for their emperor. The English, however, preserved an undaunted
+aspect. At length, about midday, Napoleon gave orders for the attack,
+and, furiously charging the British left wing, drove it from the
+village of Hougumont. He then sent orders to Ney to charge the British
+centre. At that moment a dark spot was seen in the direction of St.
+Lambert. Was it Grouchy? A reconnoitring party was despatched and
+returned with the news of its being the Prussians under Bulow. The
+attack upon the British centre was consequently remanded, and Ney was
+despatched with a considerable portion of his troops against Bulow.
+Wellington now ventured to charge the enemy with his right wing, but
+was repulsed and lost the farm of La Haye Sainte, which commanded his
+position on this side as Hougumont did on his right. His centre,
+however, remained unattacked, the French exerting their utmost
+strength to keep Bulow's gallant troops back at the village of
+Planchenoit, where the battle raged with the greatest fury, and a
+dreadful conflict of some hours' duration ensued hand to hand. But
+about five o'clock, the left wing of the British being completely
+thrown into confusion by a fresh attack on the enemy's side, the whole
+of the French cavalry, twelve thousand strong, made a furious charge
+upon the British centre, bore down all before them, and took a great
+number of guns. The Prince of Orange was wounded. The road to Brussels
+was already thronged with the fugitive English troops, and Wellington,
+scarcely able to keep his weakened lines together,[15] was apparently
+on the brink of destruction, when the thunder of artillery was
+suddenly heard in the direction of Wavre. "It is Grouchy!" joyfully
+exclaimed Napoleon, who had repeatedly sent orders to that general to
+push forward with all possible speed. But it was not Grouchy, it was
+Blucher.
+
+The faithful troops of the veteran marshal (the old Silesian army)
+were completely worn out by the battle, by their retreat in the heavy
+rain over deep roads, and by the want of food. The distance from
+Wavre, whence they had been driven, to Waterloo, where Wellington was
+then in action, was not great, but was rendered arduous owing to these
+circumstances. The men sometimes fell down from extreme weariness, and
+the guns stuck fast in the deep mud. But Blucher was everywhere
+present, and notwithstanding his bodily pain ever cheered his men
+forward, with "indescribable pathos," saying to his disheartened
+soldiers, "My children, we must advance; I have promised it, do not
+cause me to break my word!" While still distant from the scene of
+action, he ordered the guns to be fired in order to keep up the
+courage of the English, and at length, between six and seven in the
+evening, the first Prussian corps in advance, that of Ziethen, fell
+furiously upon the enemy: "Bravo!" cried Blucher, "I know you, my
+Silesians; to-day we shall see the backs of these French rascals!"
+Ziethen filled up the space still intervening between Wellington and
+Bulow. Exactly at that moment, Napoleon had sent his old guard forward
+in four massive squares in order to make a last attempt to break the
+British lines, when Ziethen fell upon their flank and dealt fearful
+havoc among their close masses with his artillery. Bulow's troops,
+inspirited by this success, now pressed gallantly forward and finally
+regained the long-contested village of Planchenoit from the enemy. The
+whole of the Prussian army, advancing at the double and with drums
+beating, had already driven back the right wing of the French, when
+the English, regaining courage, advanced, Napoleon was surrounded on
+two sides, and the whole of his troops, the old guard under General
+Cambronne alone excepted, were totally dispersed and fled in complete
+disorder. The old guard, surrounded by Bulow's cavalry, nobly replied,
+when challenged to surrender, "La garde ne se rend pas"; and in a few
+minutes the veteran conquerors of Europe fell beneath the righteous
+and avenging blows of their antagonists. At the farm of La Belle
+Alliance, Blucher offered his hand to Wellington. "I will sleep
+to-night in Bonaparte's last night's quarters," said Wellington. "And
+I will drive him out of his present ones!" replied Blucher. The
+Prussians, fired by enthusiasm, forgot the fatigue they had for four
+days endured, and, favored by a moonlight night, so zealously pursued
+the French that an immense number of prisoners and a vast amount of
+booty fell into their hands and Napoleon narrowly escaped being taken
+prisoner. At Genappe, where the bridge was blocked by fugitives, the
+pursuit was so close that he was compelled to abandon his carriage
+leaving his sword and hat behind him. Blucher, who reached the spot a
+moment afterward, took possession of the booty, sent Napoleon's hat,
+sword, and star to the king of Prussia, retained his cloak, telescope,
+and carriage for his own use, and gave up everything else, including a
+quantity of the most valuable jewelry, gold, and money, to his brave
+soldiery. The whole of the army stores, two hundred and forty guns,
+and an innumerable quantity of arms thrown away by the fugitives, fell
+into his hands.
+
+The Prussian general, Thielemann, who, with a few troops, had remained
+behind at Wavre in order, at great hazard, to deceive Grouchy into the
+belief that he was still opposed by Blucher's entire force, acted a
+lesser, but equally honorable part on this great day. He fulfilled his
+commission with great skill, and so completely deceived Grouchy as to
+hinder his making a single attempt to throw himself in the way of the
+Prussians on the Paris road.
+
+Blucher pushed forward without a moment's delay, and, on the 29th of
+June, stood before Paris. Napoleon had, meanwhile, a second time
+abdicated, and had fled from Paris in the hope of escaping across the
+seas. Davoust, the ancient instrument of his tyranny, who commanded in
+Paris, attempting to make terms of capitulation with Blucher, was
+sharply answered, "You want to make a defence? Take care what you do.
+You well know what license the irritated soldiery will take if your
+city must be taken by storm. Do you wish to add the sack of Paris to
+that of Hamburg, already loading your conscience?"[16] Paris
+surrendered after a severe engagement at Issy, and Muffling, the
+Prussian general, was placed in command of the city, July the 7th,
+1815. It was on the occasion of a grand banquet given by Wellington
+shortly after the occupation of Paris by the allied troops that
+Blucher gave the celebrated toast, "May the pens of diplomatists not
+again spoil all that the swords of our gallant armies have so nobly
+won!"
+
+Schwarzenberg had in the interim also penetrated into France, and the
+crown prince of Wurtemberg had defeated General Rapp at Strasburg and
+had surrounded that fortress. The Swiss, under General Bachmann, who
+had, although fully equipped for the field, hitherto prudently watched
+the turn of events, invaded France immediately after the battle of
+Waterloo, pillaged Burgundy, besieged and took the fortress of
+Huningen, which, with the permission of the allies, they justly razed
+to the ground, the insolent French having thence fired upon the
+bridges of Basel which lay close in its vicinity. A fresh Austrian
+army under Frimont advanced from Italy as far as Lyons. On the 17th of
+July, Napoleon surrendered himself in the bay of Rochefort to the
+English, whose ships prevented his escape; he moreover preferred
+falling into their hands than into those of the Prussians. The whole
+of France submitted to the triumphant allies, and Louis XVIII. was
+reinstated on his throne. Murat had also been simultaneously defeated
+at Tolentino in Italy by the Austrians under Bianchi, and Ferdinand
+IV. had been restored to the throne of Naples. Murat fled to Corsica,
+but his retreat to France was prevented by the success of the allies,
+and in his despair he, with native rashness, yielded to the advice of
+secret intriguants and returned to Italy with a design of raising a
+popular insurrection, but was seized on landing and shot on the 13th
+of October.[17]
+
+Blucher was greatly inclined to give full vent to his justly roused
+rage against Paris. The bridge of Jena, one of the numerous bridges
+across the Seine, the principal object of his displeasure, was,
+curiously enough, saved from destruction (he had already attempted to
+blow it up) by the arrival of the king of Prussia.[18] His proposal to
+punish France by partitioning the country and thus placing it on a par
+with Germany, was far more practical in its tendency.
+
+This honest veteran had in fact a deeper insight into affairs than the
+most wary diplomatists.[19] In 1815, the same persons, as in 1814, met
+in Paris, and similar interests were agitated. Foreign jealousy again
+effected the conclusion of this peace at the expense of Germany and in
+favor of France. Blucher's influence at first reigned supreme. The
+king of Prussia, who, together with the emperors of Russia and
+Austria, revisited Paris, took Stein and Gruner into his council. The
+crown prince of Wurtemberg also zealously exerted himself in favor of
+the reunion of Lorraine and Alsace with Germany.[20] But Russia and
+England beholding the reintegration of Germany with displeasure,
+Austria,[21] and finally Prussia, against whose patriots all were in
+league, yielded.[22] The future destinies of Europe were settled on
+the side of England by Wellington and Castlereagh; on that of Russia
+by Prince John Razumowsky, Nesselrode, and Capo d'Istria; on that of
+Austria by Metternich and Wessenberg; on that of Prussia by Hardenberg
+and William von Humboldt. The German patriots were excluded from the
+discussion,[23] and a result extremely unfavorable to Germany
+naturally followed:[24] Alsace and Lorraine remained annexed to
+France. By the second treaty of Paris, which was definitively
+concluded on the 20th of November, 1815, France was merely compelled
+to give up the fortresses of Philippeville, Marienburg, Sarlouis, and
+Landau, to demolish Huningen, and to allow eighteen other fortresses
+on the German frontier to be occupied by the allies until the new
+government had taken firm footing in France. Until then, one hundred
+and fifty thousand of the allied troops were also to remain within the
+French territory and to be maintained at the expense of the people.
+France was, moreover, condemned to pay seven hundred millions of
+francs toward the expenses of the war and to restore the _chef
+d'oeuvres_ of which she had deprived every capital in Europe. The
+sword of Frederick the Great was not refound: Marshal Serrurier
+declared that he had burned it.[25] On the other hand, however, almost
+all the famous old German manuscripts, which had formerly been carried
+from Heidelberg to Rome, and thence by Napoleon to Paris, were sent
+back to Heidelberg. One of the most valuable, the Manessian Code of
+the Swabian Minnesingers, was left in Paris, where it had been
+concealed. Blucher expired, in 1819, on his estate in Silesia.[26]
+
+The French were now sufficiently humbled to remain in tranquillity,
+and designedly displayed such submission that the allied sovereigns
+resolved, at a congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the autumn of
+1818, to withdraw their troops. Napoleon was, with the concurrence of
+the assembled powers, taken to the island of St. Helena, where,
+surrounded by the dreary ocean, several hundred miles from any
+inhabited spot, and guarded with petty severity by the English, he was
+at length deprived of every means of disturbing the peace of Europe.
+Inactivity and the unhealthiness of the climate speedily dissolved the
+earthly abode of this giant spirit. He expired on the 5th of May,
+1821. His consort, Maria Louisa, was created Duchess of Parma; and his
+son lived, under the title of Duke of Reichstadt, with his imperial
+grandfather at Vienna, until his death in 1832. Napoleon's stepson,
+Eugene Beauharnais, the former viceroy of Italy, the son-in-law to the
+king of Bavaria, received the newly-created mediatized principality of
+Eichstadt, which was dependent upon Bavaria, and the title of Duke of
+Leuchtenberg. Jerome, the former king of Westphalia, became Count de
+Montfort;[27] Louis, ex-king of Holland, Count de St. Leu.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: From London, Frederick William went to Switzerland and
+took possession of his ancient hereditary territory, Wälsch-Neuenburg
+or Neufchâtel, visited the beautiful Bernese Oberland, and then
+returned to Berlin, where, on the 7th of August, he passed in triumph
+through the Brandenburg gate, which was again adorned with the car of
+victory and the fine group of horses, and rode through the lime trees
+to an altar, around which the clergy belonging to every religious sect
+were assembled. Here public thanks were given and the whole of the
+citizens present fell upon their knees.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, 262_. On
+the 17th of September, the preparation of a new liturgy was announced
+in a ministerial proclamation, "by which the solemnity of the church
+service was to be increased, the present one being too little
+calculated to excite or strike the imagination."]
+
+[Footnote 2: Oxford conferred a doctor's degree upon Blücher, who,
+upon receiving this strange honor, said, "Make Gneisenau apothecary,
+for he it was who prepared my pills." On his first reception at
+Carlton House, the populace pushed their way through the guards and
+doors as far as the apartments of the prince-regent, who, taking his
+gray-headed guest by the hand, presented him to them, and publicly
+hung his portrait set in brilliants around his neck. On his passing
+through the streets, the horses were taken from his carriage, and he
+was drawn in triumph by the shouting crowd. One fête succeeded
+another. During the great races at Ascot, the crowd breaking through
+the barriers and insisting upon Blücher's showing himself, the
+prince-regent came forward, and, politely telling them that he had not
+yet arrived, led forward the emperor Alexander, who was loudly
+cheered, but Blücher's arrival was greeted with thunders of applause
+far surpassing those bestowed upon the sovereigns, a circumstance that
+was afterward blamed by the English papers. In the Freemasons' Lodge,
+Blücher was received by numbers of ladies, on each of whom he bestowed
+a salute. At Portsmouth, he drank to the health of the English in the
+presence of an immense concourse of people assembled beneath his
+windows.--The general rejoicing was solely clouded by the domestic
+circumstances of the royal family, by the insanity of the aged and
+blind king and by the disunion reigning between the prince-regent and
+his thoughtless consort, Caroline of Brunswick.--Although the whole of
+the allied sovereigns, some of whom were unable to speak English,
+understood German, French was adopted as the medium of conversation.--
+_Allgemeine Zeitung, 174._]
+
+[Footnote 3: "There are moments in the life of nations on which the
+whole of their future destiny depends. The children are destined to
+expiate their fathers' errors with their blood. Germany has everything
+to fear from the foreigner, and yet she cannot arrange her own affairs
+without calling the foreigner to her aid.--Who, in the congress,
+chiefly oppose every well-laid plan? Who, with the dagger's point pick
+out and reopen all our wounds, and rub them with salt and poison? Who
+promote confusion, provoke, insinuate, and attempt to creep into every
+committee, to interfere in every discussion? who but those sent
+thither by France?"--_The Rhenish Mercury._]
+
+[Footnote 4: Fate willed that Stein should not be called upon to act
+with firmness, but Hardenberg to make concessions. Stein disappeared
+from the theatre of events and was degraded to a lower sphere.
+Hardenberg was created prince.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Napoleon had such good friends among the Rhenish
+confederated princes that Augustus, duke of Gotha, for instance, even
+after the second occupation of Paris, on the return of his troops in
+the November of 1815, prohibited any demonstrations of triumph and
+even deprived the _Landwehr_ of their uniforms, so that the poor
+fellows had to return in their shirt-sleeves to their native villages
+during the hard winter.--_Jacob's Campaigns._]
+
+[Footnote 6: An attack upon Berne had already been concerted. Colonel
+Bär marched with the people of Aargau in the night time upon Aarburg,
+but his confederates failing to make their appearance, he caused the
+nearest Bernese governor to be alarmed and hastily retraced his steps.
+The Bernese instantly sent an armed force to the frontier, where,
+finding all tranquil, the charge of aggression was thrown upon their
+shoulders.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Vide Muralt's Life of Reinhard.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Blücher was at Berlin at the moment when the news of
+Napoleon's escape arrived. He instantly roused the English ambassador
+from his sleep by shouting in his ear, "Have the English a fleet in
+the Mediterranean?"]
+
+[Footnote 9: The blame was entirely upon the Prussian side. The
+Saxons, as good soldiers, naturally revolted at the idea that they
+would at once be faithless to their oath and mutinied. General
+Müffling was insulted for having spoken of "Saxon hounds." Blücher
+even was compelled secretly to take his departure. The Saxon troops
+were, however, reduced to obedience by superior numbers of Prussians,
+and their colors were burned. The whole corps was about to be
+decimated, when Colonel Romer came forward and demanded that the
+sentence of death should be first executed on him. Milder measures
+were in consequence reverted to, and a few of the men were condemned
+to death by drawing lots. Kanitz, the drummer, a youth of sixteen,
+however, threw away the dice, exclaiming, "It is I who beat the
+summons for revolt, and I will be the first to die." He and six others
+were shot. Borstel, the Prussian general, the hero of Dennewitz, who
+had steadily refused to burn the Saxon colors, was compelled to quit
+the service.]
+
+[Footnote 10: For a refutation of Menzel's absurdly perverted relation
+of these great events, the reader is referred not only to the Duke of
+Wellington's despatches and to Colonel Siborne's well-established
+account of the battles of Ligny, Wavre, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, but
+also to those of his countrymen, Muffling, the Prussian general, and
+Wagner.--_Trans._]
+
+[Footnote 11: Shortly before the battle, Bourmont, the French general,
+set up the white cockade (the symbol of Bourbon) and deserted to
+Blucher, who merely said, "It is all one what symbol the fellows set
+up, rascals are ever rascals!"]
+
+[Footnote 12: The surgeon, when about to rub him with some liquid, was
+asked by him what it was, and being told that it was spirits, "Ah,"
+said he, "the thing is of no use externally!" and snatching the glass
+from the hand of his attendant, he drank it off.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Against all expectation to aid an ally who on the
+previous day had against all expectation been unable to give him aid,
+evinced at once magnanimity, sense, and good feeling.--_Clausewitz_.]
+
+[Footnote 14: A Prussian battery, that on its way from Namur turned
+back on receiving news of this disaster and was taken by the French,
+is said to have chiefly led to the commission of this immense blunder
+by Napoleon.]
+
+[Footnote 15: The Hanoverian legion again covered itself with glory by
+the steadiness with which it opposed the enemy. It lost three thousand
+five hundred men, the Dutch eight thousand; the German troops
+consequently lost collectively as many as the English, whose loss was
+computed at eleven or twelve thousand men. The Prussians, whose loss
+at Ligny and Waterloo exceeded that of their allies, behaved with even
+greater gallantry.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The French were extremely affronted on account of this
+communication being made in German instead of French, and even at the
+present day German historians are generally struck with deeper
+astonishment at this sample of Blücher's bold spirit than at any
+other.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Ney, "the bravest of the brave," who dishonored his
+bravery by the basest treachery, met with an equally melancholy fate.
+Immediately after having, for instance, kissed the gouty fingers of
+Louis XVIII. and boasting that he would imprison Napoleon within an
+iron cage, he went over to the latter. He was sentenced to death and
+shot, after vainly imploring the allied monarchs and personally
+petitioning Wellington for mercy.--Alexander Berthier, prince of
+Neufchatel, Napoleon's chief confidant, had, even before the outbreak
+of war, thrown himself out of a window in a fit of hypochondriasis and
+been killed.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Talleyrand begged Count von der Goltz to use his
+influence for its preservation with Blücher, who replied to his
+entreaties, "I will blow up the bridge, and should very much like to
+have Talleyrand sitting upon it at the time!" An attempt to blow it up
+was actually made, but failed.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Many of whom were in fact wilfully blind. Hardenberg, by
+whom the noble-spirited Stein was so ill replaced, and who, with all
+possible decency, ever succeeded in losing in the cabinet the
+advantages gained by Blücher in the field, the diplomatic bird of ill
+omen by whom the peace of Basel had formerly been concluded, was thus
+addressed by Blücher: "I should like you gentlemen of the quill to be
+for once in a way exposed to a smart platoon fire, just to teach you
+what perils we soldiers have to run in order to repair the blunders
+you so thoughtlessly commit." An instructive commentary upon these
+events is to be met with in Stein's letters to Gagern. The light in
+which Stein viewed the Saxons may be gathered from the following
+passages in his letters: "My desire for the aggrandizement of Prussia
+proceeded not from a blind partiality to that state, but from the
+conviction that Germany is weakened by a system of partition ruinous
+alike to her national learning and national feelings."--"It is not for
+Prussia but for Germany that I desire a closer, a firmer internal
+combination, a wish that will accompany me to the grave: the division
+of our national strength may be gratifying to others, it never can be
+so to me." This truly German policy mainly distinguished Stein from
+Hardenberg, who, thoroughly Prussian in his ideas, was incapable of
+perceiving that Prussia's best-understood policy ever will be to
+identify herself with Germany.]
+
+[Footnote 20: Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 285.]
+
+[Footnote 21: It was proposed that Lorraine and Alsace should be
+bestowed upon the Archduke Charles, who at that period wedded the
+Princess Henrietta of Nassau. The proposition, however, quickly fell
+to the ground.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Even in July, their organ, Görres's Rhenish Mercury, was
+placed beneath the censor. In August, it was said that the men,
+desirous of giving a constitution to Prussia, had fallen into
+disgrace.--Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 249. In September, Schmalz, in
+Berlin, unveiled the presumed revolutionary intrigues of the
+_Tugendbund_ and declared "the unity of Germany is something to which
+the spirit of every nation in Germany has ever been antipathetic." He
+received a Prussian and a Wurtemberg order, besides an extremely
+gracious autograph letter from the king of Prussia, although his base
+calumnies against the friends of his country were thrown back upon him
+by the historians Niebuhr and Runs, who were then in a high position,
+by Schleiermacher, the theologian, and by others. The nobility also
+began to stir, attempted to regain their ancient privileges in
+Prussia, and intrigued against the men who, during the time of need,
+had made concessions to the citizens.--Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 276.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 349, laughs at the report of
+their having withdrawn from the discussion, and says that they were no
+longer invited to take part in it.]
+
+[Footnote 24: On the loud complaints of the Rhenish Mercury, of the
+gazettes of Bremen and Hanau, and even of the Allgemeine Zeitung, the
+Austrian Observer, edited by Gentz, declared that "to demand a better
+peace would be to demand the ruin of France."--Allgemeine Zeitung,
+Nos. 345, 365. On Görres's repeated demand for the reannexation of
+Alsace and Lorraine, of which Germany had been so unwarrantably
+deprived, the Austrian Observer declared in the beginning of 1816,
+"who would believe that Görres would lend his pen to such miserable
+arguments. Alsace and Lorraine are guaranteed to France. To demand
+their restoration would be contrary to every notion of honor and
+justice." In this manner was Germany a second time robbed of these
+provinces. Washington Paine denominated Strasburg, "a melancholy
+sentry, of which unwary Germany has allowed herself to be deprived,
+and which now, accoutred in an incongruous uniform, does duty against
+his own country."]
+
+[Footnote 25: The Invalids had in the same spirit cast the triumphal
+monument of the field of Rossbach into the Seine, in order to prevent
+its restoration. The alarum formerly belonging to Frederick the Great
+was also missing. Napoleon had it on his person during his flight and
+made use of it at St. Helena, where it struck his death-hour.]
+
+[Footnote 26: He was descended from a noble race, which at a very
+early period enjoyed high repute in Mecklenburg and Pomerania. In
+1271, an Ulric von Blücher was bishop of Batzeburg. A legend relates
+that, during a time of dearth, an empty barn was, on his petitioning
+Heaven, instantly filled with corn. In 1356, Wipertus von Blücher also
+became bishop of Ratzeburg, and, on the pope's refusal to confirm him
+in his diocese on account of his youth, his hair turned gray in one
+night. Vide Klüwer's Description of Mecklenburg, 1728.]
+
+[Footnote 27: His wife, Catherine of Würtemberg, was in 1814, attacked
+during her flight, on her way through France and robbed of her
+jewels.--_Allgemeine Zettung, No. 130._]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART XXIII
+
+THE LATEST TIMES
+
+CCLXIV. The German Confederation
+
+
+Thus terminated the terrible storms that, not without benefit, had
+convulsed Europe. Every description of political crime had been
+fearfully avenged and presumption had been chastised by the unerring
+hand of Providence. At that solemn period, the sovereigns of Russia,
+Austria, and Prussia concluded a treaty by which they bound themselves
+to follow, not the ruinous policy they had hitherto pursued, but the
+undoubted will of the King of kings, and, as the viceroys of God upon
+the earth, to maintain peace, to uphold virtue and justice. This Holy
+Alliance was concluded on the 26th of September, 1815. All the
+European powers took part in it; England, who excused herself, the
+pope, and the sultan, whose accession was not demanded, alone
+excepted.
+
+The new partition of Europe, nevertheless, retained almost all the
+unnatural conditions introduced by the more ancient and godless policy
+of Louis XIV. and of Catherine II. Germany, Poland, and Italy remained
+partitioned among rulers partly foreign. Everywhere were countries
+exchanged or freshly partitioned and rendered subject to foreign rule.
+England retained possession of Hanover, which was elevated into a
+German kingdom, of the Ionian islands, and of Malta in the
+Mediterranean. Russia received the grandduchy of Warsaw, which was
+raised to a kingdom of Poland, but was not united with Lithuania,
+Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine, the ancient provinces of Poland
+standing beneath the sovereignty of Russia, and Finland, for which
+Sweden received in exchange Norway, of which Denmark was forcibly
+dispossessed. Holland was annexed to the old Austrian Netherlands and
+elevated to a kingdom under William of Orange.[1] Switzerland remained
+a confederation of twenty-two cantons,[2] externally independent and
+neutral, internally somewhat aristocratic in tendency, the ancient
+oligarchy everywhere regaining their power. The Jesuits were
+reinstated by the pope. In Spain, Portugal, and Naples, the form of
+government prior to the Revolution was reestablished by the ancient
+sovereigns on their restoration to their thrones.
+
+Alsace and Lorraine, Switzerland and the new kingdom of the
+Netherlands, the provinces of Luxemburg excepted, were no longer
+regarded as forming part of Germany. Austria received Milan and Venice
+under the title of a Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, the Illyrian provinces
+also as a kingdom, Venetian Dalmatia, the Tyrol,[3] Vorarlberg,
+Salzburg, the Inn, and Hausruckviertel, and the part of Galicia ceded
+by her at an earlier period. The grandduchy of Tuscany and the duchies
+of Modena, Parma, and Placentia were, moreover, restored to the
+collateral branches of the house of Habsburg.[4]--Prussia received
+half of Saxony, the grand-duchy of Posen, Swedish-Pomerania,[5] a
+great portion of Westphalia, and almost the whole of the Lower Rhine
+from Mayence as far as Aix-la-Chapelle.[6] Since this period Prussia
+is that one which, among all the states of Germany, possesses the
+greatest number of German subjects, Austria, although more
+considerable in extent, containing a population of which by far the
+greater proportion is not German. Bavaria, in exchange for the
+provinces again ceded by her to Austria, received the province of
+Wurzburg together with Aschaffenburg and the Upper Rhenish Pfalz under
+the title of Rhenish-Bavaria. Hanover received East Friesland, which
+had hitherto been dependent upon Prussia. Out of this important
+province, which opened the North Sea to Prussia, was Hardenberg
+cajoled by the wily English. The electorates of Hesse, Brunswick, and
+Oldenburg were restored. Everything else was allowed to subsist as at
+the time of the Rhenish confederation. All the petty princes and
+counts, then mediatized, continued to be so.
+
+The ancient empire, instead of being re-established, was, on the 8th
+of June, 1815, replaced by a German confederation, composed of the
+thirty-nine German states that had escaped the general ruin; Austria,
+Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Wurtemberg, Baden, electoral Hesse,
+Darmstadt, Denmark on account of Holstein,[7] the Netherlands on
+account of Luxemburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Nassau,
+Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha (where the reigning dynasty became extinct,
+and the duchy was partitioned among the other Saxon houses of the
+Ernestine line), Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Hildburghausen,
+Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Holstein-Oldenburg, Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-
+Bernburg, Anhalt-Kothen, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-
+Rudolstadt, Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Lichtenstein, Hohenzollern-
+Sigmaringen, Waldeck, Reuss the elder, and Reuss the younger
+branch,[8] Schaumburg-Lippe, Lippe-Detmold, Hesse-Homburg: finally,
+the free towns, Lubeck, Frankfort on the Maine, Bremen, and
+Hamburg.[9] At Frankfort on the Maine a permanent diet, consisting of
+plenipotentiaries from the thirty-nine states, was to hold its
+session. The votes were, however, so regulated that the eleven states
+of first rank alone held a full vote, the secondary states merely
+holding a half or a fourth part of a vote, as, for instance, all the
+Saxon duchies collectively, one vote; Brunswick and Nassau, one; the
+two Mecklenburgs, one; Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Schwarzburg, one; the
+petty princes of Hohenzollern, Lichtenstein, Reuss, Lippe, and
+Waldeck, one; all the free towns, one; forming altogether in the diet
+seventeen votes. In constitutional questions relating to regulations
+of the confederation the _plenum_ was to be allowed, that is, the six
+states of the highest rank were to have each four votes, the next five
+states each three, Brunswick, Schwerin, and Nassau, each two, and all
+the remaining princes without distinction, each one vote.[10]--Austria
+held the permanent presidency. In all resolutions relating to the
+fundamental laws, the organic regulations of the confederation, the
+_jura singulorum_ and matters of religion, unanimity was required. All
+the members of the confederation bound themselves neither to enter
+into war nor into any foreign alliance against the confederation or
+any of its members. The thirteenth article declared, "Each of the
+confederated states will grant a constitution to the people." The
+sixteenth placed all Christian sects throughout the German
+confederation on an equality. The eighteenth granted freedom of
+settlement within the limits of the confederation, and promised
+"uniformity of regulation concerning the liberty of the press." The
+fortresses of Luxemburg, Mayence, and Landau were declared the common
+property of the confederation and occupied in common by their troops.
+A fourth fortress was to have been raised on the Upper Rhine with
+twenty millions of the French contribution money. It has not yet been
+erected.
+
+This was the new constitution given to Germany. According to the
+treaty of Paris it could not be otherwise modelled, and it is
+explained by the foreign influence that then prevailed. The diet
+assembled at Frankfort on the Maine, and was opened by Count
+Buol-Schauenstein with a solemn address, which excited no enthusiasm.
+An orator in the American assembly at that time observed, "The
+non-development of the seed contained in Germany appears to be the
+common aim of a resolute policy."
+
+All now united for the complete suppression of the German patriotic
+party. In the former Rhenish confederated states, it had been treated
+with open contempt[11] ever since Gentz had given the signal for
+persecution in Austria. Prussia, however, also drove all those who had
+most faithfully served her in her hour of need from her bosom. Stein
+was compelled to withdraw to Kappenberg, his country estate. Gruner
+was removed from office and sent as ambassador to Switzerland, where
+he died. The Rhenish Mercury, that had performed such great services
+to Prussia, was prohibited, and Gorres was threatened with the house
+of correction.[12] All other papers of a patriotic tendency were also
+suppressed. In Jena, Oken and Luden, in Weimar, Wieland the younger,
+alone ventured for some time to give utterance to their liberal
+opinions, which were finally also reduced to silence.
+
+Patriotic enthusiasm was, however, not so speedily suppressed amid the
+youthful students in the academies and universities. Jahn's gymnastic
+schools (_Turnschulen_), the members of which were distinguished by
+the German costume, a short black frock coat, a black cap, linen
+trousers, a bare neck with turned-over shirt-collar, extended far and
+wide and were in close connection with the _Burschenschaften_ of the
+universities. The prescribed object of these _Turnschulen_ was the
+promotion of Christian, moral, German manners, the universal
+fraternization of all German students, the complete eradication of the
+provincialism and license inherent in the various associations formed
+at the universities. They wore Jahn's German costume and always acted
+publicly, until their suppression, when the remaining members formed
+secret associations. On the 18th of October, 1817, the students of
+Jena, Halle, and Leipzig, and those of some of the more distant
+universities, assembled in order to solemnize the jubilee on the three
+hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, on the Wartburg, where, in
+imitation of Luther, they committed a number of servile works,
+inimical to the German cause, to the flames, as Görres at that time
+said, "filled with anger that the same reformation required of the
+church by Luther should be sanctioned, but at the same time refused,
+by the state." The black, red, and yellow tricolor was hoisted for the
+first time on this occasion. These were in reality the ancient colors
+of the empire and were regarded as such by the patriotic students, but
+were purposely looked upon by the French and their adherents in
+Germany as an imitation of the tricolored flag of the French republic.
+The festival solemnized on the Wartburg was speedily succeeded by
+others. The _Turner_, more particularly at Berlin and Breslau,
+rendered themselves conspicuous not only by their dress but by their
+insolence, boys even of the tenderest years putting themselves forward
+as reformers of the government and of society, and singing the most
+bloodthirsty songs of liberty. The Prussian government interfered, and
+the gymnastic exercises, so well suited to the subjects of a warlike
+state, were once more prohibited.
+
+At the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, Stourdza, the Russian councillor
+of state, a Wallachian by birth, presented a memorial in which the
+spirit of the German universities was described as revolutionary. The
+_Burschenschaft_ of Jena sent him a challenge. Kotzebue, the Russian
+councillor of state and celebrated dramatist, at length published a
+weekly paper in which he turned every indication of German patriotism
+to ridicule, and exercised his wit upon the individual eccentricities
+of the students affecting the old German costume, of precocious boys
+and doting professors. The rage of the galled universities rose to a
+still higher pitch on the discovery, made and incontestably proved by
+Luden, that Kotzebue sent secret bulletins, filled with invective and
+suspicion, to St. Petersburg. To execrate Kotzebue had become so
+habitual at the universities that a young man, Sand from Wunsiedel, a
+theological student of Jena, noted for piety and industry, took the
+fanatical resolution to free, or at least to wipe off a blot from his
+country, by the assassination of an enemy whose importance he, in the
+delusion of hatred, vastly overrated; and he accordingly went, in
+1819, to Mannheim, plunged his dagger into Kotzebue's heart, and then
+attempted his own life, but only succeeded in inflicting a slight
+wound. He was beheaded in the ensuing year. Loning, the apothecary,
+probably excited by Sand's example, also attempted the life of the
+president of Nassau, Ibell, who, however, seized him, and he committed
+suicide in prison. These events occasioned a congress at Carlsbad in
+1819, which took the state of Germany into deliberation, placed each
+of the universities under the supervision of a government officer,
+suppressed the _Burschenschaft_, prohibited their colors, and fixed a
+central board of scrutiny at Mayence,[13] which acted on the
+presupposition of the existence of a secret and general conspiracy for
+the purposes of assassination and revolution, and of Sand's having
+acted not from personal fanaticism and religious aberration, but as
+the agent of some unknown superiors in some new and mysterious
+tribunal. This inquisition was carried on for years and a crowd of
+students peopled the prisons; conspiracies perilous to the state were,
+however, nowhere discovered, but simply a great deal of ideal
+enthusiasm. The elder men in the universities, who, either in their
+capacity as tutors or authors, had fed the enthusiasm of the youthful
+students, were also removed from their situations. Jahn was arrested,
+Arndt was suspended at Bonn and Fries at Jena; Gorres, who had
+perseveringly published the most violent pamphlets, was compelled to
+take refuge in Switzerland, which also offered an asylum to Dewette,
+the Berlin professor of theology, who had been deprived of his chair
+on account of a letter addressed by him to Sand's mother. Oken, the
+great naturalist, who refused to give up "Isis," a periodical
+publication, also withdrew to Switzerland. Numbers of the younger
+professors went to America.[14] The solemnization of the October
+festival was also prohibited, and the triumphal monument on the field
+of Leipzig was demolished.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: William V., the expelled hereditary stadtholder, died in
+obscurity at Brunswick in 1806. His son, William, had, in 1802,
+received Fulda in compensation, but afterward served Prussia, was, in
+1806, taken prisoner with Möllendorf at Erfurt and afterward set at
+liberty, served again, in 1809, under Austria, and then retired to
+England, whence he returned on the expulsion of the French to receive
+a crown, which he accepted with a good deal of assurance, complaining,
+at the same time, of the loss of his former possession, Fulda, a
+circumstance strongly commented upon by Stein in his letters to
+Gagern. William, in return for his elevation to a throne by the arms
+of Germany, closed the mouths of the Rhine against her.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Glarus,
+Zug, Freiburg, Solothurn, Basel, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, St. Gall,
+the Grisons, Aargau, Constance, Tessin, the Vaud, Valais, Neuenburg
+(Neufchatel), Geneva. The nineteen cantons of 1805 remained _in statu
+quo_, only those of Valais, Neufchatel, and Geneva were confederated
+with them, and Pruntrut with the ancient bishopric of Basel were
+restored to Berne.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The deed of possession of the 26th June, 1814, runs as
+follows: "Not by an arbitrary, despotic encroachment upon the order of
+things, but by the hands of the Providence that blessed the arms of
+your emperor and of the allied princes and by a holy alliance are you
+restored to the house of Austria."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Tuscany fell to Ferdinand, the former grandduke of
+Wurzburg; Modena to Francis, son of the deceased duke, Ferdinand;
+Parms and Placantia to Maria Louisa, the wife and widow of Napoleon.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Not long before, in the treaty of Kiel, there had been
+question of bestowing Swedish-Pomerania upon Denmark; to this Prussia
+refused to accede and Denmark agreed to take 2,600,000 dollars in
+compensation. Prussia was also compelled to pay 3,500,500 dollars to
+Sweden.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Rehfues, the director of the circle, a Wurtemberg
+Protestant, published a circular at Bonn, in which he promised full
+religious security to the Catholic inhabitants, whom he reminded of
+Prussia's having been "the last supporter of the order of
+Jesus."--_Allgemeine Zeitung of 1814, No. 234._]
+
+[Footnote 7: Holstein alone, not Schleswig, was enumerated as
+belonging to the German confederation, although both duchies were long
+ago closely united by the _nexus socialis_, more particularly in the
+representation at the diet.]
+
+[Footnote 8: The Reusses, formerly imperial governors of Plauen,
+diverged into so many branches that, as early as 1664, they agreed to
+distinguish themselves by numbers, which at first amounted to thirty,
+but at a later period to a hundred, afterward recommencing at number
+one. The family took the name of Reuss from the Russian wife of its
+founder, in the beginning of the fourteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Hamburg had vainly petitioned for the restitution of her
+bank, of which she had been deprived by Davoust. She received merely a
+small portion of the general war tax levied upon France.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Austria and Prussia contain forty-two million
+inhabitants; the rest of Germany merely twelve million; the power of
+the two former stands consequently in proportion to that of the rest
+of Germany as forty-two to twelve or seven to two, while their votes
+in the diet stood not contrariwise, as two to seven, but as two to
+seventeen in the plenary assembly, and as two to fifteen in the lesser
+one.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Aretin, who, at the time of the Rhenish confederation,
+insolently mocked and had denounced every indication of German
+patriotism, ventured to say in his "Alemannia," in the beginning of
+1817, "'The patriotic colors,' 'the voice of the people,'
+'nationality,' 'the extirpation of foreign influence,' are words now
+forgotten, magic sounds that have lost their power."]
+
+[Footnote 12: By Sack, the government commissary, who even confiscated
+the Rhenish Mercury, an earlier and unprohibited paper, and arrested
+the printer, against which Görres violently protested in a letter
+addressed to Sack. Görres made a triumphant defence before the
+tribunal at Treves, and observed, "Strange that the most violent enemy
+to France should seek the protection of French courts!"]
+
+[Footnote 13: The names of these inquisitors were Schwarz, Grano,
+Hörmann, Bar, Pfister, Preusschen, Moussel.]
+
+[Footnote 14: Charles Follen, brother to the poet Louis Adolphus
+Follen, private teacher of law at Jena, a young man of great spirit
+and talent, who at that period exercised great influence over the
+youth of Germany, was wrecked, in 1840, in a steamer in North America
+and drowned.]
+
+
+
+CCLXV. The New Constitutions
+
+
+Germany had, notwithstanding her triumph, regained neither her ancient
+unity nor her former power, but still continued to be merely a
+confederation of states, bound together by no firm tie and regarded
+with contempt by their more powerful neighbors. The German
+confederation did not even include the whole of the provinces whose
+population was distinguished as German by the use of the German
+language. Several of the provinces of Germany were still beneath a
+foreign sceptre; Switzerland and the Netherlands had declared
+themselves distinct from the rest of Germany, which, hitherto
+submissive to France, was in danger of falling beneath the influence
+of Russia, who ceaselessly sought to entangle her by diplomatic wiles.
+
+There were still, however, men existing in Germany who hoped to
+compensate the loss of the external power of their country by the
+internal freedom that had been so lavishly promised to the people on
+the general summons to the field. The proclamation of Calisch and the
+German federative act guaranteed the grant of constitutions. The
+former Rhenish confederated princes, nevertheless, alone found it to
+their interest to carry this promise into effect, and, in a manner,
+formed a second alliance with France by their imitation of the newly
+introduced French code and by the establishment, in their own
+territories, of two chambers, one of peers, the other of deputies,
+similar to those of France; measures by which, at that period of
+popular excitement, they also regained the popularity deservedly lost
+by them at an earlier period throughout the rest of Germany, the more
+so, the less the inclination manifested by Austria and Prussia to
+grant the promised constitutions. Enslaved Illuminatism characterizes
+this new zeal in favor of internal liberty and constitutional
+governments, to denote which the novel term of Liberalism was borrowed
+from France. Liberty was ever on the tongues--of the most devoted
+servants of the state. The ancient church and the nobility were
+attacked with incredible mettle--in order to suit the purposes of
+ministerial caprice. Prussia and Austria were loudly blamed for not
+keeping pace with the times--with the intent of favorably contrasting
+the ancient policy of the Rhenish confederation. None, at that period,
+surpassed the ministers belonging to the old school of Illuminatism
+and Napoleonism in liberalism, but no sooner did the deputies of the
+people attempt to realize their liberal ideas than they started back
+in dismay.
+
+The first example of this kind was given by Frederick Augustus, duke
+of Nassau, as early as the September of 1814. Ibell, the president,
+who reigned with unlimited power over Nassau, drew up a constitution
+which has been termed a model of "despotism under a constitutional
+form." The whole of the property of the state still continuing to be
+the private property of the duke, and his right arbitrarily to
+increase the number of members belonging to the first chamber, and by
+their votes to annul every resolution passed by the second chamber,
+rendered the whole constitution illusory. Trombetta, one of the
+deputies, voluntarily renounced his seat, an example that was followed
+by several others.--The second constitution granted was that bestowed
+upon the Netherlands in 1815, by King William, who established such an
+unequal representation in the chambers between the Belgians and Dutch
+as to create great dissatisfaction among the former, who, in revenge,
+again affected the French party. This was succeeded, in 1816, by the
+petty constitutions of Waldeck, Weimar, and Frankfort on the Maine.--
+Maximilian, king of Bavaria, seemed, in 1817, to announce another
+system by the dismissal of his minister, Montgelas, and, in 1818,
+bestowed a new constitution upon Bavaria; but the old abuses in the
+administration remained uneradicated; a civil and military state
+unproportioned to the revenue, the petty despotism of government
+officers and heavy imposts, still weighed upon the people, and the
+constitution itself was quickly proved illusory, the veto of the first
+chamber annulling the first resolution passed by the second chamber.
+Professor Behr of Wurzburg, upon this, energetically protested against
+the first chamber, and, on the refusal of the second chamber to vote
+for the maintenance of the army on so high a footing, unless the
+soldiery were obliged to take the oath on the constitution, it was
+speedily dissolved.--In Baden, the Grandduke Charles expired, in 1818,
+after having caused a constitution to be drawn up, which Louis, his
+uncle and successor, carried into effect. Louis having, however,
+previously, and without the consent of the people, entered into a
+stipulation with the nobility, to whom he had granted an edict
+extremely favorable to their interests, Winter, the Heidelberg
+bookseller, a member of the second chamber, demanded its abrogation.
+The answer was, the dissolution of the chamber, personal inquisition
+and intimidation, and the publication of an extremely severe edict of
+censure, against which, in 1820, Professor von Rotteck of Freiburg,
+supported by the poet Hebel and by the Freiherr von Wessenberg,
+administrator of the bishopric of Constance, protested, but in
+vain.--At the same time, that is, in 1818, Hildburghausen, and even
+the petty principality of Lichtenstein, which merely contains two
+square miles and a population amounting to five thousand souls, also
+received a constitution, which not a little contributed to turn the
+whole affair into ridicule.--To these succeeded, in 1819, the
+constitutions of Hanover and Lippe-Detmold, the former as aristocratic
+as possible, completely in the spirit of olden times, solely dictated
+and carried into effect by the nobility and government officers. The
+sittings of the chambers, consequently, continued to be held in
+secret.--The dukes of Mecklenburg abolished feudal servitude, which
+existed in no other part of Germany, in 1820.--In Darmstadt, the
+constitution was granted by the good-natured, venerable Grandduke
+Louis (whose attention was chiefly devoted to the opera), after the
+impatient advocates, who had collected subscriptions in the Odenwald
+to petitions praying for the speedy bestowal of the promised
+constitution, had been arrested, and an insurrection that consequently
+ensued among the peasantry had been quelled by force.--Petty
+constitutions were, moreover, granted, in 1821, to Coburg, and, in
+1829, to Meiningen. The Gotha-Altenburg branch of the ducal house of
+Saxony became extinct in 1825 in the person of Frederick, the last
+duke, the brother of Duke Augustus Emilius, a great patron of the arts
+and sciences, deceased 1822. Gotha, consequently, lapsed to Coburg,
+Altenburg to Hildburghausen, and Hildburghausen to Meiningen.
+
+In Wurtemberg, the dissatisfaction produced by the ancient despotism
+of the government was also to be speedily appeased by the grant of a
+constitutional charter. The king, Frederick, convoked the Estates, to
+whom he, on the 15th of March, 1815, solemnly delivered the newly
+enacted constitution. But here, as elsewhere, was the government
+inclined to grant a mere illusory boon. The Estates rejected the
+constitution, without reference to its contents, simply owing to the
+formal reason of its being bestowed by the prince and being
+consequently binding on one side alone, instead of being a stipulation
+between the prince and the people, and moreover because the ancient
+constitution of Wurtemberg, which had been abrogated by force and in
+direct opposition to the will of the Estates, was still in legal
+force. The old Wurtemberg party alone could naturally take their
+footing upon their ancient rights, but the new Wurtemberg party, the
+mediatized princes of the empire, the counts and barons of the empire,
+and the imperial free towns, nay, even the Agnati of the reigning
+house,[1] all of whom had suffered more or less under Napoleon's iron
+rule, ranged themselves on their side. The deputy, Zahn of Calw, drew
+a masterly picture of the state of affairs at that period, in which he
+pitilessly disclosed every reigning abuse. The king, thus vigorously
+and unanimously opposed, was constrained to yield, and the most prolix
+negotiations, in which the citizen deputies, headed by the advocate,
+Weisshaar, were supported by the nobility against the government,
+commenced.
+
+The affair was, it may be designedly, dragged on _ad infinitum_ until
+the death of the king in 1816, when his son and successor, William,
+who had gained a high reputation as a military commander and had
+rendered himself extremely popular, zealously began the work of
+conciliation. He not only instantly abolished the abuses of the former
+government, as, for instance, in the game law,[2] but, in 1817,
+delivered a new constitution to the Estates. Article 337 was somewhat
+artfully drawn up, but in every point the constitution was as liberal
+as a constitutional charter could possibly be. But the Estates refused
+to accept of liberty as a boon, and rejected this constitution on the
+same formal grounds upon which they had rejected the preceding one.
+The Estates were again upheld by a grateful public, and the few
+deputies, more particularly Cotta and Griesinger, who had defended the
+new constitution on account of its liberality and who regarded form as
+immaterial, became the objects of public animadversion. The populace
+broke the windows of the house inhabited by the liberal-minded
+minister, von Wangenheim. The poet Uhland greatly distinguished
+himself as a warm upholder of the ancient rights of the people.[3] The
+king instantly dissolved the Estates, but at the same time declared
+his intention to guarantee to the people, without a constitution, the
+rights he had intended constitutionally to confer upon them; to
+establish an equal system of taxation, and "to eradicate bureaucracy,
+that curse upon the country." The good-will displayed on both sides
+led to fresh negotiations, and a third constitution was at length
+drawn up by a committee, composed partly of members of the government,
+partly of members belonging to the Estates, and, in 1819, was taken
+into deliberation and passed by the reassembled Estates. This
+constitution, nevertheless, fell far below the mark to which it had
+been raised by public expectation, partly on account of the retention,
+owing to ancient prejudice, of the permanent committee and its
+oligarchical influence, party on account of the too great and
+permanent concessions made to the nobility in return for their
+momentary aid,[4] partly on account of the extreme haste that marked
+the concluding deliberations of the Estates, occasioned by their
+partly unfounded dread of interference on the part of the congress
+then assembled at Carlsbad.
+
+In Wurtemberg, however, as elsewhere, the policy of the government was
+deeply imbued with the general characteristics of the time.
+Notwithstanding the constitution, notwithstanding the guarantee given
+by the federative act, liberty of the press did not exist. List, the
+deputy from Reutlingen, was, for having ventured to collect
+subscriptions to petitions, brought before the criminal court,
+expelled the chamber by his intimidated brother deputies, took refuge
+in Switzerland, whence he returned to be imprisoned for some time in
+the fortress of Asberg, and was finally permitted to emigrate to North
+America, whence he returned at a later period, 1825, in the capacity
+of consul. Liesching, the editor of the German Guardian, whose liberty
+of speech was silenced by command of the German confederation, also
+became an inmate of the fortress of Asberg.
+
+In Hesse and Brunswick, all the old abuses practiced in the petty
+courts in the eighteenth century were revived. William of Hesse-Cassel
+returned, on the fall of Napoleon, to his domains. True to his
+whimsical saying, "I have slept during the last seven years," he
+insisted upon replacing everything in Hesse exactly on its former
+footing. In one particular alone was his vanity inconsistent:
+notwithstanding his hatred toward Napoleon, he retained the title of
+Prince Elector, bestowed upon him by Napoleon's favor, although it had
+lost all significance, there being no longer any emperor to elect.[5]
+He turned the hand of time back seven years, degraded the councillors
+raised to that dignity by Jerome to their former station as clerks,
+captains to lieutenants, etc., all, in fact, to the station they had
+formerly occupied, even reintroduced into the army the fashion of
+wearing powder and queues, prohibited all those not bearing an
+official title to be addressed as "Herr," and re-established the
+socage dues abolished by Jerome. This attachment to old abuses was
+associated with the most insatiable avarice. He reduced the government
+bonds to one-third, retook possession of the lands sold during
+Jerome's reign, without granting any compensation to the holders,
+compelled the country to pay his son's debts to the amount of two
+hundred thousand rix-dollars, lowered the amount of pay to such a
+degree that a lieutenant received but five rix-dollars per mensem, and
+offered to sell a new constitution to the Estates at the low price of
+four million rix-dollars, which he afterward lowered to two millions
+and a tax for ten years upon liquors. This shameful bargain being
+rejected by the Estates, the constitution fell to the ground, and the
+prince elector practiced the most unlimited despotism. Discontent was
+stifled by imprisonment. Two officers, Huth and Rotsmann, who had got
+up a petition in favor of their class, and the Herr von Gohr, who by
+chance gave a private fete while the prince was suffering from a
+sudden attack of illness, were among the victims. The purchasers of
+the crown lands vainly appealed to the federative assembly for
+redress, for the prince elector "refused the mediation of the
+federative assembly until it had been authorized by an organic law
+drawn up with the co-operation of the prince elector himself."--This
+prince expired in 1821, and was succeeded by his son, William II., who
+abolished the use of hair-powder and queues, but none of the existing
+abuses, and demonstrated no inclination to grant a constitution. He
+was, moreover, the slave of his mistress, Countess Reichenbach, and on
+ill terms with his consort, a sister of the king of Prussia, and with
+his son. Anonymous and threatening letters being addressed to this
+prince with a view of inducing him to favor the designs of the writer,
+he had recourse to the severest measures for the discovery of the
+guilty party; numbers of persons were arrested, and travellers
+instinctively avoided Cassel. It was at length discovered that Manger,
+the head of the police, a court favorite, was the author of the
+letters.
+
+Similar abuses were revived by the house of Brunswick. It is unhappily
+impossible to leave unmentioned the conduct of Caroline, princess of
+Brunswick, consort to the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., king
+of England. Although this German princess had the good fortune to be
+protected by the Whig party and by the people against the king and the
+Tory ministry, she proved a disgrace to her supporters by the
+scandalous familiarity in which she lived in Italy with her
+chamberlain, the Italian, Pergami. The sympathy with which she was
+treated at the time of the congress was designedly exaggerated by the
+Whigs for the purpose of giving the greatest possible publicity to the
+errors of the monarch. Caroline of Brunswick was declared innocent and
+expired shortly after her trial, in 1821.
+
+Charles, the hereditary duke of Brunswick, son to the duke who had so
+gallantly fallen at Quatrebras, was under the guardianship of the king
+of England. A constitution was bestowed in 1820 upon this petty
+territory, which was governed by the minister, Von Schmidt-Phiseldek.
+The youthful duke took the reins of government in his nineteenth year.
+Of a rash and violent disposition and misled by evil associates, he
+imagined that he had been too long restricted from assuming the
+government, accused his well-deserving minister of having attempted to
+prolong his minority, posted handbills for his apprehension as a
+common delinquent, denied all his good offices, and subverted the
+constitution. He was surrounded by base intriguers in the person of
+Bosse, the councillor of state, formerly the servile tool of
+Napoleon's despotism, of Frike, the Aulic councillor, "whose pliant
+quill was equal to any task when injustice had to be glossed over," of
+the adventurer, Klindworth, and of Bitter, the head of the chancery,
+who conducted the financial speculations. Frike, in contempt of
+justice, tore up the judgment passed by the court of justice in favor
+of the venerable Herr von Sierstorff, whom he had accused of high
+treason. Herr von Cramm, by whom Frike was, in the name of the
+Estates, accused of this misdemeanor before the federative assembly,
+was banished, a surgeon, who attended him, was put upon his defence,
+and an accoucheur, named Grimm, who had basely refused to attend upon
+Cramm's wife, was presented with a hundred dollars. Häberlin, the
+novelist, who had been justly condemned to twenty years' imprisonment
+with hard labor for his civil misdemeanors, was, on the other hand,
+liberated for publishing something in the duke's favor. Bitter
+conducted himself with the most open profligacy, sold all the
+demesnes, appropriated the sum destined for the redemption of the
+public debt, and at the same time levied the heavy imposts with
+unrelenting severity. The federative assembly passed judgment against
+the duke solely in reference to his attacks upon the king of England.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The king bitterly reproached his brother Henry, to whom
+he said, "You have accused me to my peasantry."--_Pfister History of
+the Constitution of Würtemberg._]
+
+[Footnote 2: Pfister mentions in his History of the Constitution of
+Wurtemberg that merely in the superior bailiwick of Heidenheim the
+game duties amounted, in 1814, to twenty thousand florins, and five
+thousand two hundred and ninety-three acres of taxed ground lay
+uncultivated on account of the damage done by the game, and that in
+March, 1815, one bailiwick was obliged to furnish twenty-one thousand
+five hundred and eighty-four men and three thousand two hundred and
+thirty-seven horses for a single hunt.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Colonel von Massenbach, of the Prussian service, who has
+so miserably described the battle of Jena and the surrender of
+Prentzlow in which he acted so miserable a part, and who had in his
+native Würtemberg embraced the aristocratic party, was delivered by
+the free town of Frankfort, within whose walls he resided, up to the
+Prussian government, which he threatened to compromise by the
+publication of some letters. He died within the fortress of Cüstrin.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The mediatized princes and counts of the empire sat in
+the first chamber, the barons of the empire in the second. The
+prelates, once so powerful, lost, on the other hand, together with the
+church property, in the possession of which they were not reinstated,
+also most of their influence. Instead of the fourteen aristocratic and
+independent prelates, six only were appointed by the monarch to seats
+in the second chamber. Government officers were also eligible in this
+chamber, which ere long fell entirely under their influence.]
+
+[Footnote 5: He endeavored, but in vain, to persuade the allied powers
+to bestow upon him the royal dignity.]
+
+
+
+CCLXVI. The European Congress--The German Customs' Union
+
+
+The great political drama enacting in Europe excited at this time the
+deepest attention throughout Germany. In almost every country a
+struggle commenced between liberalism and the measures introduced on
+the fall of Napoleon. In France more particularly it systematically
+and gradually undermined the government of the Bourbons, and the cry
+of liberty that resounded throughout France once more found an echo in
+Germany.
+
+The terrible war was forgotten. The French again became the objects of
+the admiration and sympathy of the radical party in Germany, and the
+spirit of opposition, here and there demonstrated in the German
+chambers, gave rise, notwithstanding its impotence, to precautionary
+measures on the part of the federative governments. In the winter of
+1819, a German federative congress, of which Prince Metternich was the
+grand motor, assembled at Vienna for the purpose, after the utter
+annihilation of the patriots, of finally checking the future movements
+of the liberals, principally in the provincial diets. The Viennese Act
+of 1820 contains closer definitions of the Federative Act, of which
+the more essential object was the exclusion of the various provincial
+diets from all positive interference in the general affairs of
+Germany, and the increase of the power of the different princes
+vis-à-vis to their provincial diets by a guarantee of aid on the part
+of the confederates.
+
+During the sitting of this congress, on New Year's Day, 1820, the
+liberal party in Spain revolted against their ungrateful sovereign,
+Ferdinand VII., who exercised the most fearful tyranny over the nation
+that had so unhesitatingly shed its blood in defence of his throne.
+This example was shortly afterward followed by the Neapolitans, who
+were also dissatisfied with the conduct of their sovereign. Prince
+Metternich instantly brought about a congress at Troppau. The czar,
+Alexander, who had views upon the East and was no stranger to the
+heterarchical party which, under the guidance of Prince Ypsilanti,
+prepared a revolution in Greece (which actually broke out) against the
+Turks, was at first unwilling to give his assent unconditionally to
+the interference of Austria, but on being, in 1821, to his great
+surprise, informed by Prince Metternich of the existence of a
+revolutionary spirit in one of the regiments of the Russian guard,
+freely assented to all the measures proposed by that minister.[1] The
+new congress held at Laibach, in 1821, was followed by the entrance of
+the Austrians under Frimont into Italy. The cowardly Neapolitans fled
+without firing a shot, and the Piedmontese, who unexpectedly revolted
+to Frimont's rear, were, after a short encounter with the Austrians
+under Bubna at Novara, defeated and reduced to submission. The Greeks,
+whom Russia now no longer ventured openly to uphold, had, in the
+meantime, also risen in open insurrection. The affairs of Spain were
+still in an unsettled state. The new congress held at Verona, in 1822,
+however, decided the fate of both these countries. Prince Hardenberg,
+the Prussian minister, expired at Genoa on his return home, and Lord
+Castlereagh, the English ambassador, cut his throat with his penknife,
+in a fit of frenzy, supposed to have been induced by the sense of his
+heavy responsibility. At this congress the principle of legitimacy was
+maintained with such strictness that even the revolt of the Greeks
+against the long and cruel tyranny of the Turks was, notwithstanding
+the _Christian spirit of the Holy Alliance_ and the political
+advantage secured to Russia and Austria by the subversion of the
+Turkish empire, treated as rebellion against the legitimate authority
+of the Porte and strongly discouraged. A French army was, on the same
+grounds, despatched with the consent of the Bourbon into Spain, and
+Ferdinand was reinstated in his legitimate tyranny in 1823. Russia, in
+a note addressed to the whole of the confederated states of Germany,
+demanded at the same time a declaration on their parts to the effect
+that the late proceedings of the great European powers at Verona "were
+in accordance with the well-understood interests of the people." Every
+member of the federative assembly at Frankfort gave his assent, with
+the exception of the Freiherr von Wangenheim, the envoy from
+Wurtemberg, who declaring that his instructions did not warrant his
+voting upon the question, the ambassadors from the two Hesses made a
+similar declaration. This occasioned the dismissal of the Freiherr von
+Wangenheim; and the illegal publication of a Wurtemberg despatch, in
+which the non-participation of the German confederation in the
+resolutions passed by the congresses, to which their assent was
+afterward demanded, was treated of, occasioned a second dismissal,
+that of Count Winzingerode, the Wurtemberg minister. In the July of
+1824, the federal diet resolved to give its support to the monarchical
+principle in the constitutional states, and to maintain the Carlsbad
+resolutions referring to censorship and to the universities. The
+Mayence committee remained sitting until 1828.
+
+On the sudden decease of Alexander, the czar of all the Russias, amid
+the southern steppes, a revolution induced by the nobility broke out
+at Petersburg, but was suppressed by Alexander's brother and
+successor, the emperor Nicholas I. Nicholas had wedded Charlotte, the
+eldest daughter of the king of Prussia. This energetic sovereign
+instantly invaded Persia and rendered that country dependent upon his
+empire without any attempt being made by the Tory party in England and
+Austria to hinder the aggrandizement of Russia, every attack directed
+against her being regarded as an encouragement to liberalism. Russia
+consequently seized this opportunity to turn her arms against Turkey,
+and, in the ensuing year, a Russian force under Count Diebitsch, a
+Silesian, crossed the Balkan (Haemus) and penetrated as far as
+Adrianople; while another corps d'armée under Count Paskiewicz,
+advanced from the Caucasus into Asia Minor and took Erzerum. The fall
+of Constantinople seemed near at hand, when Austria and England for
+the first time intervened and declared that, notwithstanding their
+sympathy with the absolute principles on which Russia rested, they
+would not permit the seizure of Constantinople. France expressed her
+readiness to unite with Russia and to fall upon the Austrian rear in
+case troops were sent against the Russians.[2] Prussia, however,
+intervened, and General Muffling was dispatched to Adrianople, where,
+in 1829, a treaty was concluded, by which Russia, although for the
+time compelled to restore the booty already accumulated, gained
+several considerable advantages, being granted possession of the most
+important mountain strongholds and passes of Asia Minor, a right to
+occupy and fortify the mouths of the Danube so important to Austria,
+and to extend her aegis over Moldavia and Wallachia.
+
+In the midst of this wretched period, which brought fame to Russia and
+deep dishonor upon Germany, there still gleamed one ray of hope; the
+Customs' Union was proposed by some of the German princes for the more
+intimate union of German interests.
+
+Maximilian of Bavaria, a prince whose amiable manners and character
+rendered him universally beloved, expired in 1825. His son, Louis, the
+foe to French despotism, a German patriot and a zealous patron of the
+arts, declared himself, on his coronation, the warm and sincere
+upholder of the constitutional principle and excited general
+enthusiasm. His first measures on assuming the government were the
+reduction of the royal household and of the army with a view to the
+relief of the country from the heavy imposts, the removal of the
+university of Landshut to Munich, and the enrichment on an extensive
+scale of the institutions of art. The union of the galleries of
+Düsseldorf and Mannheim with that of Munich, the collection of
+valuable antiques and pictures, for instance, that of the old German
+paintings collected by the brothers Boisserée in Cologne during the
+French usurpation, the academy of painting under the direction of the
+celebrated Cornelius, the new public buildings raised by Klenze, among
+which the Glyptothek, the Pinakothek, the great Königsbau or royal
+residence, the Ludwigschurch, the Auerchurch, the Arcades, etc., may
+be more particularly designated, rendered Munich the centre of German
+art. This sovereign also founded at Ratisbon the Walhalla, a building
+destined for the reception of the busts of all the celebrated men to
+whom Germany has given birth. The predilection of this royal amateur
+for classic antiquity excited within his bosom the warmest sympathy
+with the fate of the modern Greeks, then in open insurrection against
+their Turkish oppressors, and whom he alone, among all the princes of
+Germany, aided in the hour of their extremest need.--With the same
+spirit that dictated his poems, in which he so repeatedly lamented the
+want of unity in Germany, he was the first to propose the union of her
+material interests. Germany unhappily resembled, and indeed
+immediately after the war of liberation, as De Pradt, the French
+writer, maliciously observed, even in a mercantile point of view, a
+menagerie whose inhabitants watched each other through a grating.
+Vainly had the commercial class of Frankfort on the Maine presented a
+petition, in 1819, to the confederation, praying for free trade, for
+the fulfilment of the nineteenth article of the federal act. Their
+well-grounded complaint remained unheard. The non-fulfilment of the
+treaty relating to the free navigation of the Rhine to the sea was
+most deeply felt. In the first treaty concluded at Paris, the royal
+dignity and the extension of the Dutch territory had been generously
+granted to the king of the Netherlands under the express proviso of
+the free navigation of the Rhine to the sea. The papers relating to
+this transaction had been drawn up in French, and the ungrateful Dutch
+perfidiously gave the words "jusqu' à la mer" their most literal
+construction, merely "as far as the sea," and as the French, moreover,
+possessed a voice in the matter on account of the Upper Rhine, and the
+German federal states were unable to give a unanimous verdict,
+innumerable committees were held and acts were drawn up without
+producing any result favorable to the trade of Germany.
+
+Affairs stood thus, when, shortly after Louis's accession to the
+throne of Bavaria, negotiations having for object the settlement of a
+commercial treaty took place between him and William, king of
+Wurtemberg. This example was imitated by Prussia, which at first
+merely formed a union with Darmstadt; afterward by Hesse, Hanover,
+Saxony, etc., by which a central German union was projected. This
+union was, however, unable to stand between that of Wurtemberg and
+Bavaria, and that of Prussia and Darmstadt. The German Customs' Union
+was carried into effect in 1888. An annual meeting of German
+naturalists had at that time been arranged under the auspices of Oken,
+the great naturalist, and at the meeting held at Berlin, in 1888, the
+Freiherr von Cotta, by whom the moral and material interests of
+Germany have been greatly promoted, drew up the first plan for a
+junction of the commercial union of Southern Germany with that of the
+North, as the first step to the future liberation of Germany from all
+internal commercial restrictions. The zeal with which he carried this
+great plan into effect gained the confidence of the different
+governments, and he not only succeeded in combining the two older
+unions, but also in gradually embodying with them the rest of the
+German states.
+
+The attachment of King Louis to ancient Catholicism was extremely
+remarkable. He began to restore some of the monasteries, and several
+professors inclined to Ultramontanism and to Catholic mysticism, the
+most distinguished among whom was Görres, the Prussian exile,
+assembled at the new university at Munich. Here and there appeared a
+pious enthusiast. Shortly after the restoration, a peasant from the
+Pfalz named Adam Müller began to prophesy, and Madame von Krudener, a
+Hanoverian, to preach the necessity of public penance; both these
+persons gained the ear of exalted personages, and Madame von Krudener
+more particularly is said not a little to have conduced to the piety
+displayed by the emperor Alexander during the latter years of his
+life. At Bamberg, Prince Alexander von Hohenlohe, then a young man,
+had the folly to attempt the performance of miracles, until the police
+interfered, and he received a high ecclesiastical office in Hungary.
+In Austria, the Ligorians, followers in the footsteps of the Jesuits,
+haunted the vicinity of the throne. The conversion of Count Stolberg
+and of the Swiss, Von Haller, to the Catholic church, created the
+greatest sensation. The former, a celebrated poet, simple and amiable,
+in no way merited the shameless outbursts of rage of his old friend,
+Voss; Haller, on the other hand, brought forward in his "Restoration
+of Political Science" such a decided theory in favor of secession as
+to inspire a sentiment of dread at his consistency. The conversion of
+Ferdinand, prince of Anhalt-Köthen, to the Catholic church, in 1825,
+excited far less attention.
+
+In France, where the Bourbons were completely guided by the Jesuits,
+by whose aid they could alone hope to suppress the revolutionary
+spirit of their subjects, the reaction in favor of Catholicism had
+assumed a more decided character than in Germany. Louis XVIII. was
+succeeded by his brother, the Count d'Artois, under the name of
+Charles X., a venerable man seventy years of age, who, notwithstanding
+his great reverses, had "neither learned nor forgotten anything."
+Polignac, his incapable and imperious minister, the tool of the
+Jesuits, had, since 1829, impugned every national right, and, at
+length, ventured by the ordinances of the 25th July, 1830, to subvert
+the constitution. During three days, from the 27th to the 30th of
+July, the greatest confusion reigned in Paris; the people rose in
+thousands; murderous conflicts took place in the streets between them
+and the royal troops, who were driven from every quarter, and the king
+was expelled. The chambers met, declared the elder branch of the house
+of Bourbon (Charles X., his son, the Dauphin, Duke d'Angouleme, and
+his grandson, the youthful Duke de Bordeaux, the son of the murdered
+Duke de Berri) to have forfeited the throne, but at the same time
+allowed them unopposed to seek an asylum in England, and elected Louis
+Philippe, Duke of Orleans, the son of the notorious Jacobin, the head
+of the younger line of the house of Bourbon and the grand-master of
+the society of Freemasons, king of the French. The rights of the
+chambers and of the people were also extended by an appendix to the
+charta signed by Louis XVIII.
+
+The revolution of July was the signal for all discontented subjects
+throughout Europe to gain, either by force or by legal opposition,
+their lost or sighed-for rights. In October, the constitutional party
+in Spain attempted to overturn the despotic rule of Ferdinand VII. In
+November, the prime minister of England, the renowned Duke of
+Wellington, was compelled by the people to yield his seat to Earl
+Grey, a man of more liberal principles, who commenced the great work
+of reform in the constitution and administration of Great Britain.
+During this month, a general insurrection took place in Poland: the
+grandduke, Constantine, was driven out of Warsaw, and Poland declared
+herself independent. A great part of Germany was also convulsed: and a
+part of the ill-raised fabric, erected by the statesmen of 1815, fell
+tottering to the ground.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide Binder's Prince Metternich.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Official report of the Russian ambassador, Count Pozzo di
+Borgo, from Paris, of the 14th of December, 1828.]
+
+
+
+CCLXVII. The Belgian Revolution
+
+
+A nation's self-forgetfulness is ever productive of national disgrace.
+The Netherlands were torn from the empire and placed partly beneath
+the tyranny of Spain, partly beneath the aegis of France; the dominion
+of Austria, at a later period, merely served to rouse their provincial
+spirit, and, during their subsequent annexation to France, the French
+element decidedly gained the ascendency among the population. When, in
+1815, these provinces fell under the rule of Holland, it was hoped
+that the German element would again rise. But Holland is not Germany.
+Estranged provinces are alone to be regained by means of their
+incorporation with an empire imbued with one distinct national spirit;
+the subordination of one province to another but increases national
+antipathy and estrangement. Holland, by an ungrateful, inimical
+policy, unfortunately strove to separate herself from Germany.[1] And
+yet Holland owes her whole prosperity to Germany. There is her market;
+thence does she draw her immense wealth; the loss of that market for
+her colonial productions would prove her irredeemable ruin. Her
+sovereign, driven into distant exile, was restored to her by the arms
+of Germany and generously endowed with royalty. Holland, in return for
+all these benefits, deceitfully deprived Germany of the free
+navigation of the Rhine to the sea guaranteed to her by the federal
+act and assumed the right of fixing the price of all goods, whether
+imported to or exported from Germany. The whole of Germany was, in
+this unprecedented manner, rendered doubly tributary to the petty
+state of Holland.
+
+Belgium, annexed to this secondary state instead of being incorporated
+with great and liberal Germany, necessarily remained a stranger to any
+influence calculated to excite her sympathy with the general interests
+of Germany. Cut off, as heretofore, from German influence, she
+retained, in opposition to the Dutch, a preponderance of the old
+Spanish and modern French element in her population. Priests and
+liberals, belonging to the French school, formed an opposition party
+against the king, who, on his side, rested his sole support upon the
+Dutch, whom he favored in every respect. Count Broglio, archbishop of
+Ghent, first began the contest by refusing to take the oath on the
+constitution. Violence was resorted to and he fled the country. The
+impolicy of the government in affixing his name to the pillory merely
+served to increase the exasperation of the Catholics. Hence their
+acquiescence with the designs of the Jesuits, their opposition to the
+foundation of a philosophical academy, independent of the clergy, at
+Louvain. The fact of the population of Belgium being to that of
+Holland as three to two and the number of its representatives in the
+states-general being as four to seven, of few, if any, Belgians being
+allowed to enter the service of the state, the army, or the navy,
+still further added to the popular discontent. The gross manners of
+the minister, Van Maanen, also increased the evil. As early as
+January, 1830, eight liberal Belgian deputies were deprived of their
+offices, and De Potter, with some others, who had ventured to defend
+them by means of the press, were banished the kingdom under a charge
+of high treason.
+
+The Dutch majority in the states-general, notwithstanding its devotion
+to the king, rejected the ten years' budget on the ground of its
+affording too long a respite to ministerial responsibility, and
+protested against the levy of Swiss troops. Slave-trade in the
+colonies was also abolished in 1818.
+
+The position of the Netherlands, which, Luxemburg excepted, did not
+appertain to the German confederation, continually exposed her, on
+account of Belgium, to be attacked on the land side by France, on that
+of the sea by her ancient commercial foe, England, and had induced the
+king to form a close alliance with Russia. His son, William of Orange,
+married a sister of the emperor Alexander.
+
+The colonies did not regain their former prosperity. The Dutch
+settlement at Batavia with difficulty defended itself against the
+rebellious natives of Sumatra and Java.
+
+The revolution in Paris had an electric effect upon the irritated
+Belgians. On the 25th of August, 1830, Auber's opera, "The Dumb Girl
+of Portici," the revolt of Masaniello in Naples, was performed at the
+Brussels theatre and inflamed the passions of the audience to such a
+degree, that, on quitting the theatre, they proceeded to the house of
+Libry, the servile newspaper editor, and entirely destroyed it: the
+palace of the minister, Van Maanen, shared the same fate. The citizens
+placed themselves under arms, and sent a deputation to The Hague to
+lay their grievances before the king. The entire population meanwhile
+rose in open insurrection, and the whole of the fortresses, Maestricht
+and the citadel of Antwerp alone excepted, fell into their hands.
+William of Orange, the crown prince, ventured unattended among the
+insurgents at Brussels and proposed, as a medium of peace, the
+separation of Belgium from Holland in a legislative and administrative
+sense. The king also made an apparent concession to the wishes of the
+people by the dismissal of Van Maanen, but shortly afterward declared
+his intention not to yield, disavowed the step taken by his son, and
+allowed some Belgian deputies to be insulted at The Hague. A fanatical
+commotion instantly took place at Brussels; the moderate party in the
+civic guard was disarmed, and the populace made preparations for
+desperate resistance. On the 25th of September, Prince Frederick,
+second son to the king of Holland, entered Brussels with a large body
+of troops, but encountered barricades and a heavy fire in the Park,
+the Place Royal, and along the Boulevards. An immense crowd, chiefly
+composed of the people of Liege and of peasants dressed in the blue
+smock of the country, had assembled for the purpose of aiding in the
+defence of the city. The contest, accompanied by destruction of the
+dwelling-houses and by pillage, lasted five days. The Dutch were
+accused of practicing the most horrid cruelties upon the defenceless
+inhabitants and of thereby heightening the popular exasperation. At
+length, on the 27th of September, the prince was compelled to abandon
+the city. On the 5th of October, Belgium declared herself independent.
+De Potter returned and placed himself at the head of the provisional
+government. The Prince of Orange recognized the absolute separation of
+Belgium from Holland in a proclamation published at Antwerp, but was,
+nevertheless, constrained to quit the country. Antwerp fell into the
+hands of the insurgents; the citadel, however, refused to surrender,
+and Chassé, the Dutch commandant, caused the magnificent city to be
+bombarded, and the well-stored entrepot, the arsenal, and about sixty
+or seventy houses, to be set on fire, during the night of the 27th of
+October, 1830.[2] The cruelties perpetrated by the Dutch were bitterly
+retaliated upon them by the Belgian populace. On the 10th of November,
+however, a national Belgian congress met, in which the moderate party
+gained the upper hand, principally owing to the influence of the
+clergy. De Potter's plan for the formation of a Belgian commonwealth
+fell to the ground. The congress decided in favor of the maintenance
+of the kingdom, drew up a new constitution, and offered the crown to
+the Prince de Nemours, second son of the king of the French. It was,
+however, refused by Louis Philippe in the name of his son, in order to
+avoid war with the other great European powers. Surlet de Chokier, the
+leader of the liberal party, hereupon undertook the provisional
+government of the country, and negotiations were entered into with
+Prince Leopold of Coburg.
+
+On the 4th of November, a congress, composed of the ministers of
+England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, met at London for the purpose
+of settling the Belgian question without disturbing the peace of
+Europe, and it was decided that Prince Leopold of Coburg, the widower
+of the princess royal of England, a man entirely under British
+influence, and who had refused the throne of Greece, should accept
+that of Belgium. Eighteen articles favorable to Belgium were granted
+to him by the London congress. Scarcely, however, had he reached
+Brussels, on the 31st July, 1831, than the fetes given upon that
+occasion were disturbed by the unexpected invasion of Belgium by a
+numerous and powerful Dutch force. At Hasselt, the Prince of Orange
+defeated the Belgians under General Daine, and, immediately advancing
+against Leopold, utterly routed him at Tirlemont, on the 12th August.
+The threats of France and England, and the appearance of a French army
+in Belgium, saved Brussels and compelled the Dutch to withdraw. The
+eighteen articles in favor of Belgium were, on the other hand,
+replaced by twenty-four others, more favorable to the Dutch, which
+Leopold was compelled to accept. The king of Holland, however,
+refusing to accept these twenty-four articles, with which,
+notwithstanding the concessions therein contained, he was
+dissatisfied, the Belgian government took advantage of the undecided
+state of the question not to undertake, for the time being, half of
+the public debt of Holland, which, by the twenty-four articles, was
+laid upon Belgium.
+
+Negotiations dragged on their weary length, and protocol after
+protocol followed in endless succession from London. In 1832, Leopold
+espoused Louisa, one of the daughters of the king of the French, and
+was not only finally recognized by the northern powers, but, by means
+of the intervention of England, being backed by a fleet, and by means
+of that of France, being backed by an army, compelled Holland to
+accept of terms of peace. The French troops under Gerard, unassisted
+by the Belgians and watched by a Prussian army stationed on the Meuse,
+regularly besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, on Christmas eve,
+1832, gave it up to the Belgians as pertaining to their territory, and
+evacuated the country. King William, however, again rejecting the
+twenty-four articles, all the other points, the division of the public
+debt, the navigation of the Scheldt, and, more than all, the future
+destiny of the province of Luxemburg, which formed part of the
+confederated states of Germany, had been declared hereditary in the
+house of Nassau-Orange, and which, by its geographical position and
+the character of its inhabitants, was more nearly connected with
+Belgium, remained for the present unsettled. In 1839, Holland was
+induced by a fresh demonstration on the part of the great powers to
+accept the twenty-four articles, against which Belgium in her turn
+protested on the ground of the procrastination on the part of Holland
+having rendered her earlier accession to these terms null and void.
+Belgium was, however, also compelled to yield. By this fresh agreement
+it was settled that the western part of Luxemburg, which had in the
+interim fallen away from the German confederation, should be annexed
+to Belgium, and that Holland (and the German confederation) should
+receive the eastern part of Limburg in indemnity; and that Belgium,
+instead of taking upon herself one-half of the public debt of the
+Netherlands, should annually pay the sum of five million Dutch guldens
+toward defraying the interest of that debt.
+
+The period of the independence of Belgium, brief as it was, was made
+use of, particularly under the Nothomb ministry, for the development
+of great industrial activity, and, more especially, for the creation
+of a system of railroads, until now without its parallel on the
+continent. Unfortunately but little was done in favor of the interests
+of Germany. The French language had already become so prevalent
+throughout Belgium that, in 1840, the provincial councillors of Ghent
+were constrained to pass a resolution to the effect that the offices
+dependent upon them should, at all events, solely be intrusted to
+persons acquainted with the Flemish dialect, and that their rescripts
+should be drawn up in that language.--Holland immensely increased her
+public debt in consequence of her extraordinary exertions. In 1841,
+the king, William I., voluntarily abdicated the throne and retired
+into private life, in the enjoyment of an enormous revenue, with a
+Catholic countess whom he had wedded. He was succeeded by his son,
+William II.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: "The Netherlands formed, nevertheless, but a weak bulwark
+to Germany. Internal disunion, superfluous fortresses, a weak army. On
+the one side, a witless, wealthy, haughty aristocracy, an influential
+and ignorant clergy; on the other, civic pride, capelocratic
+pettiness, Calvinistic _brusquerie_. The policy pursued by the king
+was inimical to Germany."--_Stein's Letters._]
+
+[Footnote 2: So bitter was the enmity existing between the Belgians
+and the Dutch that the Dutch lieutenant, Van Speyk, when driven by a
+storm before Antwerp, blew up his gunboat in the middle of the Scheldt
+rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Belgians.]
+
+
+
+CCLXVIII. The Swiss Revolution
+
+
+The restoration of 1814 had replaced the ancient aristocracy more or
+less on their former footing throughout Switzerland. In this country
+the greatest tranquillity prevailed; the oppression of the aristocracy
+was felt, but not so heavily as to be insupportable. Many benefits,
+as, for instance, the draining of the swampy Linththal by Escher of
+Zurich, were, moreover, conferred upon the country. Mercenaries were
+also continually furnished to the king of France, to the pope, and,
+for some time, to the king of the Netherlands. France, nevertheless,
+imposed such heavy commercial duties that several of the cantons
+leagued together for the purpose of taking reprisals. This
+misunderstanding between Switzerland and France unfortunately did not
+teach wisdom to the states belonging to the German confederation, and
+the Rhine was also barricaded with custom-houses, those graves of
+commerce. The Jesuits settled at Freiburg in the Uechtland, where they
+founded a large seminary and whence they finally succeeded in
+expelling Peter Girard, a man of high merit, noted for the liberality
+of his views on education.[1]
+
+The Paris revolution of July also gave rise to a democratic reaction
+throughout Switzerland. Berne, by a circular, published September 22,
+1830, called upon the other Swiss governments to suppress the
+revolutionary spirit by force, and, by so doing, fired the train. The
+government of Zurich wisely opposed the circular and made a voluntary
+reform. In all the other cantons popular societies sprang up, and,
+either by violence or by threats, subverted the ancient governments.
+New constitutions were everywhere granted. The immense majority of the
+people was in favor of reform, and the aristocracy offered but faint
+resistance. Little towns or villages became the centre of the
+movements against the capitals. Fischer, an innkeeper from
+Merischwanden, seized the city of Aarau; the village of Burgdorf
+revolutionized the canton of Berne, the village of Murten the canton
+of Freiburg, the village of Weinfelden the canton of Constance; this
+example was followed by the peasantry of Solothurn and Vaud; the
+government of St. Gall imitated that of Zurich.
+
+Basel was also attempted to be revolutionized by Liestal, but the
+wealthy and haughty citizens, principally at the instigation of the
+family of Wieland, made head against the peasantry, who were led by
+one Gutzwyler. The contest that had taken place in Belgium was here
+reacted on a smaller scale. A dispute concerning privileges commencing
+between the citizens and the peasantry, bloody excesses ensued and a
+complete separation was the result. The peasantry, superior in number,
+asserted their right to send a greater number of deputies to the great
+council than the cities, and the latter, dreading the danger to which
+their civic interests would be thereby exposed, obstinately refused to
+comply. Party rage ran high; the Baselese insulted some of the
+deputies sent by the peasantry, and the latter, in retaliation, began
+to blockade the town. Colonel Wieland made some sallies; the federal
+diet interfered, and the peasantry, being dispersed by the federal
+troops, revenged themselves during their retreat by plundering the
+vale of Reigoldswyler, which had remained true to Basel. In Schwyz,
+the Old-Schwyzers and the inhabitants of the outer circles, who,
+although for centuries in possession of the rights of citizenship,
+were still regarded by the former as their vassals, also fell at
+variance, and the latter demanded equal rights or complete separation.
+In Neufchatel, Bourguin attempted a revolution against the Prussian
+party and took the city, but succumbed to the vigorous measures
+adopted by General Pfuel, 1831.
+
+The conduct of the federal diet, which followed in the footsteps of
+European policy, and which, by winking at the opposing party and
+checking that in favor of progression, sought to preserve the balance,
+but served to increase party spirit. In September, 1831, the Radicals
+founded at Langenthal, the _Schutzverein_ or protective union, which
+embraced all the liberal clubs throughout Switzerland and was intended
+to counteract the impending aristocratic counterrevolution. Men like
+Schnell of Berne, Troxler the philosopher, etc., stood at its head.
+They demanded the abolition of the constitution of 1815 as too
+aristocratic and federal, and the foundation of a new one in a
+democratic and independent sense for the increase of the external
+power and unity of Switzerland, and for her internal security from
+petty aristocratic and local views and intrigues. In March, 1832,
+Lucerne, Zurich, Berne, Solothurn, St. Gall, Aargau, and Constance
+formed a _Concordat_ for the mutual maintenance of their democratic
+constitutions until the completion of the revisal of the
+confederation. The aristocratic party, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden
+(actuated by ancient pride and led by the clergy), Basel, and
+Neufchatel meanwhile formed the Sarner confederation. In August, the
+deposed Bernese aristocracy, headed by Major Fischer, made a futile
+attempt to produce a counter-revolution. In the federal diet, the
+envoys of the _Concordat_ and the threatening language of the clubs
+compelled the members to bring a new federal constitution under
+deliberation, but opinions were too divided, and the constitution
+projected in 1833 fell to the ground for want of sufficient support.
+At the moment of this defeat of the liberal party, Alt-Schwyz, led by
+Abyberg, took up arms, took possession of Küssnacht, and threatened
+the _Concordat_, the Baselese at the same time taking the field with
+one thousand two hundred men and fourteen pieces of ordnance. The
+people were, however, inimical to their cause; Abyberg fled; the
+Baselese were encountered by the peasantry in the Hartwald and
+repulsed with considerable loss. The federal diet demonstrated the
+greatest energy in order to prevent the _Concordat_ and the
+_Schutzverein_ from acting in its stead. Schwyz and Basel were
+occupied with soldiery; the former was compelled to accept a new
+constitution drawn up with a view of pacifying both parties, the
+latter to accede to a complete separation between the town and
+country. The Sarner confederation was dissolved, and all discontented
+cantons were compelled, under pain of the infliction of martial law,
+to send envoys to the federal diet. Intrigues, having for object the
+alienation of the city of Basel, of Neufchatel, and Valais from the
+confederation, were discovered and frustrated by the diet, not without
+the approbation of France, the Valais and the road over the Simplon
+being thereby prevented from falling beneath the influence of Austria.
+
+In 1833, five hundred Polish refugees, suspected of supporting the
+Frankfort attempt in Germany, quitted France for Switzerland, and soon
+afterward unsuccessfully invaded Savoy in conjunction with some
+Italian refugees. Crowds of refugees from every quarter joined them
+and formed a central association, Young Europe, whence branched
+others, Young France, Young Poland, Young Germany, and Young Italy.
+The principal object of this association was to draw the German
+journeymen apprentices (_Handwerks-bursche_) into its interests, and
+for this purpose a banquet was given by it to these apprentices in the
+Steinbrölzle near Berne. These intrigues produced serious threats on
+the side of the great powers, and Switzerland yielded. The greater
+part of the refugees were compelled to emigrate through France to
+England and America. Napoleon's nephew was, at a later period, also
+expelled Switzerland. His mother, Queen Hortense, consort to Louis,
+ex-king of Holland, daughter to Josephine Beauharnais, consequently
+both stepdaughter and sister-in-law to Napoleon, possessed the
+beautiful estate of Arenenberg on the Lake of Constance. On her death
+it was inherited by her son, Louis, who, during his residence there,
+occupied himself with intrigues directed against the throne of Louis
+Philippe. In concert with a couple of military madmen, he introduced
+himself into Strasburg, where, with a little hat, in imitation of that
+worn by Napoleon, on his head, he proclaimed himself emperor in the
+open streets. He was easily arrested. This act was generously viewed
+by Louis Philippe as that of a senseless boy, and he was restored to
+liberty upon condition of emigrating to America. No sooner, however,
+was he once more free, than, returning to Switzerland, he set fresh
+intrigues on foot. Louis Philippe, upon this, demanded his expulsion.
+Constance would willingly have extended to him the protection due to
+one of her citizens, but how were the claims of a Swiss citizen to be
+rendered compatible with those of a pretender to the throne of France?
+French troops already threatened the frontiers of Switzerland, where,
+as in 1793, the people, instead of making preparations for defence,
+were at strife among themselves. Louis at length voluntarily abandoned
+the country in 1838.
+
+In the beginning of 1839, Dr. Strauss, who, in 1835, had, in his work
+entitled "The Life of Jesus," declared the Gospels a cleverly devised
+fable, and had, at great pains, sought to refute the historical proofs
+of the truth of Christianity, was, on that account, appointed, by the
+council of education and of government at Zurich, professor of
+divinity to the new Zurich academy. Burgomaster Hirzel (nicknamed "the
+tree of liberty" on account of his uncommon height) stood at the head
+of the enthusiastic government party by which this extraordinary
+appointment had been effected; the people, however, rose _en masse_,
+the great council was compelled to meet, and the anti-Christian party
+suffered a most disgraceful defeat. Strauss, who had not ventured to
+appear in person on the scene of action, was offered and accepted a
+pension. The Christian party, concentrated into a committee of faith,
+under the presidency of Hurliman, behaved with extreme moderation,
+although greatly superior in number to their opponents. The radical
+government, ashamed and perplexed, committed blunder after blunder,
+and at length threatened violence. Upon this, Hirzel, the youthful
+priest of Pfäffikon, rang the alarm from his parish church, and, on
+the 6th of September, 1839, led his parishioners into the city of
+Zurich. This example was imitated by another crowd of peasantry,
+headed by a physician named Rahn. The government troops attacked the
+people and killed nine men. On the fall of the tenth, Hegetschwiler,
+the councillor of state, a distinguished savant and physician, while
+attempting to restore harmony between the contending parties, the
+civic guard turned against the troops and dispersed them. The radical
+government and the Strauss faction also fled. Immense masses of
+peasantry from around the lake entered the city. A provisional
+government, headed by Hiesz and Muralt, and a fresh election, insured
+tranquillity.
+
+In the canton of Schwyz, a lengthy dispute, similar to that between
+the Vettkoper and Schieringer in Friesland, was carried on between the
+Horn and Hoof-men (the wealthy in possession of cattle and the poor
+who only possessed a cow or two) concerning their privileges. In 1839,
+a violent opposition, similar in nature, was made by the people of
+Vaud against the oligarchical power assumed by a few families.
+
+The closing of the monasteries in the Aargau in 1840 gave rise to a
+dispute of such importance as to disturb the whole of the
+confederation. In the Aargau the church and state had long and
+strenuously battled, when the monastery of Muri was suddenly invested
+as the seat of a conspiracy, and, on symptoms of uneasiness becoming
+perceptible among the Catholic population, the whole country was
+flooded with twenty thousand militia raised on the spur of the moment,
+and the closing of the monastery of Muri and of all the monasteries in
+the Aargau was proclaimed and carried into execution. The rest of the
+Catholic cantons and Rome vehemently protested against this measure,
+and even some of the Reformed cantons, for the sake of peace, voted at
+the diet for the maintenance of the monasteries: the Aargau,
+nevertheless, steadily refused compliance.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: In Lucerne, the disorderly trial of a numerous band of
+robbers, which had been headed by an extremely beautiful and talented
+girl, named Clara Wendel, made the more noise on account of its
+bringing the bandit-like murder of Keller, the aged mayor, and
+intrigues, in which the name of the nuncio was mixed up, before the
+public. 1825.]
+
+
+
+CCLXIX. The Revolution in Brunswick, Saxony, Hesse, Etc.
+
+
+The Belgian revolution spread into Germany. Liege infected her
+neighbor, Aix-la-Chapelle, where, on the 30th of August, 1830, the
+workmen belonging to the manufactories raised a senseless tumult which
+was a few days afterward repeated by their fellow-workmen at
+Elberfeld, Wetzlar, and even by the populace of Berlin and Breslau,
+but which solely took a serious character in Brunswick, Saxony,
+Hanover, and Hesse.
+
+Charles, duke of Brunswick, was at Paris, squandering the revenue
+derived from his territories, on the outburst of the July revolution,
+which drove him back to his native country, where he behaved with
+increased insolence. His obstinate refusal to abolish the heavy taxes,
+to refrain from disgraceful sales, to recommence the erection of
+public buildings, and to recognize the provincial Estates, added to
+his threat to fire upon the people and his boast that he knew how to
+defend his throne better than Charles X. of France, so maddened the
+excitable blood of his subjects that, after throwing stones at the
+duke's carriage and at an actress on whom he publicly bestowed his
+favors, they stormed his palace and set fire to it over his head,
+September 7, 1830. Charles escaped through the garden. His brother,
+William, supported by Hanover and Prussia, replaced him, recognized
+the provincial Estates, granted a new constitution, built a new
+palace, and re-established tranquillity. The conduct of the expelled
+duke, who, from his asylum in the Harzgebirge, made a futile attempt
+to regain possession of Brunswick by means of popular agitation and by
+the proclamation of democratical opinions, added to the contempt with
+which he treated the admonitions of his superiors, induced the federal
+diet to recognize his brother's authority. The ex-duke has, since this
+period, wandered over England, France, and Spain, sometimes engaged in
+intrigues with Carlists, at others with republicans. In 1836, he
+accompanied a celebrated female aeronaut in one of her excursions from
+London. The balloon accidentally upset and the duke and his companion
+fell to the ground. He was, however, as in his other adventures, more
+frightened than hurt.
+
+In Saxony, the progress of enlightenment had long rendered the people
+sensible of the errors committed by the old and etiquettish
+aristocracy of the court and diet. As early as 1829, all the
+grievances had been recapitulated in an anonymous printed address,
+and, in the beginning of 1830, on the venerable king, Antony (brother
+to Frederick Augustus, deceased 1827), declaring invalid the
+settlement of his affairs by the Estates, which evinced a more liberal
+spirit than they had hitherto done, and on the prohibition of the
+festivities on the 25th of June, the anniversary of the Augsburg
+Confession, by the town council of Dresden and by the government
+commissioner of the university of Leipzig from devotion to the
+Catholic court, a popular tumult ensued in both cities, which was
+quelled but to be, a few weeks later, after the revolution of July,
+more disastrously renewed. The tumult commenced at Leipzig on the 2d
+of September and lasted several days, and, during the night of the
+9th, Dresden was stormed from without by two immense crowds of
+populace, by whom the police buildings and the town-house were
+ransacked and set on fire. Disturbances of a similar nature broke out
+at Chemnitz and Bautzen. The king, upon this, nominated his nephew,
+Prince Frederick, who was greatly beloved by the people, co-regent;
+the civic guard restored tranquillity, the most crying abuses,
+particularly those in the city administration, were abolished, and the
+constitution was revised. The popular minister, Lindenan, replaced
+Einsiedel, who had excited universal detestation.
+
+In the electorate of Hesse, the period of terror occasioned by the
+threatening letters addressed to the elector was succeeded by the
+agitation characteristic of the times. On the 6th of September, 1830,
+a tumultuous rising took place at Cassel; on the 24th, the people of
+Hanau destroyed every custom-house stationed on the frontier. The
+public was so unanimous and decided in opinion that the elector not
+only agreed to abolish the abuses, to convoke the Estates, and to
+grant a new constitution, but even placed the reins of government
+provisionally in the hands of his son, Prince William, in order to
+follow the Countess Reichenbach, who had been driven from Cassel by
+the insults of the populace. Prince William was, however, as little as
+his father inclined to make concessions; and violent collisions
+speedily ensued. He wedded Madame Lehmann, the wife of a Prussian
+officer, under the name of the Countess von Schaumburg, and closed the
+theatre against his mother, the electress, for refusing to place
+herself at her side in public. The citizens sided with the electress,
+and when, after some time had elapsed, she again ventured to visit the
+theatre, the doors were no longer closed against her, and, on her
+entrance, she found the house completely filled. On the close of the
+evening's entertainment, however, while the audience were peaceably
+dispersing, they were charged by a troop of cavalry, who cut down the
+defenceless multitude without distinction of age or sex, December 7,
+1830. The Estates, headed by Professor Jordan, vainly demanded
+redress; Giesler, the head of the police, was alone designated as the
+criminal; the scrutiny was drawn to an interminable length and
+produced no other result than Giesler's decoration with an order by
+the prince.
+
+In Hesse-Darmstadt, where the poll-tax amounted to 6_fls_. 12_krs_.
+(10_s_. 4_d_.) a head, the Estates ventured, even prior to the
+revolution of July, to refuse to vote 2,000,000_fls_. (£166,666 13_s_.
+4_d_.) to the new grandduke, Louis II. (who had just succeeded his
+aged father, the patron of the arts), for the defrayment of debts
+contracted by him before his accession to the ducal chair. In
+September, the peasantry of Upper Hesse rose _en masse_ on account of
+the imposition of the sum of 100,000_fls_. (£8,333 6_s_. 8_d_.) upon
+the poverty-stricken communes in order to meet the outlay occasioned
+by the festivities given in the grandduke's honor on his route through
+the country; the burdens laid upon the peasantry in the mediatized
+principalities, more particularly in that of Ysenburg, had also become
+unbearable. The insurgents took Budingen by storm and were guilty of
+some excesses toward the public officers and the foresters, but
+deprived no one of life. Ere long convinced of their utter impotence,
+they dispersed before the arrival of Prince Emilius at the head of a
+body of military, who, blinded by rage, unfortunately killed a number
+of persons in the village of Södel, whom they mistook for insurgents
+owing to the circumstance of their being armed, but who had in reality
+been assembled by a forester for the purpose of keeping the insurgents
+in check.
+
+In this month, September, 1830, popular disturbances, but of minor
+import, broke out also at Jena and Kahla, Altenburg, and Gera.
+
+In Hanover, the first symptoms of revolution appeared in January,
+1831. Dr. König was at that time at the head of the university of
+Osterode, Dr. Rauschenplatt of that of Göttingen.[1] The abolition of
+the glaring ancient abuses and the removal of the minister, Count
+Munster, the sole object of whose policy appeared to be the
+eternalization of every administrative and juridical antiquity in the
+state, were demanded. The petty insurrections were quelled by the
+military. König was taken prisoner; most of the other demagogues
+escaped to France. The Duke of Cambridge, the king's brother,
+mediated. Count Munster was dismissed, and Hanover received a new and
+more liberal constitution.
+
+While these events were passing in Germany, the Poles carried on a
+contest against the whole power of Russia as glorious and as
+unfortunate as their former one under their leader, Kosciuszko. Louis
+Philippe, king of the French, in the hope of gaining favor with the
+northern powers by the abandonment of the Polish cause, dealt not a
+stroke in their aid. Austria, notwithstanding her natural rivalry to
+Russia, beheld the Polish revolution merely through the veil of
+legitimacy and refused her aid to rebels. A Hungarian address in favor
+of Poland produced no result. Prussia was closely united by family
+ties to Russia. The Poles were consequently left without external aid,
+and their spirit was internally damped by diplomatic arts. Aid was
+promised by France, if they would wait. They accordingly waited: and
+in the interim, after the failure of Diebitsch's attempt upon Warsaw
+and his sudden death, Paskewitch, the Russian general, unexpectedly
+crossed the Vistula close to the Prussian fortress of Thorn and seized
+the city of Warsaw while each party was still in a state of
+indecision. Immense masses of fugitive Polish soldiery sought shelter
+in Austria and Prussia. The officers and a few thousand private
+soldiers were permitted to pass onward to France: they found a warm
+welcome in Southern Germany, whence they had during the campaign been
+supplied with surgeons and every necessary for the supply of the
+hospitals. The rest were compelled to return to Russia.
+
+The Russian troops drawn from the distant provinces, the same that had
+been employed in the war with Persia, overran Poland as far as the
+Prussian frontier, bringing with them a fearful pestilence, Asiatic
+cholera. This dire malady, which had, since 1817, crept steadily
+onward from the banks of the Ganges, reached Russia in 1830, and, in
+the autumn of 1831, spread across the frontiers of Germany. It chiefly
+visited populous cities and generally spared districts less densely
+populated, passing from one great city to another whither infection
+could not have been communicated. _Cordons de santé_ and quarantine
+regulations were of no avail. The pestilence appeared to spread like
+miasma through the air and to kindle like gas wherever the assemblage
+of numbers disposed the atmosphere to its reception. The patients were
+seized with vomiting and diarrhoea, accompanied with violent
+convulsions, and often expired instantaneously or after an agony of a
+few hours' duration. Medicinal art was powerless against this disease,
+and, as in the 14th century, the ignorant populace ascribed its
+prevalence to poison. Suspicion fell this time upon the physicians and
+the public authorities and spread in the most incredible manner from
+St. Petersburg to Paris. The idea that the physicians had been charged
+to poison the people _en masse_ occasioned dreadful tumults, in which
+numbers of physicians fell victims and every drug used in medicine was
+destroyed as poisonous. Similar scenes occurred in Russia and in
+Hungary. In the latter country a great insurrection of the peasants
+took place, in August, 1831, in which not only the physicians, but
+also numbers of the nobility and public officers who had provided
+themselves with drugs fell victims, and the most inhuman atrocities
+were perpetrated. In Vienna, where the cholera raged with extreme
+virulence, the people behaved more reasonably.
+
+In Prussia, the cholera occasioned several disturbances at
+Koenigsberg, Stettin, and Breslau. At Koenigsberg the movement was not
+occasioned by the disease being attributed to poison. The strict
+quarantine regulations enforced by the government had produced a
+complete commercial stagnation, notwithstanding which permission had
+been given to the Russian troops, when hard pushed by the insurgent
+Poles, to provide themselves with provisions and ammunition from
+Prussia, so that not only Russian agents and commissaries, but whole
+convoys from Russia crossed the Prussian frontier. The appearance of
+cholera was ascribed to this circumstance, and the public discontent
+was evinced both by a popular outbreak and in an address from the
+chief magistrate of Koenigsberg to the throne. The Prussian army,
+under the command of Field-Marshal Gneisenau, stationed in Posen for
+the purpose of watching the movements of the Poles, was also attacked
+by the cholera, to which the field-marshal fell victim. It speedily
+reached Berlin, spread through the north of Germany to France,
+England, and North America, returned thence to the south of Europe,
+and, in 1836, crept steadily on from Italy through the Tyrol to
+Bavaria.
+
+The veil had been torn from many an old and deep-rooted evil by the
+disturbances of 1830. The press now emulated the provincial diets and
+some of the governments that sought to meet the demands of the age in
+exposing to public view all the political wants of Germany. Party
+spirit, however, still ran too high, and the moderate
+constitutionalists, who aimed at the gradual introduction of reforms
+by legal means, found themselves ere long outflanked by two extreme
+parties. While Gentz at Vienna, Jarcke at Berlin, etc., refused to
+make the slightest concession and in that spirit conducted the press,
+Rotteck's petty constitutional reforms in Baden were treated with
+contempt by Wirth and Siebenpfeiffer, by whom a German republic was
+with tolerable publicity proclaimed in Rhenish Bavaria. Nor were
+attempts at mediation wanting. In Darmstadt, Schulz proposed the
+retention of the present distribution of the states of Germany and the
+association of a second chamber, composed of deputies elected by the
+people from every part of the German confederation, with the federal
+assembly at Frankfort.
+
+The Tribune, edited by Dr. Wirth, and the Westboten, edited by Dr.
+Siebenpfeiffer, were prohibited by the federal diet, March 2, 1832.
+Schuler, Savoie, and Geib opposed this measure by the foundation of a
+club in Rhenish Bavaria for the promotion of liberty of the press,
+ramifications of which were intended by the founders to be extended
+throughout Germany. The approaching celebration of the festival in
+commemoration of the Bavarian constitution afforded the malcontents a
+long-wished-for opportunity for the convocation of a monster meeting
+at the ancient castle of Hambach, on the 27th of May. Although the
+black, red and gold flag waved on this occasion high above the rest,
+the tendency to French liberalism predominated over that to German
+patriotism. Numbers of French being also present, Dr. Wirth deemed
+himself called upon to observe that the festival they had met to
+celebrate was intrinsically German, that he despised liberty as a
+French boon, and that the patriot's first thoughts were for his
+country, his second for liberty. These observations greatly displeased
+the numerous advocates for French republicanism among his audience,
+and one Rey, a Strasburg citizen, read him a severe lecture in the
+Mayence style of 1793.[2] There were also a number of Poles present,
+toward whom no demonstrations of jealousy were evinced. This meeting
+peaceably dissolved, but no means were for the future neglected for
+the purpose of crushing the spirit manifested by it. Marshal Wrede
+occupied Spires, Landau, Neustadt, etc., with Bavarian troops; the
+clubs for the promotion of liberty of the press were strictly
+prohibited, their original founders, as well as the orators of Hambach
+and the boldest of the newspaper editors, were either arrested or
+compelled to quit the country. Siebenpfeiffer took refuge in
+Switzerland; Wirth might have effected his escape, but refused. Some
+provocations in Neustadt, on the anniversary of the Hambach festival
+in 1833, were brought by the military to a tragical close. Some
+newspaper editors, printers, etc., were also arrested at Munich,
+Wurzburg, Augsburg, etc. The most celebrated among the accused was
+Professor Behr, court-councillor of Wurzburg, the burgomaster and
+former deputy of that city, who at the time of the meeting at Hambach
+made a public speech at Gaibach. On account of the revolutionary
+tendency manifested in it he was arrested, and, in 1886, sentenced to
+ask pardon on his knees before the king's portrait and to
+imprisonment, a punishment to which the greater part of the political
+offenders were condemned.
+
+The federal diet had for some time been occupied with measures for the
+internal tranquillity of Germany. The Hambach festival both brought
+them to a conclusion and increased their severity. Under the date of
+the 28th of June, 1832, the resolutions of the federal assembly, by
+which first of all the provincial Estates, then the popular clubs, and
+finally the press, were to be deprived of every means of opposing in
+any the slightest degree the joint will of the princes, were
+published. The governments were bound not to tolerate within their
+jurisdiction aught contrary to the resolutions passed by the federal
+assembly, and to call the whole power of the confederation to their
+aid if unable to enforce obedience; nay, in cases of urgency, the
+confederation reserved to itself the right of armed intervention,
+undemanded by the governments. Taxes, to meet the expenses of the
+confederation, were to be voted submissively by the provincial
+Estates. Finally, all popular associations and assemblies were also
+prohibited, and all newspapers, still remaining, of a liberal
+tendency, were suppressed.
+
+The youthful revolutionists, principally students, assembled secretly
+at Frankfort on the Maine, during the night of the 3d of April, 1833,
+attacked the town-watch for the purpose of liberating some political
+prisoners, and possibly intended to have carried the federal assembly
+by a _coup-de-main_ had they not been dispersed. These excesses had
+merely the effect of increasing the severity of the scrutiny and of
+crowding the prisons with suspected persons.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Also the unfortunate Dr. Plath, to whom science is
+indebted for an excellent historical work upon China. He became
+implicated in this affair and remained in confinement until 1836, when
+he was sentenced to fifteen years' further imprisonment.]
+
+[Footnote 2: All national distinctions must cease and be fused in
+universal liberty and equality; this was the sole aim of the noble
+French people, and for this cause should we meet them with a fraternal
+embrace, etc. Paul Pfizer well observed in a pamphlet on German
+liberalism, published at that period, "What epithet would the majority
+of the French people bestow upon a liberty which a part of their
+nation would purchase by placing themselves beneath the protection of
+a foreign and superior power, called to their aid against their
+fellow-citizens? If the cause of German liberalism is to remain pure
+and unspotted, we must not, like Coriolanus, arm the foreign foe
+against our country. The egotistical tendency of the age is,
+unhappily, too much inclined (by a coalition with France) to prefer
+personal liberty and independence to the liberty and independence
+(thereby infallibly forfeited) of the whole community. The supposed
+fellowship with France would be subjection to her. France will support
+the German liberals as Richelien did the German Protestants."]
+
+
+
+CCLXX. The Struggles of the Provincial Diets
+
+
+The Estates of the different constitutional states sought for
+constitutional reform by legal means and separated themselves from the
+revolutionists. But, during periods of great political agitation, it
+is difficult to draw a distinctive line, and any opposition, however
+moderate, appears as dangerous as the most intemperate rebellion. It
+was, consequently, impossible for the governments and the Estates to
+come to an understanding during these stormy times. The result of the
+deliberations, whenever the opposition was in the majority, was
+protestations on both sides in defence of right; and, whenever the
+opposition was or fell in the minority, the chambers were the mere
+echo of the minister.
+
+In Bavaria, in 1831, the second chamber raised a violent storm against
+the minister, von Schenk, principally on account of the restoration of
+some monasteries and of the enormous expense attending the erection of
+the splendid public buildings at Munich. A law of censorship had,
+moreover, been published, and a number of civil officers elected by
+the people been refused permission to take their seats in the chamber.
+Schwindel, von Closen, Cullmann, Seyffert, etc., were the leaders of
+the opposition. Schenk resigned office; the law of censorship was
+repealed, and the Estates struck two millions from the civil list. The
+first chamber, however, refused its assent to these resolutions, the
+law of censorship was retained, and the saving in the expenditure of
+the crown was reduced to an extremely insignificant amount. In the
+autumn of 1832, Prince Otto, the king's second son, was, with the
+consent of the sultan, elected king of Greece by the great maritime
+powers intrusted with the decision of the Greek question, and Count
+Armansperg, formerly minister of Bavaria, was placed at the head of
+the regency during the minority of the youthful monarch. Steps having
+to be taken for the levy of troops for the Greek service, some
+regiments were sent into Greece in order to carry the new regulations
+into effect. The Bavarian chambers were at a later period almost
+entirely purged from the opposition and granted every demand made by
+the government. The appearance of the Bavarians in ancient Greece
+forms one of the most interesting episodes in modern history. The
+jealousy of the great powers explains the election of a sovereign
+independent of them all: the noble sympathy displayed for the Grecian
+cause by King Louis, who, shortly after the congress of Verona, sent
+considerable sums of money and Colonel von Heideck to the aid of the
+Greeks, and, it may be, also the wish to bring the first among the
+second-rate powers of Germany into closer connection with the common
+interests of the first-rate powers, more particularly explains that of
+the youthful Otto.[1] The task of organizing a nation, noble, indeed,
+but debased by long slavery and still reeking with the blood of late
+rebellion, under the influence of a powerful and mutually jealous
+diplomacy, on a European and German footing, was, however, extremely
+difficult. Hence the opposite views entertained by the regency, the
+resignation of the councillors of state, von Maurer and von Abel, who
+were more inclined to administrate, and the retention of office by
+Count Armansperg, who was more inclined to diplomatize. Hence the
+ceaseless intrigues of party, the daily increasing contumacy, and the
+revolts, sometimes quenched in blood, of the wild mountain tribes and
+ancient robber-chiefs, to whom European institutions were still an
+insupportable yoke. King Otto received, on his accession to the
+throne, in 1835, a visit from his royal parent; and, in the ensuing
+year, conducted the Princess of Oldenburg to Athens as his bride.
+
+In Wurtemberg, the chambers first met in 1833, and were, two months
+later, again dissolved on account of the refusal of the second chamber
+to reject "with indignation" Pfizer's protestation against the
+resolutions of the confederation. In the newly-elected second chamber,
+the opposition, at whose head stood the celebrated poet, Uhland,
+brought forward numerous propositions for reform, but remained in the
+minority, and it was not until the new diet, held in 1836, that the
+aristocratic first chamber was induced to diminish socage service and
+other feudal dues twenty-two and one-half per cent in amount. The
+literary piracy that had hitherto continued to exist solely in
+Wurtemberg was also provisionally abolished, the system of national
+education was improved, and several other useful projects were carried
+into execution or prepared. A new criminal code, published in 1838,
+again bore traces of political caution. The old opposition lost power.
+
+In Baden, the venerable grandduke, Louis, expired in 1830, and was
+succeeded by Leopold, a descendant of the collateral branch of the
+counts of Hochberg. Bavaria had, at an earlier period, stipulated, in
+case of the extinction of the elder and legitimate line, for the
+restoration of the Pfalz (Heidelberg and Mannheim), which had, in
+1816, been secured to her by a treaty with Austria. The grandduke,
+Louis, had protested against this measure and had, in 1817, declared
+Baden indivisible. Bavaria finally relinquished her claims on the
+payment of two million florins (£166,666 13_s_. 4_d_.) and the cession
+of the bailiwick of Steinfeld, to which Austria moreover added the
+county of Geroldseck. The new grandduke, who was surnamed "the
+citizen's friend," behaved with extreme liberality and consequently
+went hand in hand with the first chamber, of which Wessenberg and
+Prince von Furstenberg were active members, and with the second, at
+the head of which stood Professors Rotteck, Welcker, and von Itzstein.
+Rotteck proposed and carried through the abolition of capital
+punishment as alone worthy of feudal times, and, on Welcker's motion,
+censorship was abolished and a law for the press was passed. The
+federal assembly, however, speedily checked these reforms. The
+grandduke was compelled to repeal the law for the press, the Freiburg
+university was for some time closed, Professors Rotteck and Welcker
+were suspended, and their newspaper, the "Freisinnige" or liberal, was
+suppressed in 1832. Rotteck was, notwithstanding, at feud with the
+Hambachers, and had raised the Baden flag above that of Germany at a
+national fete at Badenweiler. This extremely popular deputy, who had
+been presented with thirteen silver cups in testimony of the affection
+with which he was regarded by the people, afterward protested against
+the resolutions of the confederation, but his motion was violently
+suppressed by the minister, Winter. The Baden chamber, nevertheless,
+still retained a good deal of energy, and, after the death of Rotteck,
+in 1841, a violent contest was carried on concerning the rights of
+election.
+
+In Hesse-Darmstadt, the Estates again met in 1832; the liberal
+majority in the second chamber, led by von Gagern, E. E. Hoffmann,
+Hallwachs, etc., protested against the resolutions of the
+confederation, and the chamber was dissolved. A fresh election took
+place, notwithstanding which the chamber was again dissolved in 1834,
+on account of the government being charged with party spirit by von
+Gagern and the refusal of the chamber to call him to order. The people
+afterward elected a majority of submissive members.
+
+In Hesse-Cassel the popular demonstrations were instantly followed by
+the convocation of the Estates and the proposal of a new and
+stipulated constitution, which received the sanction of the chambers
+as early as January, 1831; but, amid the continual disturbances, and
+on account of the disinclination of the prince co-regent to the
+liberal reforms, the chamber, of which the talented professor, Jordan
+of Marburg, was the most distinguished member, yielded,
+notwithstanding its perseverance, after two rapidly successive
+dissolutions, in 1832 and 1833, to the influence of the (once liberal)
+minister, Hassenpflug, and Jordan quitted the scene of contest.
+Hassenpflug's tyrannical behavior and the lapse of Hesse-Rotenburg
+(the mediatized collateral line, which became extinct with the
+Landgrave Victor in 1834), the revenues of which were appropriated as
+personal property by the prince elector instead of being declared
+state property, fed the opposition in the chambers, which was,
+notwithstanding the menaces of the prince elector, carried on until
+1838. Hassenpflug threw up office.
+
+In Nassau, the duke, William, fell into a violent dispute with the
+Estates. The second chamber, after vainly soliciting the restitution
+of the rich demesnes, appropriated by the duke as private property, on
+the ground of their being state property, and the application of their
+revenue to the payment of the state debts, refused, in the autumn of
+1831, to vote the taxes. The first chamber, in which the duke had the
+power of raising at will a majority in his favor by the creation of
+fresh members, protested against the conduct of the second, which in
+return protested against that of the first and suspended its
+proceedings until their constitutional rights should have received
+full recognition; five of the deputies, however, again protested
+against the suspension of the proceedings of the chamber and voted the
+taxes during the absence of the majority. The majority again
+protested, but became entangled in a political lawsuit, and Herber,
+the gray-headed president, was confined in the fortress of Marxburg.
+
+In Brunswick, a good understanding prevailed between William the new
+duke, and the Estates, which were, however, accused of having an
+aristocratic tendency by the democratic party. Their sittings
+continued to be held in secret.
+
+In Saxony, the long-wished-for reforms, above all, the grant of a new
+constitution, were realized, owing to the influence of the popular
+co-regent, added to that of Lindenau, the highly-esteemed minister,
+and of the newly-elected Estates, in 1831. The law of censorship,
+nevertheless, continued to be enforced with extreme severity, which
+also marked the treatment of the political prisoners. Count Hohenthal
+and Baron Watzdorf, who seized every opportunity to put in
+protestations, even against the resolutions of the confederation,
+evinced the most liberal spirit. On the demise of the aged king,
+Antony, in 1835, and the accession of the co-regent, Frederick, to the
+throne, the political movements totally ceased.
+
+Holstein and Schleswig had also, as early as 1823, solicited the
+restitution of their ancient constitutional rights, which the king,
+Frederick IV., delayed to grant. Lornsen, the councillor of chancery,
+was arrested in 1830, for attempting to agitate the people. Separate
+provincial diets were, notwithstanding, decreed, in 1831, for Holstein
+and Schleswig, although both provinces urgently demanded their union.
+Frederick IV. expired in 1839 and was succeeded by his cousin,
+Christian.
+
+Immediately after the revolution of July, the princes of Oldenburg,
+Altenburg, Coburg, Meiningen, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen made a
+public appeal to the confidence of their subjects, whom they called
+upon to lay before them their grievances, etc. Augustus, duke of
+Oldenburg, who had assumed the title of grandduke, proclaimed a
+constitution, but shortly afterward withdrew his promise and strictly
+forbade his subjects to annoy him by recalling it to his remembrance.
+The prince von Sondershausen also refused the hoped-for constitution.
+In Sigmaringen, Altenburg, and Meiningen the constitutional movement
+was, on the contrary, countenanced and encouraged by the princes.
+Pauline, the liberal-minded princess of Lippe-Detmold, had already
+drawn up a constitution for her petty territory with her own hand,
+when the nobility rose against it, and, aided by the federal assembly,
+compelled her to withdraw it.
+
+In the autumn of 1833, the emperor of Russia held a conference with
+the king of Prussia at Munchen-Gratz, whither the emperor of Austria
+also repaired. A German ministerial congress assembled immediately
+afterward at Vienna, and the first of its resolutions was made public
+late in the autumn of 1834. It announced the establishment of a court
+of arbitration, empowered, as the highest court of appeal, to decide
+all disputes between the governments and their provincial Estates. The
+whole of the members of this court were to be nominated by the
+governments, but the disputing parties were free to select their
+arbitrators from among the number.
+
+A fresh and violent constitutional battle was, notwithstanding these
+precautions, fought in Hanover, where Adolphus Frederick, duke of
+Cambridge, had, in the name of his brother, William IV., king of
+England, established a new constitution, which had received many
+ameliorations notwithstanding the inefficiency of the liberals,
+Christiani, Luntzel, etc., to counteract the overpowering influence of
+the monarchical and aristocratic party. William IV., king of England
+and Hanover, expired in 1837, and was succeeded on the throne of Great
+Britain by Victoria Alexandrina, the daughter of his younger and
+deceased brother, Edward, duke of Kent, and of the Princess Victoria
+of Saxe-Coburg; and on that of Hanover, which was solely heritable in
+the male line, by his second brother, Ernest, duke of Cumberland, the
+leader of the Tory party in England. No sooner had this new sovereign
+set his foot on German soil[2] than he repealed the constitution
+granted to Hanover in 1833 and ordained the restoration of the former
+one of 1819, drawn up in a less liberal but more monarchical and
+aristocratic spirit. Among the protestations made against this _coup
+d'état_, that of the seven Göttingen professors, the two brothers,
+Grimm, to whom the German language and antiquarian research are so
+deeply indebted, Dahlmann, Gervinus, Ewald, Weber, and Albrecht, is
+most worthy of record. Their instant dismission produced an
+insurrection among the students, which was, after a good deal of
+bloodshed, quelled by the military. In the beginning of 1838, the
+Estates were convoked according to the articles of the constitution of
+1819 for the purpose of taking a constitution, drawn up under the
+dictation of the king, under deliberation. Many of the towns refused
+to elect deputies, and some of those elected were not permitted to
+take their seats. The city of Osnabruck protested in the federal
+assembly. Notwithstanding this, the Estates meanwhile assembled, but
+declared themselves incompetent, regarding themselves simply in the
+light of an arbitrative committee, and, as such, threw out the
+constitution presented by the king, June, 1838. The federal assembly
+remained passive.[3] In 1839, Schele, the minister, finally succeeded,
+by means of menaces and bribery, and by arbitrarily calling into the
+chamber the ministerial candidates who had received the minority of
+votes during the elections, in collecting so many deputies devoted to
+his party as were requisite in order to form the chamber and to pass
+resolutions. The city of Hanover hereupon brought before the federal
+assembly a petition for redress and a list of grievances in which
+Schele's chamber was described as "unworthy of the name of a
+constitutional representative assembly, void of confidence,
+unpossessed of the public esteem, and unrecognized by the country."
+The king instantly divested Rumann, the city director, of his office,
+but so far yielded to the magistrate, to whom he gave audience in the
+palace and who was followed by crowds of the populace, as to revoke
+the nomination, already declared illegal, of Rumann's successor, and
+to promise that the matter at issue should be brought before the
+common tribunal instead of the council of state, July 17th. Numerous
+other cities, corporations of landed proprietors, etc., also followed
+the example set by Hanover and laid their complaints before the
+federal assembly, which hereupon declared that, according to the laws
+of the confederation, it found no cause for interference, but at the
+same time advised the king to come to an understanding consistent with
+the rights of the crown and of the Estates, with the "present" Estates
+(unrecognized by the democratic party), concerning the form of the
+constitution. In the federal assembly, Wurtemberg and Bavaria, most
+particularly, voted in favor of the Hanoverians. Professor Ewald was
+appointed to the university of Tubingen; Albrecht, at a later period,
+to that of Leipzig; the brothers Grimm, to that of Berlin; Dahlmann,
+to that of Bonn. Among the assembled Estates, those of Baden,
+Wurtemberg, and Saxony most warmly espoused the cause of the people of
+Hanover, but, as was natural, without result.[4]
+
+In 1840, the king convoked a fresh diet. The people refused to elect
+members, and it was solely by means of intrigue that a small number of
+deputies (not half the number fixed by law) were assembled, creatures
+of the minister, Schele, who were disowned by the people in addresses
+couched in the most energetic terms (the address presented by the
+citizens of Osnabruck was the most remarkable) and their proceedings
+were protested against. This petty assembly, nevertheless, took under
+deliberation and passed a new constitution, against which the cities
+and the country again protested. The king also declared his only son,
+George, who was afflicted with blindness, capable of governing and of
+succeeding to the throne.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Thiersch, the Bavarian court-councillor, one of the most
+distinguished connoisseurs of Grecian antiquity, who visited Greece
+shortly after Heideck and before the arrival of the king, was received
+by the modern Greeks with touching demonstrations of delight. No
+nation has so deeply studied, so deeply become imbued with Grecian
+lore, as that of Germany, and the close connection formed, on the
+accession of the Bavarian Otto to the throne of Greece, between her
+sons and the children of that classic land, justifies the proudest
+expectations.]
+
+[Footnote 2: He did not restore the whole of the crown property that
+had, at an earlier period, been carried away to England. A
+considerable portion of the crown jewels had been taken away by George
+I., and when, in 1802, the French occupied Hanover, the whole of the
+movable crown property, even the great stud, was sent to England. On
+the demise of George III., the crown jewels were divided among the
+princes of the English house.--_Copied from the Courier of August,
+1838._]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Darmstadt government declared to the second chamber,
+on its bringing forward a motion for the intercession of Darmstadt
+with the federal assembly in favor of the legality of the ancient
+constitution then in force in Hanover, that the grandduke would never
+tolerate any cooperation on the part of the Estates with his vote in
+the federal assembly.]
+
+[Footnote 4: "This defeat is, however, not to be lamented: the battle
+for the separate constitutions has not been fought in vain if German
+nationality spring from the wreck of German separatism, if we are
+taught that without a liberal federal constitution liberal provincial
+constitutions are impossible in Germany."--_Pfizer._]
+
+
+
+CCLXXI. Austria and Prince Mettenich
+
+
+Austria might, on the fall of Napoleon, have maintained Alsace,
+Lorraine, the Breisgau, and the whole of the territory of the Upper
+Rhine in the same manner in which Prussia had maintained that of the
+Lower Rhine, had she not preferred the preservation of her rule in
+Italy and rendered her position in Germany subordinate to her station
+as a European power. This policy is explained by the peculiar
+circumstances of the Austrian state, which had for centuries comprised
+within itself nations of the most distinct character, and the
+population of whose provinces were by far the greater part Slavonian,
+Hungarian, and Italian, the great minority German. By this policy she
+lost, as the Prussian Customs' Union has also again proved, much of
+her influence over Germany, while, on the other hand, she secured it
+the more firmly in Southern and Eastern Europe. Austria has long made
+a gradual and almost unperceived advance from the northwest in a
+southeasterly direction. In Germany she has continually lost ground.
+Switzerland, the Netherlands, Alsace, Lorraine, the Swabian counties,
+Lusatia, Silesia, have one by one been severed from her, while her
+non-German possessions have as continually been increased, by the
+addition of Hungary, Transylvania, Galicia, Dalmatia, and Upper Italy.
+
+The contest carried on between Austria, the French Revolution, and
+Napoleon, has at all events left deep and still visible traces; the
+characters of the emperor Francis and of his chancellor of state,
+Prince Metternich, that perfect representative of the aristocracy of
+Europe, sympathize also as closely with the Austrian system as the
+character of the emperor Joseph was antipathetical to it. This system
+dates, however, earlier than those revolutionary struggles, and has
+already outlived at least one of its supporters.
+
+Austria is the only great state in Europe that comprises so many
+diverse but well-poised nationalities within its bosom; in all the
+other great states, one nation bears the preponderance. To this
+circumstance may be ascribed her peaceful policy, every great war
+threatening her with the revolt of some one of the foreign nations
+subordinate to her sceptre. To this may, moreover, be ascribed the
+tenacity with which she upholds the principle of legitimacy. The
+historical hereditary right of the reigning dynasty forms the sole but
+ideal tie by which the diverse and naturally inimical nations beneath
+her rule are linked together. For the same reason, the concentration
+of talent in the government contrasts, in Austria, more violently with
+the obscurantism of the provinces than in any other state. Not only
+does the overpowering intelligence of the chancery of state awe the
+nations beneath its rule, but the proverbial good nature and
+patriarchal cordiality of the imperial family win every heart. The
+army is a mere machine in the hands of the government; a standing
+army, in which the soldier serves for life or for the period of twenty
+years, during which he necessarily loses all sympathy with his
+fellow-citizens, and which is solely reintegrated from militia whom
+this privilege renders still more devoted to the government. The
+pretorian spirit usually prevalent in standing armies has been guarded
+against in Austria by there being no guards, and all sympathy between
+the military and the citizens of the various provinces whence they
+were drawn is at once prevented by the Hungarian troops being sent
+into Italy, the Italian troops into Galicia, etc., etc. The
+nationality of the private soldier is checked by the Germanism of the
+subalterns and by the Austrianism of the staff. Besides the power thus
+everywhere visible, there exists another partially invisible, that of
+the police, in connection with a censorship of the severest
+description, which keeps a guard over the inadvertencies of the tongue
+as well as over those of the press. The people are, on the other hand,
+closely bound up with the government and interested in the maintenance
+of the existing state of affairs by the paper currency, on the value
+of which the welfare of every subject in the state depends.
+
+To a government thus strong in concentrated power and intelligence
+stands opposed the mass of nations subject to the Austrian sceptre
+whose natural antipathies have been artfully fostered and
+strengthened. In Austria the distinctions of class, characteristic of
+the Middle Ages, are still preserved. The aristocracy and the clergy
+possess an influence almost unknown in Germany, but solely over the
+people, not over the government. As corporative bodies they still are,
+as in the days of Charles VI., convoked for the purpose of holding
+postulate diets, whose power, with the exception of that of the
+Hungarian diet, is merely nominal. The nobility, even in Hungary, as
+everywhere else throughout the Austrian states (more particularly
+since the Spanish system adopted by Ferdinand II.), is split into two
+inimical classes, those of the higher and lower aristocracy. Even in
+Galicia, where the Polish nobility formed, at an earlier period and
+according to earlier usage, but one body, the distinction of a higher
+and lower class has been introduced since the occupation of that
+country by Austria. The high aristocracy are either bound by favors,
+coincident with their origin, to the court, the great majority among
+them consisting of families on whom nobility was conferred by
+Ferdinand II., or they are, if families belonging to the more powerful
+and more ancient national aristocracy, as, for instance, that of
+Esterhazy in Hungary, brought by the bestowal of fresh favors into
+closer affinity with the court and drawn within its sphere. The
+greater proportion of the aristocracy consequently reside at Vienna.
+The lower nobility make their way chiefly by talent and perseverance
+in the army and the civil offices, and are therefore naturally devoted
+to the government, on which all their hopes in life depend. The
+clergy, although permitted to retain the whole of their ancient pomp
+and their influence over the minds of the people, have been rendered
+dependent upon the government, a point easily gained, the pope being
+principally protected by Austria.
+
+The care of the government for the material welfare of the people
+cannot be denied; it is, however, frustrated by two obstacles raised
+by its own system. The maintenance of the high aristocracy is, for
+instance, antipathetic to the welfare of the subject, and, although
+comfort and plenty abound in the immediate vicinity of Vienna, the
+population on the enormous estates of the magnates in the provinces
+often present a lamentable contrast. The Austrian government moreover
+prohibits all free intercourse with foreign parts, and the old-
+fashioned system of taxation, senseless as many other existing
+regulations, entirely puts a stop to all free trade between Hungary
+and Austria. Consequently, the new and grand modes of communication,
+the Franzen Canal, that unites the Danube and the Thiess, the
+Louisenstrasse, between Carlstadt and Fiume, the magnificent road to
+Trieste, the admirable road across the rocks of the Stilfser Jock,
+and, more than all, the steam navigation as far as the mouths of the
+Danube and the railroads, will be unavailing to scatter the blessings
+of commerce and industry so long as these wretched prohibitions
+continue to be enforced.
+
+Austria has, in regard to her foreign policy, left the increasing
+influence of Russia in Poland, Persia, and Turkey unopposed, and even
+allowed the mouths of the Danube to be guarded by Russian fortresses,
+while she has, on the other hand, energetically repelled the
+interference of France in the affairs of Italy. The July revolution
+induced a popular insurrection in the dominions of the Church, and the
+French threw a garrison into the citadel of Ancona; the Austrians,
+however, instantly entered the country and enforced the restoration of
+the _ançien régime_. In Lombardy, many ameliorations were introduced
+and the prosperity of the country promoted by the Austrian
+administration, notwithstanding the national jealousy of the
+inhabitants. Venice, with her choked-up harbor, could, it is true, no
+longer compete with Trieste. The German element has gained ground in
+Galicia by means of the public authorities and the immigration of
+agriculturists and artificers. The Hungarians endeavored to render
+their language the common medium throughout Hungary, and to expel the
+German element, but their apprehension of the numerous Slavonian
+population of Hungary, whom religious sympathy renders subject to
+Russian influence, has speedily reconciled them with the Germans.
+Slavonism has, on the other hand, also gained ground in Bohemia.
+
+The emperor, Francis I., expired in 1835, and was succeeded by his
+son, Ferdinand I., without a change taking place in the system of the
+government, of which Prince Metternich continued to be the directing
+principle.
+
+The decease of some of the heads of foreign royal families and the
+marriages of their successors again placed several German princes on
+foreign thrones. The last of the Guelphs on the throne of Great
+Britain expired with William IV., whose niece and successor, Victoria
+Alexandrina, wedded, 1840, Albert of Saxe-Coburg, second son of
+Ernest, the reigning duke. That the descendant of the steadfast
+elector should, after such adverse fortune, be thus destined to occupy
+the highest position in the reformed world, is of itself remarkable.
+One of this prince's uncles, Leopold, is seated on the throne of
+Belgium, and one of his cousins, Ferdinand, on that of Portugal, in
+right of his consort, Donna Maria da Gloria, the daughter of Dom
+Pedro, king of Portugal and emperor of the Brazils, to whom, on the
+expulsion of the usurper, Dom Miguel, he was wedded in 1835. These
+princes of Coburg are remarkable for manly beauty.
+
+The antipathy with which the new dynasty on the throne of France was
+generally viewed rendered Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's
+eldest son, for some time an unsuccessful suitor for the hand of a
+German princess; he at length conducted Helena, princess of
+Mecklenburg-Schwerin, although against the consent of her stepfather,
+Paul Frederick, the reigning duke, to Paris in 1837, as future queen
+of the French. He was killed in 1842, by a fall from his carriage, and
+left two infant sons, the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres. The
+Czarowitz, Alexander, espoused Maria, Princess of Darmstadt.
+
+The French chambers and journals have reassumed toward Germany the
+tone formerly affected by Napoleon, and, with incessant cries for war,
+in which, in 1840, the voice of the prime minister Thiers joined,
+demand the restoration of the left bank of the Rhine. Thiers was,
+however, compelled to resign office, and the close alliance between
+Austria, Prussia, and the whole of the confederated princes, as well
+as the feeling universally displayed throughout Germany, demonstrated
+the energy with which an attack on the side of France would be
+repelled. The erection of the long-forgotten federal fortresses on the
+Upper Rhine was also taken at length under consideration, and it was
+resolved to fortify both Rastadt and Ulm without further delay.
+
+Nor have the statesmen of France failed to threaten Germany with a
+Russo-Gallic alliance in the spirit of the Erfurt congress of 1808;
+while Russia perseveres in the prohibitory system so prejudicial to
+German commerce, attempts to suppress every spark of German
+nationality in Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, and fosters
+Panslavism, or the union of all the Slavonic nations for the
+subjection of the world, among the Slavonian subjects of Austria in
+Hungaria and Bohemia. The extension of the Greek church is also
+connected with this idea. "The European Pentarchy," a work that
+attracted much attention in 1839, insolently boasts how Russia, in
+defiance of Austria, has seized the mouths of the Danube, has wedged
+herself, as it were, by means of Poland, between Austria and Prussia,
+in a position equally threatening to both, recommends the minor states
+of Germany to seek the protection of Russia, and darkly hints at the
+alliance between that power and France.
+
+Nor are the prospects of Germany alone threatened by France and
+Russia; disturbances, like a fantastic renewal of the horrors of the
+Middle Age, are ready to burst forth on the other side of the Alps, as
+though, according to the ancient saga of Germany, the dead were about
+to rise in order to mingle in the last great contest between the gods
+and mankind.
+
+
+
+CCLXXII. Prussia and Rome
+
+
+While Austria remains stationary, Prussia progresses. While Austria
+relies for support upon the aristocracy of the Estates, Prussia relies
+for hers upon the people, that is to say, upon the public officers
+taken from the mass of the population, upon the citizens emancipated
+by the city regulation, upon the peasantry emancipated by the
+abolition of servitude, of all the other agricultural imposts, and by
+the division of property, and upon the enrolment of both classes in
+the Landwehr. While Austria, in fine, renders her German policy
+subordinate to her European diplomacy, the influence exercised by
+Prussia upon Europe depends, on the contrary, solely upon that
+possessed by her in Germany.
+
+Prussia's leading principle appears to be, "All for the people,
+nothing through the people!" Hence the greatest solicitude for the
+instruction of the people, whether in the meanest schools or the
+universities, but under strict political control, under the severest
+censorship; hence the emancipation of the peasantry, civic self-
+administration, freedom of trade, the general arming of the people,
+and, with all these, mere nameless provincial diets, the most complete
+popular liberty on the widest basis without a representation worthy of
+the name; hence, finally, the greatest solicitude for the promotion of
+trade on a grand scale, for the revival of the commerce of Germany,
+which has lain prostrate since the great wars of the Reformation, for
+the mercantile unity of Germany, while it is exactly in Prussia that
+political Unitarians are the most severely punished.
+
+The great measures were commenced in Prussia immediately after the
+disaster of 1806: first, the reorganization of the army and the
+abolition of the privileges of the aristocracy in respect to
+appointments and the possession of landed property; these were, in
+1808, succeeded by the celebrated civic regulation which placed the
+civic administration in the hands of the city deputies freely elected
+by the citizens; in 1810, by freedom of trade and by the foundation of
+the new universities of Berlin (instead of Halle), of Breslau (instead
+of Frankfort on the Oder), and, in 1819, of Bonn, by which means the
+libraries, museums, and scientific institutions of every description
+were centralized; in 1814, by the common duty imposed upon every
+individual of every class, without exception, to bear arms and to do
+service in the Landwehr up to his thirty-ninth year; in 1821, by the
+regulation for the division of communes; and, in 1822, by the extra
+post.
+
+In respect to the popular representation guaranteed by the federal
+act, Prussia announced, on the 22d of May, 1815, her intention to form
+provincial diets, from among whose members the general representation
+or imperial diet, which was to be held at Berlin, was to be elected.
+When the Rhenish provinces urged the fulfilment of this promise in the
+Coblentz address of 1817, the reply was, "Those who admonish the king
+are guilty of doubting the inviolability of his word." Prussia
+afterward declared that the new regulations would be in readiness by
+the February of 1819. On the 20th of January, 1820, an edict was
+published by the government, the first paragraph of which fixed the
+public debt at $180,091,720,[1] and the second one rendered the
+contraction of every fresh debt dependent upon the will of the future
+imperial diet.[2] The definitive regulations in respect to the
+provincial Estates were finally published on the 5th of June, 1823,
+but the convocation of a general diet was passed over in silence.
+
+The prosperity of the nations of Germany, wrecked by the great wars of
+the Reformation, must and will gradually return. Prussia has inherited
+all the claims upon, and consequently all the duties owing to Germany.
+Still the general position of Germany is not sufficiently favorable to
+render the renovation of her ancient Hanseatic commerce possible.[3]
+It is to be deplored that the attachment of the Prussian cabinet to
+Russian policy has not at all events modified the commercial
+restrictions along the whole of the eastern frontier of Prussia,[4]
+and that Prussia has not been able to effect more with Holland in
+regard to the question concerning the free navigation of the Rhine.[5]
+Prussia has, on the other hand, deserved the gratitude of Germany for
+the zeal with which she promoted the settlement of the Customs' Union,
+which has, at least in the interior of Germany, removed the greater
+part of the restrictions upon commercial intercourse, and has a
+tendency to spread still further. Throughout the last transactions,
+partly of the Customs' Union, partly of Prussia alone, with England
+and Holland, a vain struggle against those maritime powers is
+perceptible. England trades with Germany from every harbor and in
+every kind of commodity, while German vessels are restricted to home
+produce and are only free to trade with England from their own ports.
+Holland finds a market for her colonial wares in Germany, and, instead
+of taking German manufactured goods in exchange, provides herself from
+England, throws English goods into Germany, and, in lieu of being, as
+she ought to be, the great emporium of Germany, is content to remain a
+mere huge English factory. The Hanse towns have also been converted
+into mercantile depots for English goods on German soil.
+
+The misery consequent on the great wars, and the powerful reaction
+against Gallicism throughout Germany, once more caused despised
+religion to be reverenced in the age of philosophy. Prussia deemed
+herself called upon, as the inheritor of the Reformation brought about
+by Luther, as the principal Protestant power of Germany, to assume a
+prominent position in the religious movement of the time. Frederick
+William III., a sovereign distinguished for piety, appears,
+immediately after the great wars, to have deemed the conciliation of
+the various sects of Christians within his kingdom feasible. He,
+nevertheless, merely succeeded in effecting a union between the
+Lutherans and Calvinists. He also bestowed a new liturgy upon this
+united church, which was censured as partial, as proceeding too
+directly from the cabinet without being sanctioned by the concurrence
+of the assembled clergy and of the people. Some Lutherans, who refused
+compliance, were treated with extreme severity and compelled to
+emigrate; the utility of a union which, two centuries earlier, would
+have saved Germany from ruin, was, however, generally acknowledged. It
+nevertheless was not productive of unity in the Protestant world. In
+the universities and among the clergy, two parties, the Rationalists
+and the Supernaturalists, stood opposed to one another. The former,
+the disciples of the old Neologians, still followed the philosophy of
+Kant, merely regarded Christianity as a code of moral philosophy,
+denominated Christ a wise teacher, and explained away his miracles by
+means of physics. The latter, the followers of the old orthodox
+Lutherans, sought to confirm the truths of the gospel also by
+philosophical means, and were denominated Supernaturalists, as
+believers in a mystery surpassing the reasoning powers of man. The
+celebrated Schleiermacher of Berlin mediated for some time between
+both parties. But it was in Prussia more particularly that both
+parties stood more rigidly opposed to one another and fell into the
+greatest extremes.
+
+The Rationalists were supplanted by the Pantheists, the disciples of
+Hegel, the Berlin philosopher, who at length formally declared war
+against Christianity; the Supernaturalists were here and there outdone
+by the Pietists, whose enthusiasm degenerated into licentiousness.[6]
+The king had, notwithstanding his piety, been led to believe that
+Hegel merely taught the students unconditional obedience to the state,
+and that Pantheist was consequently permitted to spread, under the
+protection of Prussia, his senseless doctrine of deified humanity, the
+same formerly proclaimed by Anacharsis Cloote in the French
+Convention. When too late, the gross deception practiced by this
+sophist was perceived: his disciples threw off their troublesome mask,
+with Dr. Strauss, who had been implicated in the Zurich disturbances,
+at their head, openly renounced Christianity, and, at Halle, led by
+Ruge, the journalist, embraced the social revolutionary ideas of
+"Young France," to which almost the whole of the younger journalists
+of literary "Young Germany" acceded; nor was this Gallic reaction,
+this retrogression toward the philosophical ideas of the foregoing
+century, without its cause, German patriotism, which, from 1815 to
+1819, had predominated in every university throughout Prussia, having
+been forcibly suppressed. Hegel, on his appearance in Berlin, was
+generally regarded as the man on whom the task of diverting the
+enthusiasm of the rising generation for Germany into another channel
+devolved.[7] Everything German had been treated with ridicule.[8]
+French fashions and French ideas had once more come into vogue.
+
+While Protestant Germany was thus torn, weakened, and degraded by
+schism, the religious movement throughout Catholic Germany insensibly
+increased in strength and unity. The adverse fate of the pope had, on
+his deliverance from the hands of Napoleon, excited a feeling of
+sympathy and reverence so universal as to be participated in by even
+the Protestant powers of Europe. He had, as early as 1814, reinstated
+the Jesuits without a remonstrance on the part of the sovereigns by
+whom they had formerly been condemned. The ancient spirit of the
+Romish church had revived. A new edifice was to be raised on the
+thick-strewn ruins of the past. In 1817, Bavaria concluded a concordat
+with the pope for the foundation of the archbishopric of Munich with
+the three bishoprics of Augsburg, Passau, and Ratisbon, and of the
+archbishopric of Bamberg with the three bishoprics of Wurzburg,
+Eichstadt, and Spires. The king retained the right of presentation. In
+1821, Prussia concluded a treaty by which the archbishopric of Cologne
+with the three bishoprics of Treves, Munster, and Paderborn, the
+archbishopric of Posen with Culm, and two independent bishoprics in
+Breslau and Ermeland were established. The bishoprics of Hildesheim
+and Osnabruck were re-established in 1824 by the concordat with
+Hanover. In southwestern Germany, the archbishopric of Freiburg in the
+Breisgau with the bishoprics of Rotenburg on the Neckar, Limburg on
+the Lahn, Mayence, and Fulda arose. In Switzerland there remained four
+bishoprics, Freiburg in the Uechtland, Solothurn, Coire, and St. Gall;
+in Alsace, Strasburg and Colmar. In the Netherlands, the archbishopric
+of Malines with the bishoprics of Ghent, Liege, and Namur. In Holland,
+three Jansenist bishoprics, Utrecht, Deventer, and Haarlem, are
+remarkable for having retained their independence of Rome.
+
+The renovated body of the church was inspired with fresh energy. On
+the fall of the Jesuits, the other extreme, Illuminatism, had raised
+its head, but had been compelled to yield before a higher power and
+before the moral force of Germany. The majority of the German
+Catholics now clung to the idea that the regeneration of the abused
+and despised church was best to be attained by the practice of
+evangelical simplicity and morality, that Jesuitism and Illuminatism
+were, consequently, to be equally avoided, and the better disposed
+among the Protestants to be imitated. Sailer, the great teacher of the
+German clergy, and Wessenberg, whom Rome on this account refused to
+raise to the bishopric of Constance, acted upon this idea. In Silesia,
+a number of youthful priests, headed by Theimer, impatient for the
+realization of the union, apparently approaching, of this moderate
+party with the equally moderately disposed party among the Protestants
+into one great German church, took, in 1825, the bold step of
+renouncing celibacy. This party was however instantly suppressed by
+force by the king of Prussia. Theimer, in revenge, turned Jesuit and
+wrote against Prussia. Professors inclined to Ultramontanism were,
+meanwhile, installed in the universities, more particularly at Bonn,
+Munster and Tubingen, by the Protestant as well as the Catholic
+governments; by them the clerical students were industriously taught
+that they were not Germans but subjects of Rome, and were flattered
+with the hope of one day participating in the supremacy about to be
+regained by the pontiff. Every priest inspired with patriotic
+sentiments, or evincing any degree of tolerance toward his Protestant
+fellow citizens, was regarded as guilty of betraying the interests of
+the church to the state and the tenets of the only true church to
+heretics. Gorres, once Germany's most spirited champion against
+France, now appeared as the champion of Rome in Germany. The
+scandalous schisms in the Protestant church and the no less scandalous
+controversies carried on in the Protestant literary world rendered
+both contemptible, and, as in the commencement of the seventeenth
+century, appeared to offer a favorable opportunity for an attack on
+the part of the Catholics.
+
+A long-forgotten point in dispute was suddenly revived. Marriages
+between Catholics and Protestants had hitherto been unhesitatingly
+sanctioned by the Catholic priesthood. The Prussian ordinance of 1803,
+by which the father was empowered to decide the faith in which the
+children were to be brought up, had, on account of its conformity with
+nature and reason, never been disputed. Numberless mixed marriages had
+taken place among all classes from the highest to the lowest without
+the slightest suspicion of wrong attaching thereto. A papal brief of
+1830 now called to mind that the church tolerated, it was true,
+although she disapproved of mixed marriages, which she permitted to
+take place solely on condition of the children being brought up in the
+Catholic faith. Prussia had acted with little foresight. Instead of,
+in 1814, on taking possession of the Rhenish provinces and of
+Westphalia, concluding a treaty with the then newly-restored pope,
+Hardenberg had, as late as 1820, during a visit to Borne, merely
+entered upon a transient agreement, by which Rome was bound to no
+concessions. The war openly declared by Rome was now attempted to be
+turned aside by means of petty and secret artifices. Several bishops,
+in imitation of the precedent given by Count von Spiegel, the
+peace-loving archbishop of Cologne, secretly bound themselves to
+interpret the brief in the sense of the government and to adhere to
+the ordinance of 1803. On Spiegel's decease in 1835, his successor,
+the Baron Clement Augustus Droste, promised at Vischering, prior to
+his presentation, strictly to adhere to this secret compact; but,
+scarcely had he mounted the archiepiscopal seat, than his conscience
+forbade the fulfilment of his oath; God was to be obeyed rather than
+man! He prohibited the solemnization of mixed marriages within his
+diocese without the primary assurance of the education of the children
+in the Catholic faith, compelled his clergy strictly to obey the
+commands of Rome in points under dispute, and suppressed the Hermesian
+doctrine in the university of Bonn. The warnings secretly given by the
+government proved unavailing, and he was, in consequence, unexpectedly
+deprived of his office in the November of 1837, arrested, and
+imprisoned in the fortress of Minden. This arbitrary measure caused
+great excitement among the Catholic population; and the ancient
+dislike of the Rhenish provinces to the rule of Prussia, and the
+discontent of the Westphalian nobility on account of the emancipation
+of the peasantry, again broke forth on this occasion. Gorres, in
+Munich, industriously fed the flame by means of his pamphlet,
+"Athanasius." Dunin, archbishop of Gnesen and bishop of Thorn,
+followed the example of his brother of Cologne, was openly upheld by
+Prussian Poland, was cited to Berlin, fled thence, was recaptured and
+detained for some time within the fortress of Colberg, in 1839.--The
+pope, Gregory XVI., solemnly declared his approbation of the conduct
+of these archbishops and rejected every offer of negotiation until
+their reinstallation in their dioceses. A crowd of hastily established
+journals, more especially in Bavaria, maintained their cause, and were
+opposed by numberless Protestant publications, which generally proved
+injurious to the cause they strove to uphold, being chiefly remarkable
+for base servility, frivolity, and infidelity.
+
+On the demise of Frederick William III., on the 7th of June, 1840, and
+the succession of his son, Frederick William IV., the church question
+was momentarily cast into the shade by that relating to the
+constitution. Constitutional Germany demanded from the new sovereign
+the convocation of the imperial diet promised by his father. The
+Catholic party, however, conscious that it would merely form the
+minority in the diet, did not participate in the demand.[9] The
+constitution was solely demanded by Protestant Eastern Prussia; but
+the king declared, during the ceremony of fealty at Koenigsberg, that
+"he would never do homage to the idea of a general popular
+representation and would pursue a course based upon historical
+progression, suitable to German nationality." The provincial Estates
+were shortly afterward instituted, and separate diets were opened in
+each of the provinces. This attracted little attention, and the
+dispute with the church once more became the sole subject of interest.
+It terminated in the complete triumph of the Catholic party. In
+consequence of an agreement with the pope, the brief of 1820 remained
+in force, Dunin was reinstated, Droste received personal satisfaction
+by a public royal letter and a representative in Cologne in von
+Geissel, hitherto bishop of Spires. The disputed election of the
+bishop of Treves was also decided in favor of Arnoldi, the
+ultramontane candidate.
+
+Late in the autumn of 1842, the king of Prussia for the first time
+convoked the deputies selected from the provincial diets to Berlin. He
+had, but a short time before, laid the foundation-stone to the
+completion of the Cologne cathedral, and on that occasion, moreover,
+spoken words of deep import to the people, admonitory of unity to the
+whole of Germany.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: £26,263,375 16s. 8d.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The Maritime Commercial Company, meanwhile, entered into
+a contract.]
+
+[Footnote 3: "We have long since lost all our maritime power. The only
+guns now fired by us at sea are as signals of distress. Who now
+remembers that it was the German Hansa that first made use of cannons
+at sea, that it was from Germans that the English learned to build
+men-of-war?"--_John's Nationality_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Prussia, of late, greatly contributed toward the
+aggrandizement of the power of Russia by solemnly declaring in 1828,
+when Russia extended her influence over Turkey, that she would not on
+that account prevent Russia from asserting her "just claims," a
+declaration that elicited bitter complaints from the British
+government; and again in 1831, by countenancing the entry of the
+Russians into Poland, at that time in a state of insurrection.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The reason of the backwardness displayed from the
+commencement by Prussia to act as the bulwark of Germany on the Lower
+Rhine is explained by Stein in his letters: "Hanoverian jealousy, by
+which the narrow-minded Castlereagh was guided, and, generally
+speaking, jealousy of the German ministerial clauses, as if the
+existence of a Mecklenburg were of greater importance to Germany than
+that of a powerful warlike population, alike famous in time of peace
+or war, presided over the settlement of the relation in which Belgium
+was to stand to Prussia."]
+
+[Footnote 6: At Königsberg, in Prussia, a secret society was
+discovered which was partly composed of people of rank, who, under
+pretence of meeting for the exercise of religious duties, gave way to
+the most wanton license.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The police, while attempting to lead science, was
+unwittingly led by it. The students were driven in crowds into Hegel's
+colleges, his pupils were preferred to all appointments, etc., and
+every measure was taken to render that otherwise almost unnoted
+sophist as dangerous as possible.]
+
+[Footnote 8: In this the Jews essentially aided: Borne more in an
+anti-German, Heine more in an anti-Christian, spirit, and were highly
+applauded by the simple and infatuated German youth.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Görres even advised against it, although, in 1817, he had
+acted the principal part on the presentation of the Cologne address.]
+
+
+
+CCLXXIII. The Progress of Science, Art, and Practical Knowledge in
+Germany
+
+
+In the midst of the misery entailed by war and amid the passions
+roused by party strife the sciences had attained to a height hitherto
+unknown. The schools had never been neglected, and immense
+improvements, equally affecting the lowest of the popular schools and
+the colleges, had been constantly introduced. Pestalozzi chiefly
+encouraged the proper education of the lower classes and improved the
+method of instruction. The humanism of the learned academies (the
+study of the dead languages) went hand in hand with the realism of the
+professional institutions. The universities, although often subjected
+to an overrigid system of surveillance and compelled to adopt a
+partial, servile bias, were, nevertheless, generally free from a
+political tendency and incredibly promoted the study of all the
+sciences. The mass of celebrated savants and of their works is too
+great to permit of more than a sketch of the principal features of
+modern German science.
+
+The study of the classics, predominant since the time of the
+Reformation, has been cast into the shade by the German studies, by
+the deeper investigation of the language, the law, the history of our
+forefathers and of the romantic Middle Age, by the great Catholic
+reaction, and, at the same time, by the immense advance made in
+natural history, geography, and universal history. The human mind,
+hitherto enclosed within a narrow sphere, has burst its trammels to
+revel in immeasurable space. The philosophy and empty speculations of
+the foregoing century have also disappeared before the mass of
+practical knowledge, and arrogant man, convinced by science, once more
+bends his reasoning faculties in humble adoration of their Creator.
+
+The aristocracy of talent and learned professional pride have been
+overbalanced by a democratic press. The whole nation writes, and the
+individual writer is either swallowed up in the mass or gains but
+ephemeral fame. Every writer, almost without exception, affects a
+popular style. But, in this rich literary field, all springs up freely
+without connection or guidance. No party is concentrated or
+represented by any reigning journal, but each individual writes for
+himself, and the immense number of journals published destroy each
+other's efficiency. Many questions of paramount importance are
+consequently lost in heaps of paper, and the interest they at first
+excited speedily becomes weakened by endless recurrence.
+
+Theology shared in the movement above mentioned in the church. The
+Rationalists were most profuse in their publications, Paulus at
+Heidelberg, and, more particularly, the Saxon authors, Tschirner,
+Bretschneider, etc. Ancient Lutheran vigor degenerated to shallow
+subtleties and a sort of coquettish tattling upon morality, in which
+Zschokke's "Hours of Devotion" carried away the palm. Neander,
+Gieseler, Gfrörer and others greatly promoted the study of the history
+of the church. The propounders of the Gospels, however, snatched them,
+after a lamentable fashion, out of each other's hands, now doubting
+the authenticity of the whole, now that of most or of some of the
+chapters, and were unable to agree upon the number that ought to be
+retained. They, at the same time, outvied one another in political
+servility, while the Lutherans who, true to their ancient faith,
+protested against the Prussian liturgy, were too few in number for
+remark. This frivolous class of theologians at length entirely
+rejected the Gospels, embraced the doctrine of Hegel and Judaism, and
+renounced Christianity. Still, although the Supernaturalists, the
+orthodox party, and the Pietists triumphantly repelled these attacks,
+and the majority of the elder Rationalists timidly seceded from the
+anti-christian party, the Protestant literary world was reduced to a
+state of enervation and confusion, affording but too good occasion for
+an energetic demonstration on the part of the Catholics.
+
+Philosophy also assumed the character of the age. Fichte of Berlin
+still upheld, in 1814, the passion for liberty and right in their
+nobler sense that had been roused by the French Revolution, but, as he
+went yet further than Kant in setting limits to the sources of
+perception and denied the existence of conscience, his system proved
+merely of short duration. To him succeeded Schelling, with whom the
+return of philosophy to religion and that of abstract studies to
+nature and history commenced, and in whom the renovated spirit of the
+nineteenth century became manifest. His pupils were partly natural
+philosophers, who, like Oken, sought to comprehend all nature, her
+breathing unity, her hidden mysteries, in religion; partly mystics,
+who, like Eschenmaier, Schubert, Steffens, in a Protestant spirit, or,
+like Gorres and Baader, in a Catholic one, sought also to comprehend
+everything bearing reference to both nature and history in religion.
+It was a revival of the ancient mysticism of Hugo de St. Victoire, of
+Honorius, and of Rupert in another and a scientific age; nor was it
+unopposed: in the place of the foreign scholasticism formerly so
+repugnant to its doctrines, those of Schelling were opposed by a
+reaction of the superficial mock-enlightenment and sophistical
+scepticism predominant in the foregoing century, more particularly of
+the sympathy with France, which had been rendered more than ever
+powerful in Germany by the forcible suppression of patriotism.
+Abstract philosophy, despising nature and history, mocking
+Christianity, once more revived and set itself up as an absolute
+principle in Hegel. None of the other philosophers attained the
+notoriety gained by Schelling and Hegel, the representatives of the
+antitheses of the age.
+
+An incredible advance, of which we shall merely record the most
+important facts, took place in the study of the physical sciences.
+Three new planets were discovered, Pallas, in 1802, and Vesta, in
+1807, by Gibers; Juno, in 1824, by Harding. Enke and Biela first fixed
+the regular return and brief revolution of the two comets named after
+them. Schröter and Mädler minutely examined the moon and planets;
+Struve, the fixed stars. Fraunhofer improved the telescope. Chladni
+first investigated the nature of fiery meteors and brought the study
+of acoustics to perfection. Alexander von Humboldt immensely promoted
+the observation of the changes of the atmosphere and the general
+knowledge of the nature of the earth. Werner and Leopold von Buch also
+distinguished themselves among the investigators of the construction
+of the earth and mountains. Scheele, Gmelin, Liebig, etc., were noted
+chemists. Oken, upon the whole, chiefly promoted the study of natural
+history, and numberless researches were made separately in mineralogy,
+the study of fossils, botany, and zoology by the most celebrated
+scientific men of the day. While travellers visited every quarter of
+the globe in search of plants and animals as yet unknown and regulated
+them by classes, other men of science were engaged at home in the
+investigation of their internal construction, their uses and habits,
+in which they were greatly assisted by the improved microscope, by
+means of which Ehrenberg discovered a completely new class of
+animalculae. The discoveries of science were also zealously applied
+for practical uses. Agriculture, cattle-breeding, manufactures
+received a fresh impulse and immense improvements as knowledge
+advanced. Commerce by water and by land experienced a thorough
+revolution on the discovery of the properties of steam, by the use of
+steamers and railroads. Medical science also progressed,
+notwithstanding the number of contradictory and extravagant theories.
+The medical practitioners of Germany took precedence throughout
+Europe. Animal magnetism was practiced by Eschenmaier, Kieser, and
+Justin Kerner, by means of whose female seer, von Prevorst, the seeing
+of visions and the belief in ghosts were once more brought forward.
+Hahnemann excited the greatest opposition by his system of
+homoeopathy, which cured diseases by the administration of homogeneous
+substances in the minutest doses. He was superseded by the cold-water
+cure. During the last twenty years the naturalists and medical men of
+Germany have held an annual meeting in one or other of their native
+cities.
+
+The philologists and savants have for some years past also been in the
+habit of holding a similar meeting. The classics no longer form the
+predominant study among philologists. Even literati, whose tastes,
+like that of Creuzer, are decidedly classic, have acknowledged that
+the knowledge of the Oriental tongues is requisite for the attainment
+of a thorough acquaintance with classic antiquity. A great school for
+the study of the Eastern languages has been especially established
+under the precedence of the brothers Schlegel, Bopp, and others. The
+study of the ancient language of Germany and of her venerable
+monuments has, finally, been promoted by Jacob Grimm and by his widely
+diffused school.
+
+The study of history became more profound and was extended over a
+wider field. A mass of archives hitherto secret were rendered public
+and spread new light on many of the remarkable characters and events
+in the history of Germany. Historians also learned to compile with
+less party spirit and on more solid grounds. History, at first
+compiled in a Protestant spirit, afterward inclined as partially to
+Catholicism, and the majority of the higher order of historical
+writers were consequently rendered the more careful in their search
+after truth. Among the universal historians, Rotteck gained the
+greatest popularity on account of the extreme liberality of his
+opinions, and Heeren and Schlosser acquired great note for depth of
+learning. Von Hammer, who rendered us acquainted with the history of
+the Mahometan East, takes precedence among the historical writers upon
+foreign nations. Niebuhr's Roman History, Wilken's History of the
+Crusades, Leo's History of Italy, Ranke's History of the Popes, etc.,
+have attained well-merited fame.--The history of Germany as a whole,
+which Germany neither was nor is, was little studied, but an immense
+mass of facts connected with or referring to Germany was furnished by
+the numberless and excellent single histories and biographies that
+poured through the press. All the more ancient collections of _script.
+rerum_ were, according to the plan of Stein, the celebrated Prussian
+minister, to be surpassed by a critical work on the sources of German
+history, conducted by Pertz, which could, however, be but slowly
+carried out. Grimm, Mone, and Barth threw immense light upon German
+heathen antiquity, Zeusz upon the genealogy of nations. The best
+account of the Ostrogoths was written by Manso, of the Visigoths by
+Aschbach, of the Anglo-Saxons by Lappenberg, of the more ancient
+Franks by Mannert, Pertz, and Löbell, of Charlemagne by Diebold and
+Ideler, of Louis the Pious by Funk, of the Saxon emperors by Ranke and
+his friends, Wachter and Leutsch, of the Salic emperors by Stenzel, of
+the German popes of those times by Höfler, of the Hohenstaufen by
+Raumer, Kortum, and Hurter, of the emperor Richard by Gebauer, of
+Henry VII. of Luxemburg by Barthold, of King John by Lenz, of Charles
+IV. by Pelzel and Schottky, of Wenzel by Pelzel, of Sigismund by
+Aschbach, of the Habsburgs by Kurz, Prince Lichnowsky, and Hormayr, of
+Louis the Bavarian by Mannert, of Ferdinand I. by Buchholz, of the
+Reformation by C. A. Menzel and Ranke, of the Peasant War by
+Sartorius, Oechsle, and Bensen, of the Thirty Years' War by Barthold,
+of Gustavus Adolphus by Gfrörer, of Wallenstein by Förster, of
+Bernhard of Weimar by Röse, of George of Lüneburg by von der Decken.
+Of the ensuing period by Förster and Guhrauer, of the Eighteenth
+Century by Schlosser, of the Wars with France by Clausewitz, of Modern
+Times by Hormayr.
+
+Coxe, Schneller, Mailàth, Chmel, and Gervay also wrote histories of
+Austria, Schottky and Palacky of Bohemia, Beda, Weber, and Hormayr of
+the Tyrol, Voigt of the Teutonic Order, Manso, Stenzel, Förster,
+Dolum, Massenbach, Cölln, Preusz, etc., of the Kingdom of Prussia,
+Stenzel of Anhalt, Kobbe of Lauenburg, Lützow of Mecklenburg, Barthold
+of Pomerania, Kobbe of Holstein, Wimpfen of Schleswig, Sartorius and
+Lappenberg of the Hansa, Hanssen of the Ditmarses, Spittler, Havemann,
+and Strombeck of Brunswick and Hanover, van Kampen of Holland,
+Warnkönig of Flanders, Rommel of Hesse, Lang of Eastern Franconia,
+Wachter and Langenn of Thuringia and Saxony, Lang, Wolf, Mannert,
+Zschokke, Völderndorf of Bavaria, Pfister, Pfaff, and Stälin of
+Swabia, Glutz-Blotzheim, Hottinger, Meyer von Knonau, Zschokke,
+Haller, Schuler, etc., of Switzerland. The most remarkable among the
+histories of celebrated cities are those of St. Gall by Arx, of Vienna
+by Mailath, of Frankfort on the Maine by Kirchner, of Ulm and
+Heilbronn by Jĉger, of Rotenburg on the Tauber by Bensen, etc.
+
+Ritter, and, next to him, Berghaus, greatly extended the knowledge of
+geography. Maps were drawn out on a greatly improved scale. Alexander
+von Humboldt, who ruled the world with his scientific as Napoleon with
+his eagle glance, attained the highest repute among travellers of
+every nation. Krusenstern, Langsdorf, and Kotzebue, Germans in the
+service of Russia, circumnavigated the globe. Meyen, the noted
+botanist, did the same in a Prussian ship. Baron von Hügel explored
+India. Gützlaff acted as a missionary in China. Ermann and Ledebur
+explored Siberia; Klaproth, Kupfer, Parrot, and Eichwald, the
+Caucasian provinces; Burckhardt, Rüppell, Ehrenberg, and Russegger,
+Syria and Egypt; the Prince von Neuwied and Paul William, duke of
+Würtemberg, North America; Becher, Mexico; Schomburg, Guiana; the
+Prince von Neuwied and Martius, the Brazils; Pöppig, the banks of the
+Amazon; Rengger, Paraguay. The Missionary Society for the conversion
+of the heathen in distant parts and that for the propagation of the
+gospel, founded at Basel, 1816, have gained well-merited repute.
+
+At the commencement of the present century, amid the storms of war,
+German taste took a fresh bias. French frivolity had increased
+immorality to a degree hitherto unknown. Licentiousness reigned
+unrestrained on the stage and pervaded the lighter productions of the
+day. If Iffland had, not unsuccessfully, represented the honest
+citizens and peasantry of Germany struggling against the unnatural
+customs of modern public life, Augustus von Kotzebue, who, after him,
+ruled the German stage, sought, on the contrary, to render honor
+despicable and to encourage the license of the day. In the numerous
+romances, a tone of lewd sentimentality took the place of the strict
+propriety for which they had formerly been remarkable, and the general
+diffusion of these immoral productions, among which the romances of
+Lafontaine may be more particularly mentioned, contributed in no
+slight degree to the moral perversion of the age.
+
+Jean Paul Friedrich Richter stands completely alone. He shared the
+weaknesses of his times, which, like Goethe and Kotzebue, he both
+admired and ridiculed, passing with extraordinary versatility, almost
+in the same breath, from the most moving pathos to the bitterest
+satire. His clever but too deeply metaphysical romances are not only
+full of domestic sentimentality and domestic scenes, but they also
+imitate the over-refinement and effeminacy of Goethe, and yet his
+sound understanding and warm patriotic feelings led him to condemn all
+the artificial follies of fashion, all that was unnatural as well as
+all that was unjust.
+
+Modern philosophy had no sooner triumphed over ancient religion and
+France over Germany than an extraordinary reaction, inaptly termed the
+romantic, took place in poetry. Although Ultramontanism might be
+traced even in Friedrich Schlegel, this school of poetry nevertheless
+solely owes its immense importance to its resuscitation of the older
+poetry of Germany, and to the success with which it opposed Germanism
+to Gallicism. Ludwig Tieck exclusively devoted himself to the German
+and romantic Middle Ages, to the Minnesingers, to Shakespeare,
+Cervantes, and Calderon, and modelled his own on their immortal works.
+The eyes of his contemporaries were by him first completely opened to
+the long-misunderstood beauties of the Middle Ages. His kindred
+spirit, Novalis (Hardenberg), destined to a too brief career, gave
+proofs of signal talent. Heinrich von Kleist, who committed suicide,
+left the finest-spirited and most delightful dramas. Ludwig Achim von
+Arnim, like Tieck, cultivated the older German Saga; his only fault
+was that, led away by the richness of his imagination, he overcolored
+his descriptions. Aided by Brentano, he collected the finest of the
+popular ballads of Germany in "des Enaben Wunderhorn." At Berlin,
+Fouque, with true old German taste, revived the romances of chivalry
+and, shortly before 1813, met the military spirit once more rising in
+Prussia with a number of romances in which figured battle-steeds and
+coats of mail, German faith and bravery, valiant knights and chaste
+dames, intermixed, it must be confessed, with a good deal of
+affectation. On the discovery being made that many of the ancient
+German ballads were still preserved among the lower classes, chiefly
+among the mountaineers, they were also sought for, and some poets
+tuned their lyres on the naive popular tone, etc., first, Hebel, in
+the partly extremely natural, partly extremely affected, Alemannic
+songs, which have found frequent imitators. Zacharia Werner and
+Hoffiman, on the other hand, exclusively devoted themselves to the
+darker side of days of yore, to their magic and superstition, and
+filled the world, already terror-stricken by the war, with
+supernatural stories. Still, throughout one and all of these
+productions, curiously as they contrasted, the same inclination to
+return to and to revive a purely German style was evident. At that
+moment the great crisis suddenly took place. Before even the poets
+could predict the event, Germany cast off the yoke of Napoleon, and
+the German "Sturm and Freiheitslieder" of Theodor Körner, Arndt,
+Schenkendorf, etc., chimed in like a fearfully beautiful Allegro with
+the Adagio of their predecessors.
+
+This was in a manner also the finale of the German notes that so
+strangely resounded in that Gallic time; the restoration suppressed
+every further outburst of patriotism, and the patriotic spirit that
+had begun to breathe forth in verse once more gave place to
+cosmopolitism and Gallicism. The lyric school, founded by Ludwig
+Uhland, alone preserved a German spirit and a connection with the
+ancient _Minnelieder_ of Swabia.
+
+The new cosmopolitic tendency of the poetry of these times is chiefly
+due to the influence exercised by Goethe. The quick comprehension and
+ready adoption of every novelty is a faculty of, not a fault in, the
+German character, and alone becomes reprehensible when the German,
+forgetful of himself and of his own peculiar characteristics, adopts a
+medley of foreign incongruities and falsifies whatever ought to be
+preserved special and true. Goethe and his school, however, not
+content with imitating singly the style of every nation and of every
+period, have interwoven the most diverse strains, antique and
+romantic, old German and modern French, Grecian and Chinese, in one
+and the same poem. This unnatural style, itself destructive of the
+very peculiarity at which it aims, has infected both modern poetry and
+modern art; the architect intermixes the Grecian and the Gothic in his
+creations, while the painter seeks to unite the styles of the Flemish
+and Italian schools in his productions, and the poet those of Persia,
+Scandinavia, and Spain, in his strains.--Those are indeed deserving of
+gratitude who have comprehended and preserved the character peculiar
+to the productions of foreign art, in which the brothers Friedrich and
+August Wilhelm Schlegel have been so eminently successful. Hammer and,
+after him, Ruckert have also opened the Eastern world to our view.
+Count Platen, on the other hand, hung fluctuating between the antique
+Persian and German.--Cosmopolitism was greatly strengthened by the
+historical romances in vogue in England, descriptive of olden time,
+and which found innumerable imitators in Germany. They were, at all
+events, thus far beneficial; they led us from the parlor into the
+world.
+
+But no sooner was genuine German taste neglected for that of foreign
+nations than Gallomania revived; all were compelled to pay homage to
+the spirit and the tone prevalent throughout Europe. The witty
+aristocratic _médisance_ and grim spirit of rebellion emulating each
+other in France, were, in Germany, represented by Prince Piichler, the
+most _spirituel_ drawing-room satirist, and by the Jew, Börne, the
+most spirited Jacobin of the day. The open infidelity again
+demonstrated in France, also led to its introduction into Germany by
+the Jew, Heine, while the immoral romances with which that country was
+deluged speedily became known to us through the medium of the
+translations and imitations of "Young Germany," and were incredibly
+increased by our literary industry; all the lying memoirs, in which
+the French falsify history, view Napoleon as a demigod, and treat the
+enthusiasm with which the Germans were animated in 1813 with derision,
+were also diligently translated. This tendency to view everything
+German with French eyes and to ridicule German honor and German
+manners was especially promoted by the light literature, and numerous
+journals of the day, and was, in the universities, in close connection
+with the anti-christian tendency of the school of Hegel.--The late
+Catholic reaction, too exclusively political, has as yet exercised no
+influence over the literary world, and would scarcely succeed in
+gaining any, being less German than Roman.
+
+While German poetry follows so false a course, it naturally follows
+that art also must be deprived of its natural character. Architecture
+has, it is true, abandoned the periwig style of France, but the purer
+antique or Byzantine taste to which it has returned is generally
+insipidly simple, while the attempts at Gothic and Moorish are truly
+miserable. A more elevated feeling than the present generation (which,
+in Goethe's manner, delights in trifling alternately with every style,
+or is completely enslaved by the modes imposed by France) is fitted to
+comprehend, is requisite for the revival of German or Gothic
+architecture. Still it may be, as is hoped, that the intention to
+complete the building of the Cologne cathedral will not be entirely
+without a beneficial influence.
+
+The art of painting aspires far more energetically toward national
+emancipation. In the present century, the modern French style
+affecting the antique presented a complete contrast with the German
+romantic school, which, in harmony with the simultaneous romantic
+reaction in the poetical world, returned to the sacred simplicity of
+the ancient German and Italian masters. Overbeck was in this our
+greatest master. Since this period, the two great schools at Munich
+and Dusseldorf, founded by Peter Cornelius, and whose greatest masters
+are Peter Hesz, Bendemann, Lessing, Kaulbach, etc., have sought a
+middle path, and with earnest zeal well and skilfully opposed the too
+narrow imitation of, and the medley of style produced by the study of,
+the numerous old masters on the one hand, and, on the other, the
+search for effect, that Gallic innovation so generally in vogue. Were
+the church again to require pictures, or the state to employ the
+pencil of the patriot artist in recording the great deeds of past or
+present times or in the adornment of public edifices, painting would
+be elevated to its proper sphere.--Germany has also produced many
+celebrated engravers, among whom Muller holds precedence. Lithography,
+now an art of so much importance, was invented by the Bavarian,
+Senefelder. The art of painting on glass has also been revived.
+
+In music, the Germans have retained their ancient fame. After Mozart,
+Beethoven, Weber, etc., have gained immense celebrity as composers.
+Still, much that is unnatural, affected, _bizarre_ and licentious has
+crept into the compositions of the German masters, more particularly
+in the operas, owing to the imitation of the modern Italian and French
+composers. A popular reaction has, however, again taken place, and, as
+before, in choral music, by means of the "singing clubs," which become
+more and more general among the people.
+
+The stage has most deeply degenerated. At the commencement of the
+present century, its mimic scenes afforded a species of consolation
+for the sad realities of life, and formed the Lethe in whose waters
+oblivion was gladly sought. The public afterward became so practical
+in its tastes, so sober in its desires, that neither the spirit of the
+actor nor the coquetry of the actress had power to attract an
+audience. The taste and love for art were superseded by criticism and
+low intrigues, the theatre became a mere political engine, intended to
+divert the thoughts of the population, of the great cities from the
+discussion of topics dangerous to the state by the all-engrossing
+charms of actresses and ballet-dancers.
+
+The Germans, although much more practical in the present than in the
+past century, are still far from having freed themselves from the
+unjust, unfitting, and inconvenient situation into which they have
+fallen as time and events rolled on.
+
+A mutual understanding in regard to the external position of the
+German in reference to the Slavonian nation has scarcely begun to dawn
+upon us. Scarcely have we become sensible to the ignominious
+restrictions imposed upon German commerce by the prohibitory
+regulations of Russia, by the customs levied in the Sound, on the
+Elbe, and Rhine. Scarcely has the policy that made such immense
+concessions to Russian diplomacy, and scarcely has the party spirit
+that looked for salvation for Germany from France, yielded to a more
+elevated feeling of self-respect. And yet, whoever should say to the
+people of Alsace, Switzerland, and Holland, "Ye are Germans," would
+reap but derision and insult. Germany is on the point of being once
+more divided into Catholic and Protestant Germany, and no one can
+explain how the German Customs' Union is to extend to the German
+Ocean, on account of the restrictions mutually imposed by the Germans.
+Could we but view ourselves as the great nation we in reality are,
+attain to a consciousness of the immeasurable strength we in reality
+possess, and make use of it in order to satisfy our wants, the Germans
+would be thoroughly a practical nation, instead of lying like a dead
+lion among the nations of Europe, and unresistingly suffering them to
+mock, tread underfoot, nay, deprive him of his limbs, as though he
+were a miserable, helpless worm.
+
+More, far more has been done for the better regulation of the internal
+economy of Germany than for her external protection and power. The
+reforms suited to the age, commenced by the philosophical princes and
+ministers of the past century, have been carried on by Prussia in her
+hour of need, by constitutional Germany by constitutional means.
+Everywhere have the public administration been better regulated,
+despotism been restrained by laws, financial affairs been settled even
+under the heavy pressure of the national debts. Commerce, manufactural
+industry, and agriculture have been greatly promoted by the Customs'
+Union, by government aid and model institutions, by the improvements in
+the post-offices, by the laying of roads and railways. The public
+burdens and public debts, nevertheless, still remain disproportionately
+heavy on account of the enormous military force which the great states
+are compelled to maintain for the preservation of their authority, and
+on account of the polyarchical state of Germany, which renders the
+maintenance of an enormous number of courts, governments, general staffs
+and chambers necessary.
+
+The popular sense of justice and legality, never entirely suppressed
+throughout Germany, also gave fresh proof of its existence under the
+new state of affairs, partly in the endlessly drawn-out proceedings in
+the chambers, partly in the incredible number of new laws and
+regulations in the different states. Still, industriously as these
+laws have been compiled, no real, essential, German law, neither
+public nor private, has been discovered. The Roman and French codes
+battled with each other and left no room for the establishment of a
+code fundamentally and thoroughly German. The most distinguished
+champions of the common rights of the people against cabinet-justice,
+the tyranny of the police and of the censor, were principally
+advocates and savants. The Estates, as corporations, were scarcely any
+longer represented. The majority of governments, ruled by the
+principle of absolute monarchy and the chambers, ruled by that of
+democracy, had, since the age of philosophy, been unanimous in setting
+the ancient Estates aside. The nobility alone preserved certain
+privileges, and the Catholic clergy alone regained some of those they
+had formerly enjoyed; all the Estates were, in every other respect,
+placed on a level. The ancient and national legal rights of the people
+were consequently widely trenched upon.
+
+The emancipation of the peasant from the oppressive feudal dues, and
+the abolition of the restraint imposed by the laws of the city
+corporations, which had so flagrantly been abused, were indubitably
+well intended, but, instead of stopping there, good old customs, that
+ought only to have been freed from the weeds with which they had been
+overgrown, were totally eradicated. The peasant received a freehold,
+but was, by means of his enfranchisement, generally laden with debts,
+and, while pride whispered in his ear that he was now a lord of the
+soil and might assume the costume of his superiors, the land, whence
+he had to derive his sustenance, was gradually diminished in extent by
+the systematic division of property. His pretensions increased exactly
+in the ratio in which the means for satisfying them decreased; and the
+necessity of raising money placed him in the hands of Jews. The
+smaller the property by reason of subdivision, the more frequently is
+land put up for sale, the deeper is the misery of the homeless
+outcast. The restoration of the inalienable, indivisible allod and of
+the federal rights of the peasant, as in olden times, would have been
+far more to the purpose.--Professional liberty and the introduction of
+mechanism and manufactural industry have annihilated every warrant
+formerly afforded by the artificer as master and member of a city
+corporation, and, at the same time, every warrant afforded to him by
+the community of his being able to subsist by means of his industry.
+Manufactures on an extensive scale that export their produce must at
+all events be left unrestricted, but the small trades carried on
+within a petty community, their only market, excite, when free, a
+degree of competition which is necessarily productive both of bad
+workmanship and poverty, and the superfluous artificers, unaided by
+their professional freedom, fall bankrupt and become slaves in the
+establishments of their wealthier[1] competitors. The restoration of
+the city guilds under restrictions suitable to the times would have
+been far more judicious.
+
+The maintenance of a healthy, contented class of citizens and peasants
+ought to be one of the principal aims of every German statesman. The
+fusion of these ancient and powerful classes into one common mass
+whence but a few wealthy individuals rise to eminence would be fatal
+to progression in Germany. By far the greater part of the people have
+already lost the means of subsistence formerly secured to all, nay,
+even to the serf, by the privileges of his class. The insecure
+possession, the endless division and alienation of property, an
+anxious dread of loss, and a rapacious love of gain, have become
+universal. Care for the means of daily existence, like creeping
+poison, unnerves the population. The anxious solicitude to which this
+gives rise has a deeply demoralizing effect. Even offices under
+government are less sought for from motives of ambition than as a
+means of subsistence; the arts and sciences have been degraded to mere
+sources of profit, envious trade decides questions of the highest
+importance, the torch of Hymen is lit by Plutus, not at the shrine of
+Love; and in the bosom of the careworn father of a family, whose
+scanty subsistence depends upon a patron's smile, the words
+"fatherland" and "glory" find no responsive echo.
+
+Among the educated classes this state of poverty is allied with the
+most inconsistent luxury. Each and all, however poor, are anxious to
+preserve an appearance of wealth or to raise credit by that means.
+All, however needy, must be fashionable. The petty tradesman and the
+peasant ape their superiors in rank, and the old-fashioned but
+comfortable and picturesque national costume is being gradually thrown
+aside for the ever-varying modes prescribed by Paris to the world. The
+inordinate love of amusements in which the lower classes and the
+proletariat, ever increasing in number, seek more particularly to
+drown the sense of misery, is another and a still greater source of
+public demoralization. The general habit of indulging in the use of
+spirituous liquors has been rightfully designated the brandy pest,
+owing to its lamentable moral and physical effect upon the population.
+This pest was encouraged not alone by private individuals, who gain
+their livelihood by disseminating it among the people, but also by
+governments, which raised a large revenue by its means; and the
+temperance societies, lately founded, but slightly stem the evil.
+
+The public authorities throughout Germany have, it must be confessed,
+displayed extraordinary solicitude for the poor by the foundation of
+charitable institutions of every description, but they have contented
+themselves with merely alleviating misery instead of removing its
+causes; and the benevolence that raised houses of correction,
+poor-houses, and hospitals, is rendered null by the laxity of the
+legislation. No measures are taken by the governments to provide means
+for emigration, to secure to the peasant his freehold, to the
+artificer the guarantee he ought to receive and to give, and the
+maintenance of the public morals. The punishment awarded for
+immorality and theft is so mild as to deprive them of the character of
+crime, pamphlets and works of the most immoral description are
+dispersed by means of the circulating libraries among all classes, and
+the bold infidelity preached even from the universities is left
+unchecked. But--is not the thief taught morality in the house of
+correction? and are not diseases, the result of license, cured in the
+hospitals with unheard-of humanity?
+
+Private morality, so long preserved free from contamination, although
+all has for so long conspired against the liberty and unity of
+Germany, is greatly endangered. Much may, however, be hoped for from
+the sound national sense. The memory of the strength displayed by
+Germany in 1813 has been eradicated neither by the contempt of France
+or Russia, by any reactionary measure within Germany herself, by
+social and literary corruption, nor by the late contest between church
+and state. The Customs' Union has, notwithstanding the difference in
+political principle, brought despotic Prussia and constitutional
+Germany one step nearer. The influence of Russia on the one hand, of
+that of France on the other, has sensibly decreased. The irreligious
+and immoral tendencies now visible will, as has ever been the case in
+Germany, produce a reaction, and, when the necessity is more urgently
+felt, fitting measures will be adopted for the prevention of
+pauperism. The dangers with which Germany is externally threatened
+will also compel governments, however egotistical and indifferent, to
+seek their safety in unity, and even should the long neglect of this
+truth be productive of fresh calamity and draw upon Germany a fresh
+attack from abroad, that very circumstance will but strengthen our
+union and accelerate the regeneration of our great fatherland, already
+anticipated by the people on the fall of the Hohenstaufen.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Because more skilful.--_Trans_.]
+
+
+
+CCLXXIV. German Emigrants
+
+
+The overplus population of Germany has ever emigrated; in ancient
+times, for the purpose of conquering foreign powers; in modern times,
+for that of serving under them. In the days of German heroism, our
+conquering hordes spread toward the west and south, over Italy, Gaul,
+Spain, Africa, England, and Iceland; during the Middle Ages, our
+mail-clad warriors took an easterly direction and overran the
+Slavonian countries, besides Prussia, Transylvania, and Palestine; in
+modern times, our religious and political refugees have emigrated in
+scarcely less considerable numbers to countries far more distant, but
+in the humble garb of artificers and beggars, the Pariahs of the
+world. Our ancient warriors gained undying fame and long maintained
+the influence and the rule of Germany in foreign lands. Our modern
+emigrants have, unnoted, quitted their native country, and, as early
+as the second generation, intermixed with the people among whom they
+settled. Hundreds of thousands of Germans have in this manner aided to
+aggrandize the British colonies, and Germany has derived no benefit
+from the emigration of her sons.
+
+The first great mass of religious refugees threw itself into Holland
+and into the Dutch colonies, the greater part of which have since
+passed into the hands of the British. The illiberality of the Dutch
+caused the second great mass to bend its steps to British North
+America, within whose wilds every sect found an asylum. William Penn,
+the celebrated Quaker, visited Germany, and, in 1683, gave permission
+to some Germans to settle in the province named, after him,
+Pennsylvania, where they founded the city of German town.[1] These
+fortunate emigrants were annually followed by thousands of exiled
+Protestants, principally from Alsace and the Palatinate. The industry
+and honesty for which the German workmen were remarkable caused some
+Englishmen to enter into a speculation to procure their services as
+white slaves. The greatest encouragement was accordingly given by them
+to emigration from Germany, but the promises so richly lavished were
+withdrawn on the unexpected emigration of thirty-three thousand of the
+inhabitants of the Palatinate, comprising entire communes headed by
+their preachers, evidently an unlooked and unwished for multitude.
+These emigrants reached London abandoned by their patrons and
+disavowed by the government. A fearful fate awaited them. After losing
+considerable numbers from starvation in England, the greater part of
+the survivors were compelled to work like slaves in the mines and in
+the cultivation of uninhabited islands; three thousand six hundred of
+them were sent over to Ireland, where they swelled the number of
+beggars; numbers were lost at sea, and seven thousand of them returned
+in despair, in a state of utter destitution, to their native country.
+A small number of them, however, actually sailed for New York, where
+they were allotted portions of the primitive forests, which they
+cleared and cultivated; but they had no sooner raised flourishing
+villages in the midst of rich cornfields and gardens, than they were
+informed that the ground belonged to the state and were driven from
+the home they had so lately found. Pennsylvania opened a place of
+refuge to the wanderers.[2]
+
+The religious persecution and the increasing despotism of the
+governments in Germany meanwhile incessantly drove fresh emigrants to
+America, where, as they were generally sent to the extreme verge of
+the provinces in order to clear the ground and drive away the
+aborigines, numbers of them were murdered by the Indians. Switzerland
+also sent forth many emigrants, who settled principally in North
+Carolina. The people of Salzburg, whose expulsion has been detailed
+above, colonized Georgia in 1732. In 1742, there were no fewer than a
+hundred thousand Germans in North America, and, since that period,
+their number has been continually on the increase. Thousands annually
+arrived; for instance, in the years 1749 and 1750, seven thousand; in
+1754, as many as twenty-two thousand; in 1797, six thousand Swabians.
+The famine of 1770, the participation of German mercenaries in the
+wars of the British in North America, at first against the French
+colonies, afterward against the English colonists (the German
+prisoners generally settled in the country), induced the Germans to
+emigrate in such great numbers that, from 1770 to 1791, twenty-four
+emigrant ships on an average arrived annually at Philadelphia, without
+reckoning those that landed in the other harbors.[3]
+
+The passage by sea to the west being continually closed during the
+great wars with France, the stream of emigration took an easterly
+direction overland. Russia had extended her conquests toward Persia
+and Turkey. The necessity of fixing colonies in the broad steppes as
+in the primitive forests of America, to serve as a barrier against the
+wild frontier tribes, was plainly perceived by the Russian government,
+and Germans were once more made use of for this purpose. Extensive
+colonies, which at the present date contain hundreds of thousands of
+German inhabitants, but whose history is as yet unknown, were
+accordingly formed northward of the Black and Caspian Seas. Swabian
+villages were also built on the most southern frontier of Russia
+toward Persia, and in 1826 suffered severely from an inroad of the
+Persians.
+
+The fall of Napoleon had no sooner reopened the passage by sea than
+the tide of emigration again turned toward North America. These
+emigrants, the majority of whom consisted of political malcontents,
+preferred the land of liberty to the steppes of Russia, whither
+sectarians and those whom the demoralization and irreligion of the
+Gallomanic period had filled with disgust had chiefly resorted. The
+Russo-Teuto colonies are proverbial for purity and strictness of
+morals. One Wurtemberg sectarian alone, the celebrated Rapp, succeeded
+during the period of the triumph of France in emigrating to
+Pennsylvania, where he founded the Harmony, a petty religious
+community. An inconsiderable number of Swiss, dissatisfied with
+Napoleon's supremacy, also emigrated in 1805 and built New Vevay. But
+it was not until after the wars, more particularly during the famine
+in 1816 and 1817, that emigration across the sea was again carried on
+to a considerable extent. In 1817, thirty thousand Swiss,
+Wurtembergers, Hessians, and inhabitants of the Palatinate emigrated,
+and about an equal number were compelled to retrace their steps from
+the seacoast in a state of extreme destitution on account of their
+inability to pay their passage and of the complete want of interest in
+their behalf displayed by the governments. Political discontent
+increased in 1818 and 1819, and each succeeding spring thirty thousand
+Germans sailed down the Rhine to the land of liberty in the far west.
+In 1820, a society was set on foot at Berne for the protection of the
+Swiss emigrants from the frauds practiced upon the unwary. The union
+of the Archduchess Leopoldine, daughter to the emperor Francis, with
+Dom Pedro, the emperor of the Brazils, had, since 1817, attracted
+public attention to South America. Dom Pedro took German mercenaries
+into his service for the purpose of keeping his wild subjects within
+bounds, and the fruitful land offered infinite advantages to the
+German agriculturist; but colonization was rendered impracticable by
+the revolutionary disorders and by the ill-will of the natives toward
+the settlers, and the Germans who had been induced to emigrate either
+enlisted as soldiers or perished. Several among them, who have
+published their adventures in the Brazils, bitterly complained of the
+conduct of Major Schäfer, who had been engaged in collecting recruits
+at Hamburg for the Brazils. They even accused him of having allowed
+numbers of their fellow-countrymen to starve to death from motives of
+gain, so much a head being paid to him on his arrival in the Brazils
+for the men shipped from Europe whether they arrived dead or alive.
+The publication of these circumstances completely checked the
+emigration to the Brazils, and North America was again annually,
+particularly in 1827 and after the July revolution, overrun with
+Germans, and they have even begun to take part in the polity of the
+United States. The peasants, who have been settled for a considerable
+period, and who have insensibly acquired great wealth and have
+retained the language and customs of their native country, form the
+flower of the German colonists in the West.[4]
+
+In the Cape colonies, the Dutch peasants, the boors, feeling
+themselves oppressed by the English government, emigrated _en masse_,
+in 1837, to the north, where they settled with the Caffres, and, under
+their captain, Prĉtorius, founded an independent society, in 1839, at
+Port Natal, where they again suffered a violent aggression on the part
+of the British.
+
+Thus are Germans fruitlessly scattered far and wide over the face of
+the globe, while on the very frontiers of Germany nature has
+designated the Danube as the near and broad path for emigration and
+colonization to her overplus population, which, by settling in her
+vicinity, would at once increase her external strength and extend her
+influence.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The abolition of negro slavery was first mooted by
+Germans in 1688, at the great Quaker meeting in North America.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Account of the United States by Eggerling.]
+
+[Footnote 3: One of the most distinguished Germans in America was a
+person named John Jacob Astor, the son of a bailiff at Walldorf near
+Heidelberg, who was brought up as a furrier, emigrated to America,
+where he gradually became the wealthiest of all furriers, founded at
+his own expense the colony of Astoria, on the northwestern coast of
+North America, so interestingly described by Washington Irving, and
+the Astor fund, intended as a protection to German emigrants to
+America from the frauds practiced on the unwary. He resided at New
+York. He possessed an immense fortune and was highly and deservedly
+esteemed for his extraordinary philanthropy.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Allgemeine Zeitung of September, 1837, reports that
+there were at that time one hundred and fifty-seven thousand Germans
+in North America who were still unnaturalized, consequently had
+emigrated thither within the last two or three years. In Philadelphia
+alone there were seventy-five thousand Germans. Grund says in his
+work, "The Americans in 1837," "The peaceable disposition of the
+Germans prevents their interfering with politics, although their
+number is already considerable enough for the formation of a powerful
+party. They possess, notwithstanding, great weight in the government
+of Pennsylvania, in which State the governors have since the
+revolution always been Germans. This is in fact so well understood on
+all sides that even during the last election, when two democrats and a
+Whig candidate contended for the dignity of governor, they were all
+three Germans by birth and no other would have had the slightest
+chance of success. In the State of Ohio there are at the present date,
+although that province was first colonized by New-English, no fewer
+than forty-five thousand Germans possessed of the right of voting. The
+State of New York, although originally colonized by Dutch, contains a
+numerous German population in several of its provinces, particularly
+in that of Columbia, the birthplace of Martin Van Buren, the present
+Vice-President and future President of the republic. The State of
+Maryland numbers twenty-five thousand Germans possessed of votes;
+almost one-third of the population of Illinois is German, and
+thousands of fresh emigrants are settling in the valley of the
+Mississippi. I believe that the number of German voters or of voters
+of German descent may, without exaggeration, be reckoned on an average
+annually at four hundred thousand, and certainly in less than twenty
+years hence at a million. In the city of New York, the Germans greatly
+influence the election of the burgomaster and other city authorities
+by holding no fewer than three thousand five hundred votes. These
+circumstances naturally render the German vote an object of zealous
+contention for politicians of every party, and there is accordingly no
+dearth of German newspapers in any of the German settlements. In
+Pennsylvania, upward of thirty German (principally weekly) papers are
+in circulation, and about an equal number are printed and published in
+the State of Ohio. A scarcely lower number are also in circulation in
+Maryland."]
+
+
+
+Supplementary Chapter
+
+From The Fall of Napoleon to the Present Day
+
+
+The Confederation of the Rhine, wounded to the death by the campaign
+of 1812, was killed by the fall of Napoleon. From that event to the
+present time the accompanying pages must be restricted to a
+consideration of those matters which have been of capital importance
+to the German people. These matters may be summarized as consisting in
+the formation of the German Confederation, the Danish war, the
+Austro-Prussian war, the Franco-Prussian war, and the refounding of
+the empire.
+
+As the fall of Sennacherib was sung by the Hebrews, so was the fall of
+Napoleon sung by the Germans. They had been at his mercy. He had
+deposed their sovereigns, dismembered their states, crippled their
+trade, and exhausted their resources. Yet in 1814, by the Peace of
+Paris, they had restored to them all they had possessed in 1792, but
+as a reconstruction of the former empire was impracticable, those
+states which still maintained their sovereignty coalesced.
+
+This was in 1815. At the time there remained of the three hundred
+states into which the empire had originally been divided but
+thirty-nine, a number afterward reduced, through the extinction of
+four minor dynasties, to thirty-five. A diet, recognized as the
+legislative and executive organ of the Confederation, was instituted
+at Frankfort. Instead, however, of satisfying the expectations of the
+nation, it degenerated into a political tool, which princes
+manipulated, which they made subservient to their inherent
+conservatism, and with which they oppressed their subjects. The French
+revolution of 1830 influenced to a certain extent their attitude, and
+a few of them were induced to accord constitutions to their people,
+but the effect was transient. Reforms which had been stipulated they
+managed to ignore. It took the insurrectionary movements of 1848 to
+shake them on their thrones. Forced then to admit the inefficiency of
+the diet, and attempting by hasty concessions to check the progress of
+republican principles, they consented to the convocation of a national
+assembly. Over this body the Archduke John of Austria was elected to
+preside. The choice was not happy. Measures which he failed to
+facilitate he succeeded in frustrating. As a consequence, matters went
+from bad to worse, until, after the refusal of the king of Prussia to
+accept the imperial crown which was offered to him in 1849 and the
+election of a provisional regency which ensued, the assembly lapsed
+into a condition of impotence which terminated in its dissolution.
+
+Meanwhile republican demonstrations having been forcibly suppressed,
+there arose between Prussia and Austria a feeling of jealousy, if not
+of ill-will, which more than once indicated war, and which, though
+resulting in the restoration of the diet and temporarily diverted by a
+joint attack on Denmark, culminated in the battle of Sadowa.
+
+Into the details of this attack it is unnecessary to enter. The casus
+belli was apparently an entirely virtuous endeavor to settle the
+respective claims of the king of Denmark and the duke of Augustenburg
+to the sovereignty of Schleswig-Holstein. The fashion in which the
+claims were settled consisted in wiping them out. The direction not
+merely of Schleswig-Holstein but of Lauenberg was assumed by Austria
+and Prussia, who, by virtue of a treaty signed October 30, 1864, took
+upon themselves their civil and military administration.
+
+The administration which then ensued was announced as being but a
+temporary trusteeship, and throughout Europe was generally so
+regarded. But Prussia had other views. In the chambers Bismarck
+declared that the crown had no intention of resigning the booty, that,
+come what might, never would it give up Kiel. Bismarck was seldom
+wrong. In this instance he was right. In the month of August following
+the treaty the Emperor Francis of Austria and King William of Prussia
+met at Gastein and concluded a convention by which it was agreed that
+Schleswig should belong to Prussia, Holstein to Austria, with Kiel as
+a free port under Prussian rule.
+
+These proceedings, as might have been expected, created the greatest
+indignation in England, France, and among the minor states. Earl
+Russell declared that all rights, old and new, had been trodden under
+by the Gastein Convention, and that violence and force had been the
+only bases on which this convention had been established, while utter
+disregard of all public laws had been shown throughout all these
+transactions. On the part of France, her minister said that the
+Austrian and Prussian governments were guilty in the eyes of Europe of
+dividing between themselves territories they were bound to give up to
+the claimants who seemed to have the best title, and that modern
+Europe was not accustomed to deeds fit only for the dark ages; such
+principles, he added, can only overthrow the past without building up
+anything new. The Frankfort Diet declared the two powers to have
+violated all principles of right, especially that of the duchies to
+direct their own affairs as they pleased, provided they did not
+interfere with the general interests of the German nation.
+Nevertheless, a Prussian governor was appointed over Schleswig, and an
+Austrian over Holstein, both assuming these duchies to be parts of
+their respective empires.
+
+Early in 1866, it was evident that no real friendship could long
+continue between Prussia and Austria, and that these two great robbers
+would surely fall out over the division of the plunder; making it the
+ostensible cause for dispute, which was in reality their rivalry for
+the leadership in Germany. In June, the Prussians crossed the Eyder,
+and took possession of Holstein, appointed a supreme president over
+the two duchies which passed under Prussian rule, and settled, after a
+summary fashion, the vexed question. There were also other causes
+which tended to war. The weak side of Austria, weaker far than
+Hungary, was her Italian province of Venetia, one, indeed, that few
+can say she had any real or natural right to hold, beyond having
+acquired it by the treaty of 1813. To recover this from German rule
+had been the incessant desire of Italy, and grievous was her
+disappointment when the emperor of the French thought fit to stop
+immediately after the battle of Magenta and Solferino, instead of
+pushing on, as it was hoped he would have done, to the conquest of
+Venetia.
+
+In the spring of 1866, Italy was making active preparations for war,
+and Austria, on the other hand, increased largely the number of her
+troops, Prussia choosing, in defiance of all fair dealing, to assume
+that all these armaments were directed against herself; and, on this
+supposition, sent a circular to the minor states to tell them they
+must decide which side to take in the impending struggle. A secret
+treaty was made between Prussia and Italy: that Italy should be ready
+to take up arms the moment Prussia gave the signal, and that Prussia
+should go on with the war until Venetia was ceded to Italy. Angry
+discussions took place in the diet between Austria and Prussia, which
+ended in Prussia declaring the Germanic Confederation to be broken up,
+and both sides preparing for war.
+
+Austria began early to arm, for she required longer time to mobilize
+her army. Prussia, on the contrary, was in readiness for action. Every
+Prussian who is twenty years old, without distinction of rank, has to
+serve in the army, three years with the colors, five more in the
+reserve, after which he is placed for eleven years in the Landwehr,
+and liable to be called out when occasion requires. In peace
+everything is kept ready for the mobilization of its army. In a
+wonderfully short time the organization was complete, and 260,000 men
+brought into the field in Bohemia. In arms, they had the advantage of
+the needle-gun. The Prussian forces were in three divisions, the
+"First Army" under the command of Prince Frederick Charles; the
+"Second Army" under that of the crown prince; and the "Army of the
+Elbe," under General Herwarth. The supreme command of the Austrian
+army of the north was given to Feldzeugmeister von Benedek, that of
+the south to the Archduke Albert.
+
+On June 14, Prussia sent a telegraphic summons to Hanover,
+Hesse-Cassel, and Saxony, demanding them to reduce their armies to the
+peace establishment, and to concur with Prussia respecting the
+Germanic confederation; and that if they did not send their consent
+within twelve hours, war would be declared. The states did not reply,
+Prussia declared war, and on the 16th invaded their territories. The
+occupation and disarmament of Hanover and Hesse were necessary to
+Prussia for a free communication with her Rhenish provinces, and she
+effected her purpose by means of well-planned combinations, so that in
+the course of a few days these states were overrun by Prussian troops,
+and their sovereigns expelled.
+
+The rapid progress of events, and the Prussian declaration of war, had
+taken Hanover by surprise. Her army was not yet mobilized; Austria had
+evacuated Holstein, or she could have looked to her for support. To
+attempt to defend the capital was hopeless; so King George, suffering
+from blindness, moved with his army to Gottingen, with a view of
+joining the Bavarians. Prussia entered by the north, and, assisted by
+her navy on the Elbe, was by the 22d in possession of the whole of
+Hanover. Closed round on all sides by the Prussians, unassisted by
+Prince Charles of Bavaria, Gotha having declared for Prussia, the king
+of Hanover, with his little army, crossed the frontier of his kingdom,
+and at Langensalza, fifteen miles north of Gotha, encountered the
+Prussians, and remained master of the battlefield. But victory was of
+little avail; surrounded by 40,000 Prussians, the king was forced to
+capitulate. The arms and military stores were handed over to the
+enemy, and the king and his soldiers allowed to depart. Thus, through
+the supineness of Prince Charles of Bavaria, a whole army was made
+captive, and Hanover erased from the roll of independent states.
+
+More fortunate than his neighbor, the elector of Hesse-Cassel saved
+his army, though not his territory, from the invader. His troops
+retired toward the Maine, where they secured a communication with the
+federal army at Frankfort. The elector remained in Hesse, and was sent
+a state prisoner to the Prussian fortress of Stettin, on the Oder. The
+Prussians overran his territory, declaring they were not at war
+against "peoples, but against governments."
+
+Two bodies of Prussian troops entered Saxony--the First Army and the
+Army of the Elbe--and the Saxon army retired into Bohemia to effect a
+junction with the Austrians. On the 20th, Leipzig was seized, and the
+whole of Saxony was in undisturbed possession of the Prussians; Prince
+Frederick Charles issuing a most stringent order that private property
+should be respected, and every regard shown to the comfort of the
+inhabitants. His order was strictly observed, and every measure taken
+to prevent the miseries attendant on the occupation of a country by a
+foreign army.
+
+The invasion of Saxony brought immediately open war between Prussia
+and Austria, and on the 23d the Prussian army crossed the Bohemian
+frontier--only a week since it had entered Saxony. It is needless here
+to detail the battles which immediately followed; suffice it to say,
+the Prussians were victorious in all--at Podoll, where the needle-gun
+did such terrible work; Munchengratz, which gave them the whole line
+of the Iser; Trautenan, Gitschen, and others. On the 1st of July, the
+king of Prussia arrived from Berlin and took the supreme command of
+the army. The following day brought news from the crown prince that he
+was hastening from Silesia with the Second Army, whereby the whole of
+the Prussian forces would be concentrated. On the 3d of July was
+fought the decisive battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, as it is
+sometimes called, from the village of that name, a cluster of
+pine-wood cottages, enclosed by orchards, with a wood-crowned hill at
+the back, which was fiercely disputed by the contending parties.
+
+On that day, General von Benedek had taken his position with the
+Austrian army in front of the frontier fortress of Koniggratz, on the
+right bank of the Elbe, about fifty-five miles east of Prague, to
+oppose the passage of the crown prince from Silesia. In his front lay
+the marshy stream of Bistritz, upon which Sadowa and a few other
+villages are situated. At half-past seven in the morning the battle
+began, and continued with great slaughter without any marked advantage
+on either side till the arrival of the crown prince decided, like the
+advance of Blücher at Waterloo, the fortune of the day. The Austrians
+were completely routed, and fled across the Elbe to save the capital.
+They lost 40,000 men in this sanguinary conflict, the Prussians
+10,000. The forces in the field were 200,000 Austrians and Saxons, and
+260,000 Prussians.
+
+Immediately after her crushing defeat, Austria surrendered Venetia to
+France, and the Emperor Napoleon at once accepted the gift and gave it
+over to Victor Emmanuel.
+
+On July 26, preliminaries of peace were signed at Nikolsburg, and
+peace was finally concluded at Prague, August 23, between Prussia and
+Austria, and about the same time with the South German states. The
+Prussian House of Deputies voted the annexation of the conquered
+states, and in October peace was concluded with Saxony. By these
+arrangements, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Frankfort became provinces of
+Prussia, as well as the long-disputed duchies of Denmark. All the
+German states north of the Maine concluded a treaty, offensive and
+defensive, for the maintenance of the security of their states.
+Prussia increased her territory by 32,000 square miles and her
+population 4,000,000; and in October, 1866, the whole of northern
+Germany was united into a Confederation.
+
+This Confederation, known as the North German, possessed a common
+parliament elected by universal suffrage, in which each state was
+represented according to its population. The first or constituent
+parliament met early in 1867, and adopted, with a few modifications,
+the constitution proposed by Count Bismarck. The new elections then
+took place, and the first regular North German parliament met in
+September, 1867. According to this constitution, there was to be a
+common army and fleet, under the sole command of Prussia; a common
+diplomatic representation abroad, of necessity little else than
+Prussian; and to Prussia also was intrusted the management of the
+posts and telegraphs in the Confederation.
+
+The Southern German states which up to this point had not joined the
+Bund, were Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and
+Lichtenstein, with a joint area of 43,990 square miles, and a total
+population (1866) of 8,524,460. But, though these states were not
+formally members of the Bund, they were so practically, for they were
+bound to Prussia by treaties of alliance offensive and defensive, so
+that in the event of a war the king of Prussia would have at his
+disposal an armed force of upward of 1,100,000 men.
+
+During the next few years the North German Confederation was employed
+in consolidating and strengthening itself, and in trying to induce the
+southern states to join the league. The Zollverein was remodelled and
+extended, until by the year 1868 every part of Germany was a member of
+it, with the exception of the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, and a
+small part of Baden. This paved the way for the formal entrance of the
+southern states into the confederation; but they still hung back,
+though the ideal of a united Germany was gradually growing in force
+and favor.
+
+Meanwhile the terms of the treaty of Prague, together with the
+complete removal of alien powers from Italy, had wrought a radical
+change in the political relations of the European States. Excluded
+from Germany, the dominions of Austria still extended to the verge of
+Venetia and the Lombard plains, but her future lay eastward and her
+centre of gravity had been removed to Buda-Pesth. In the South German
+courts, no doubt, there was a bias toward Vienna, and a dislike of
+Prussia; yet both the leaning and the repugnance were counterbalanced
+by a deeper dread of France rooted in the people by the vivid memories
+of repeated and cruel invasions. Russia, somewhat alarmed by the rapid
+success of King William, had been soothed by diplomatic reassurances,
+the tenor of which is not positively known, although a series of
+subsequent events more than justified the inference made at that time,
+that promises, bearing on the czar's Eastern designs, were tendered
+and accepted as a valuable consideration for the coveted boon of
+benevolent neutrality, if not something more substantial. Like Russia,
+France had lost nothing by the campaign of 1866; her territories were
+intact; her ruler had mediated between Austria and Prussia; and he had
+the honor of protecting the pope, who, as a spiritual and temporal
+prince, was still in possession of Rome and restricted territorial
+domains. But the Napoleonic court, and many who looked upon its head
+as a usurper, experienced, on the morrow of Sadowa, and in a greater
+degree after the preface to a peace had been signed at Nikolsburg, a
+sensation of diminished magnitude, a consciousness of lessened
+prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even
+their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV.,
+and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had
+taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866
+the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with
+Bismarck a game of diplomatic chess.
+
+In that he erred profoundly. As early as the first week in August,
+1866, M. Benedetti, the French ambassador to the court of Berlin, was
+instructed to claim the left bank of the Rhine as far as and including
+Mainz. Bismarck replied that "the true interest of France is not to
+obtain an insignificant increase of territory, but to aid Germany in
+constituting herself after a fashion which will be most favorable to
+all concerned." Delphos could not have been more oracular. But
+Napoleon III. could not or would not heed. A week later Benedetti was
+instructed to submit a regular scale of concessions--the frontiers of
+1814 and the annexation of Belgium, or Luxemburg and Belgium,
+Benedetti received the most courteous attention and nothing more. This
+was irritating. The French had been accustomed for more than two
+hundred years to meddle directly in Germany and find there allies,
+either against Austria, Prussia, or England; and the habit of
+centuries had been more than confirmed by the colossal raids,
+victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should
+escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action,
+the policy of Henry IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate
+grandson, Louis XV., and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront
+to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing
+forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was
+unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left
+to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means
+wherewith to deliver or sustain the shock, and the choice of the hour,
+if such choice were allowed.
+
+Then presently the opportunity occurred. On July 4, 1870, the throne
+of Spain was offered to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The fact
+created the greatest excitement in France. Threatening speeches were
+made. On July 18 Prince Leopold declined the offer. On the morrow
+Benedetti was instructed to demand a guarantee that any future offer
+of the kind would be refused. The king of Prussia would not listen to
+the proposition. The French minister, through whom the demand had been
+transmitted, then asked for his passports. War was imminent.
+
+At the prospect Paris grew mad with enthusiasm. Crowds assembled in
+the streets, shouting "Down with Prussia!" "Long live France!" "To the
+Rhine!" "To Berlin!" The papers abounded with inflammatory appeals,
+and, after the impulsive French fashion, glorified beforehand the easy
+triumphs that were to be won over the Prussians. Men told one another
+that they would be across the Rhine in a week, and at Berlin in a
+fortnight. The excitement in Prussia was not less than that in France.
+The people, with scarcely an exception, declared their readiness for
+war, and seemed to find a pleasure in the opportunity now presented
+for settling old quarrels. Like the people of Paris, the Prussians
+shouted "To the Rhine!" The French cry of "To Berlin!" had its
+counterpart in the German ejaculation of "To Paris!"
+
+Perhaps a sentence spoken by M. Guyot Montpayroux best illustrates the
+predominant feeling. "Prussia," he said, "has forgotten the France of
+Jena, and the fact must be recalled to her memory." Thus was war
+declared on the night of July 15. Thiers, who desired a war with
+Prussia "at the proper time," has left on record his judgment that the
+hour then selected was "detestably ill-chosen." Yet even he and
+Gambetta were both anxious that "satisfaction" should be obtained for
+Sadowa; while the thought which animated the court is admirably
+expressed in the phrase imputed to the empress who, pointing to the
+prince imperial, said, "This child will never reign unless we repair
+the misfortunes of Sadowa." Such was the ceaseless refrain. The word
+haunted French imaginations incessantly, and it was the pivot on which
+the imperial policy revolved; it exercised a spell scarcely less
+powerful and disastrous upon monarchists like Thiers and republicans
+like Gambetta. Long foreseen, the dread shock, like all grave
+calamities, came nevertheless as a surprise, even upon reflective
+minds. Statesmen and soldiers who looked on, while they shared in the
+natural feelings aroused by so tremendous a drama, were also the
+privileged witnesses of two instructive experiments on a grand
+scale--the processes whereby mighty armies are brought into the field,
+and the methods by means of which they are conducted to defeat or
+victory.
+
+The French field army, called at the outset the "Army of the Rhine,"
+consisted nominally of 336,000 men with 924 guns. It was considered
+that of these, 300,000 would be available for the initial operations.
+The infantry of the army was provided with a breech-loading weapon,
+called after its inventor the Chassepot. The Chassepot was a weapon in
+all respects superior to the famous needle-gun, which was still the
+weapon of the Prussian army. Attached likewise to the divisional
+artillery was a machine gun called the Mitrailleuse, from which great
+things were expected. But this gun had been manufactured with a
+secrecy which, while it prevented foreign inspection, had withheld
+also the knowledge of its mechanism from the soldiers who were to work
+it. In the field, therefore, it proved a failure.
+
+Since the Crimean and Austrian wars, while the armies of the other
+European states had advanced in efficiency, the French army had
+deteriorated. The reason was that favoritism rather than merit had
+been made the road to court favor. The officers who had pointed to the
+training of the Prussian soldiers, as indicating the necessity for the
+adoption of similar modes for the French army, had been laughed at and
+left in the cold. The consequence was, that for ten years prior to the
+war of 1870, the French army had received instruction only of the most
+superficial character. It had been considered sufficient if the
+soldiers were brought to the point of making a good show on the parade
+ground. Little more had been required of them. Field training and
+musketry training had been alike neglected. The officers had ceased to
+study, and the government had taken no pains to instruct them. What
+was more vicious still, the alienation between officers and men, which
+had been noticed even in the war of 1859, had widened. The officers
+generally had ceased to take the smallest interest in the comfort of
+the men in camp or in quarters. These matters were left to the
+non-commissioned officers. Needless to add, they were not always
+properly attended to. It may be added that the system of drill was so
+devised as to give no play to the reasoning powers of the officer. He
+was a machine and nothing more.
+
+Of the artillery of the French army it has to be said, that it was far
+inferior to that of the Germans, and known to be so by the French war
+department. In the matter of reserves, France had comparatively
+nothing.
+
+Far different were the composition and the state of preparation of the
+Prussian army; far different, also, those of her German allies; far
+higher the qualities of their general officers; far superior the
+discipline and morale of their troops; far more ready, in every single
+particular, to begin a war; far more thoroughly provided to carry that
+war to a successful issue.
+
+The German infantry had been thoroughly organized on a system which
+gave to every officer the necessity of exercising independent action,
+and to the men the faculty of understanding the object of the
+manoeuvre directed. Its cavalry had been specially instructed in
+duties of reconnoissance, of insuring repose for the infantry, of
+collecting intelligence, of concealing the march of armies, of acting
+as a completer of victory, or as a shield in case of defeat. It had
+profited greatly by the lessons it had learned in the war of 1866.
+
+The German artillery had likewise been greatly improved in efficiency
+of manoeuvre since 1866. It was in all respects superior to that of
+the French.
+
+Of the Prussian and South German leaders, I will only say that we
+shall meet again the men from whom we parted on the conclusion of the
+armistice of Nikolsburg. What was their task and how they executed it
+will be described in the pages that follow. In mere numbers, the king
+of Prussia had a great advantage over his enemy. For, while without
+any assistance from South Germany, and after allowing for three army
+corps which might be necessary to watch Austria and Denmark, he could
+begin the campaign with a force of 350,000 men, he was certain of the
+assistance of Southern Germany, and confident that, unless the French
+should obtain considerable successes at the outset, neither Austria
+nor Denmark would stir a hand to aid them.
+
+To counterbalance this superiority of numbers the French emperor had
+cherished a vague hope that, in a war against Prussia, he might
+possibly count upon the ancient friendship for France of Bavaria and
+Saxony, and to a still greater extent upon Austria and Italy. With
+regard to Bavaria and Saxony he was speedily undeceived. Moreover,
+contrary to expectation, other German states decided to support
+Prussia and placed their armies, which were eventually commanded by
+the crown prince, at the disposal of King William. With regard to
+Austria and Italy, Colonel Malleson in a work on this subject,[1] to
+which we are much indebted, states that their co-operation was made
+dependent on the initial successes of the French troops. Colonel
+Malleson adds:
+
+"It was not only understood, but was actually drafted in a treaty--the
+signing of which, however, was prevented by the rapid course of the
+war--that if, on the 15th of September, France should be holding her
+own in Southern Germany, then Austria and Italy would jointly declare
+war against Prussia."
+
+These conditions made it clear that ultimate success in the struggle
+about to commence would accrue to the power which should obtain the
+first advantages.
+
+That Germany--for it was Germany and not Prussia only which entered
+upon this great struggle--would obtain these initial advantages seemed
+almost certain. Count Moltke had for some time previous been engaged
+in planning for a war with France. So far back as 1868 all his
+arrangements for the formation of the armies to be employed, the
+points to be occupied, the nature of the transport, had been clearly
+laid down. These instructions had been carefully studied by the
+several corps commanders and their staff. Not one matter, however
+apparently trivial, had been neglected. When, then, on the 16th of
+July, the king of Prussia gave the order for mobilization, it required
+only to insert the day and the hour on which each body of troops
+should march. With respect to the armies of the states of Southern
+Germany, Moltke, anticipating that the French emperor would throw his
+main army as rapidly as possible into Southern Germany, had
+recommended that the contingents from that part of the country should
+march northward to join those of Prussia on the middle Rhine, to
+assume there a position which should menace the flank and rear of the
+invading army. This position would be the more practical, as in the
+event of the French not invading Southern Germany, the combined force,
+stretching from Saarbrucken to Landau, would be ready to invade
+France, and sever the communications with Paris of the French armies
+on the frontier. Count Moltke had calculated that the German troops
+intended to cross the French frontier would be in a position to make
+their forward movement by the 4th of August. Pending the development
+of the French strategy with respect to Southern Germany, therefore, he
+thought it prudent to delay the march of the southern contingents, in
+order that no part of the army might be suddenly overwhelmed by a
+superior force. On the actual frontier he placed, then, only a few
+light troops, for the purposes of reconnoitring, and for checking the
+first advance of the enemy until supports should arrive.
+
+The French emperor had, indeed, been keenly alive to the advantages
+which would accrue to himself from a prompt invasion of Southern
+Germany. He designed to concentrate one hundred and fifty thousand men
+at Metz; one hundred thousand at Strasburg; to cross into Baden with
+these armies; while a third, assembling at Chalons, should protect the
+frontier against the German forces. The plan itself was an excellent
+one had he only been able to execute it, for, as we have seen, early
+success in Southern Germany would have meant the armed assistance of
+Austria and Italy. But the French army was in a condition more
+unready, one might truly say, of greater demoralization, thus early,
+than its severest critics had imagined. Considerable forces were
+indeed massed about Metz and Strasburg. But the commissariat and
+transport departments were in a state of the most hopeless confusion.
+The army could not move. To remedy these evils time was wanted, and
+time was the commodity the generals could not command. Every day which
+evoked some little order out of chaos brought the Germans nearer to
+positions, the occupation of which would render impossible the
+contemplated invasion. The emperor had quitted Paris for Metz,
+accompanied by the prince imperial, on the 28th of July, and had
+arrived there and taken the supreme command the same day. The day
+following he met his generals at St. Avoid, and unfolded to them his
+plans. Since war had been declared he had lost many illusions. It had
+become clear to him that he was warring against the concentrated might
+of Germany; that he could not make the inroad into Southern Germany
+originally contemplated without exposing Paris to an attack from
+forces already occupying the country between Treves and Mannheim: that
+he was bound to hold that line. Anxious, however, to assume the
+offensive, he dictated the following plan to his marshals. Bazaine,
+with the Second, Third, and Fifth Army Corps, should cross the Saar at
+Saarbrücken, covered on his left by the Fourth Corps, which should
+make a show of advancing against Saarlouis, while MacMahon, pushing
+forward from his position near Strasburg, should cover his right. The
+emperor had some reason to believe that the Saar was weakly held.
+
+But his own generals showed him that his plan was impossible. They
+represented to him that instead of the three hundred thousand men
+whom, in the delirium of the Paris enthusiasm, he believed he would
+find available for his purposes, he had at the utmost one hundred and
+eighty-six thousand; that in every requirement for moving the army was
+deficient; that there was scarcely a department which was not
+disorganized. He was compelled, therefore, to renounce his plan for
+decisive offensive action. He came to that resolve most unwillingly,
+for Paris was behind him, ready to rise unless he should make some
+show of advancing. It was to reassure the excited spirits of the
+capital, rather than to effect any military result, that on the 2d of
+August, he moved with sixty thousand men in the direction of
+Saarbrücken. The garrison of that place consisted of something less
+than four thousand men with six guns. The emperor attacked it with the
+corps of Frossard, eighteen battalions and four batteries. These
+compelled the slender German garrison to evacuate the place, but
+Frossard, though the bridges across the Saar were not defended, made
+no attempt to cross that river. The soldierly manner in which the
+Germans had covered their retreat had left on his mind the impression
+that they were more numerous than they were, and that there was a
+larger force behind them.
+
+Still, for the only time in the war, the emperor was able to send a
+reassuring telegram to Paris. The young prince, upon whom the hopes of
+the nation would, he hoped, rest, had undergone the "baptism of fire."
+French troops had made the first step in advance.
+
+Soon, however, it became clear to him that the enemy had concentrated
+along the line of the frontier, and were about to make their spring.
+Moltke, in fact, from his headquarters at Mayence, was, by means of
+solitary horsemen employed in profusion, keeping himself thoroughly
+well acquainted not only with the movements of the French, but with
+their vacillation, their irresolution, their want of plan. The sudden
+appearance from unexpected quarters of these horsemen conveyed a
+marked feeling of insecurity to the minds of the French soldiers, and
+these feelings were soon shared by their chiefs. It was very clear to
+them that an attack might at any moment come, though from what quarter
+and in what force they were absolutely ignorant. This ignorance
+increased their vacillations, their uncertainties. Orders and
+counter-orders followed each other with startling rapidity. The
+soldiers, harassed, began to lose confidence; the leaders became more
+and more incapable of adopting a plan.
+
+Suddenly, in the midst of their vacillations, of their marchings and
+counter-marchings, the true report reached them, on the evening of the
+3d of August, that a French division, the outpost of MacMahon's army,
+had been surprised and defeated at Weissenburg by a far superior
+force. Napoleon at once ordered the Fifth Corps to concentrate at
+Bitsche, and despatched a division of the Third to Saarguemünd. These
+orders were followed by others. Those of the 5th of August divided the
+army of the Rhine into two portions, the troops in Alsace being placed
+under MacMahon, those in Lorraine under Bazaine, the emperor retaining
+the Guard. Those of the 7th directed the Second Corps to proceed to
+Bitsche, the Third to Saarguemünd, the Fourth to Haut-Homburg, the
+Guard to St. Avoid. These instructions plainly signified the making of
+a flank movement in front of a superior enemy. With such an army as
+the emperor had, inferior in numbers, many of the regiments as yet
+incomplete, all his resources behind him, and these becoming daily
+more unavailable, his one chance was to concentrate in a position
+commanding the roads behind it, and yet adapted for attack if attack
+should be necessary. As it was, without certain information as to the
+movements of the Germans, anxious to move, yet dreading to do so,
+until his regiments should be completed, the French emperor was
+confused and helpless. He forgot even to transmit to the generals on
+one flank the general directions he had issued to those on the other.
+Bazaine, for instance, was left on the 5th in ignorance of the
+emperor's intentions with respect to MacMahon; on the 6th none of the
+subordinate generals knew that the flank march was contemplated.
+Frossard, who had fallen back to Spicheren, considered his position so
+insecure that he suggested to Leboeuf that he should be allowed to
+retire from the Saarbrücken ridge. He was ordered in reply to fall
+back on Forbach, but no instructions were given him as to the course
+he should pursue in the event of his being attacked, nor were the
+contemplated movements of the emperor communicated to him. In every
+order that was issued there was apparent the confused mind of the
+issuer.
+
+Turn we now to MacMahon and the movements of himself and his generals.
+When the war broke out MacMahon was in the vicinity of Strasburg with
+forty-five thousand men; General Douay with twelve thousand men at
+Weissenburg. The same confusion prevailed here as at Metz. The orders
+given to MacMahon were of the vaguest description: Douay had no
+instructions at all. Yet, in front of him, the German hosts had been
+gathering. The commander of the left wing of the German army, the
+crown prince of Prussia, had, in obedience to the instructions he had
+received, crossed the frontier river, the Lauter, on the 4th of
+August, with an army composed of the Second Bavarian and Fifth
+Prussian army, numbering about forty thousand men, and marched on
+Weissenburg. As his advanced guard approached the town, it was met by
+a heavy fire from the French garrison. The crown prince resolved at
+once to storm the place. Douay had placed his troops in a strong
+position, a portion of his men occupying the town defended by a simple
+wall; the bulk, formed on the Gaisberg, a hill two miles to the south
+of it. Against this position the crown prince directed his chief
+attack. The contest which ensued was most severe, the assailants and
+the defenders vying with one another in determination and courage. But
+the odds in favor of the former were too great to permit Douay to hope
+for ultimate success. After a resistance of five hours' duration the
+Germans carried the Gaisberg. Douay himself was killed; but his
+surviving troops, though beaten, were not discouraged. They
+successfully foiled an attempt made by the Germans to cut off their
+retreat, and fell back on the corps of MacMahon, which lay about ten
+miles to the south of Weissenburg.
+
+The same day on which the crown prince had attacked and carried
+Weissenburg, another German army corps, that of Baden-Würtemberg, a
+part of the Third Army, under the command of the crown prince, had
+advanced on and occupied Lauterburg. That evening the entire Third
+Army, consisting of one hundred and thirty thousand men, bivouacked on
+French ground. Meanwhile MacMahon, on hearing of Douay's defeat, had
+marched to Reichshofen, received there the shattered remnants of
+Douay's division, and, with the emperor's orders under no
+circumstances to decline a battle, took up a position on the hills of
+which Worth, Fröschweiler and Elsasshausen form the central points. He
+had with him forty-seven thousand men, but the Fifth Corps, commanded
+by De Failly, was at Bitsche, seventeen miles from Reichshofen, and
+MacMahon had despatched the most pressing instructions to that officer
+to join him. These orders, however, De Failly did not obey.
+
+The ground on which MacMahon had retired offered many capabilities for
+defence. The central point was the village of Worth on the rivulet
+Sauerbach, which covered the entire front of the position. To the
+right rear of Worth, on the road from Gundershofen, was the village of
+Elsasshausen, covered on its right by the Niederwald, having the
+village of Eberbach on its further side, and the extreme right of the
+position, the village of Morsbronn, to its southeast. Behind Wörth,
+again, distant a little more than two miles on the road to
+Reichshofen, was the key to the position, the village of Fröschweiler.
+From this point the French left was thrown back to a mound, covered by
+a wood, in front of Reichshofen.
+
+On the 5th of August the crown prince had set his army in motion, and
+had rested for the night at Sulz. There information reached him
+regarding the position taken by MacMahon. He immediately issued orders
+for the concentration of his army, and for its march the following
+morning toward the French position, the village of Preuschdorf, on the
+direct road to Wörth, to be the central point of the movement. But the
+previous evening General von Walther, with the Fifth Prussian Corps,
+had reached Görsdorf, a point whence it was easy for him to cross the
+Sauerbach, and take Worth in flank. Marching at four o'clock in the
+morning Walther tried this manoeuvre, and at seven o'clock succeeded
+in driving the French from Wörth. MacMahon then changed his front,
+recovered Wörth, and repulsed likewise an attack which had in the
+meanwhile been directed against Fröschweiler by the Eleventh Prussian
+and Fifth Bavarian Corps.
+
+For a moment it seemed as though he might hold his position. But
+between eleven and twelve the enemy renewed his attack. While one
+corps again attacked and carried Wörth, the Eleventh Prussian Corps,
+aided by sixty guns placed upon the heights of Gunstett, assailed his
+right. They met here a most stubborn resistance, the French
+cuirassiers charging the advancing infantry with the greatest
+resolution. So thoroughly did they devote themselves that they left
+three-fourths of their number dead or dying on the field. But all was
+in vain. The Prussians steadily advanced, forced their way through the
+Niederwald, and threatened Elsasshausen. While the French were thus
+progressing badly on their right, they were faring still worse in the
+centre.
+
+The Germans, having seized Wörth, stormed the hilly slopes between
+that place and Froschweiler, and made a furious assault upon the
+latter, now more than ever the key of the French position. For while
+Froschweiler was their objective centre, their right was thrown back
+toward Elsasshausen and the Niederwald, their left to Reichshofen.
+While the Eleventh Prussians were penetrating the Niederwald,
+preparatory to attacking Elsasshausen on the further side of it, the
+Fifth Prussian Corps with the Second Bavarians were moving against
+Froschweiler. It was clear then to MacMahon that further resistance
+was impossible. Still holding Froschweiler, he evacuated Elsasshausen,
+and drew back his right to Reichshofen. The safety of his army
+depended now upon the tenacity with which Froschweiler might be held.
+It must be admitted, in justice to the French, that they held it with
+a stubborn valor not surpassed during the war. Attacked by
+overwhelming numbers, they defended the place, house by house. At
+length, however, they were overpowered. Then, for the first time, the
+bonds of discipline loosened, and the French, struck by panic, fled,
+in wild disorder, in the direction of Saverne. They reached that place
+by a march across the hills the following evening. On their way they
+fell in with one of the divisions of the corps of de Failly, and this
+served to cover the retreat.
+
+Though their defeat, considering the enormous superiority of their
+assailants, might be glorious, it was doubly disastrous, inasmuch that
+it followed those perturbations of spirit alluded to in a previous
+page, which had done so much to discourage the French soldier. A
+victory at Worth might have done much to redeem past mistakes. A
+defeat emphasized them enormously. It was calculated that, inclusive
+of the nine thousand prisoners taken by the Germans, the French lost
+twenty-four thousand men. The loss of the victors amounted to ten
+thousand. They captured thirty-three guns, two eagles, and six
+mitrailleuses.
+
+The emperor was deeply pained by the result of the battle. To keep up,
+if possible, the spirits of his partisans, he wired on the evening of
+the 7th to Paris, with the news of the defeat, the words, "tout se
+peut retablir." He was mistaken. While the crown prince was crushing
+MacMahon at Wörth, the imperial troops were being beaten at Spicheren
+as well.
+
+Thereafter the German advance was hardly checked for a moment, though
+the losses on both sides were heavy. On the 18th of August was fought
+the battle of Gravelotte, in which King William commanded in person,
+and though his troops suffered immense loss, they were again
+victorious, and forced Bazaine to shut himself up in Metz, which he
+subsequently surrendered. In this battle, one of the most decisive of
+the war, it is worth noting that the Germans outnumbered the French by
+more than two to one. The exact figures are uncertain, but we shall
+probably be correct in accepting 230,000 as the strength of the
+Germans, and in estimating the French outside of Metz at 110,000.
+
+We now come to Sedan. With the army of Bazaine beleaguered, there
+remained, in the opinion of the German chiefs--an opinion not
+justified by events--only the army of MacMahon. To remove that army
+from the path which led to Paris was the task intrusted to the crown
+prince. MacMahon, meanwhile, after his defeat at Wörth, had fallen
+back with the disordered remnants of his army on Chalons, there to
+reorganize and strengthen it. Much progress had been made in both
+respects, when, after the result of the battle of Gravelotte had been
+known in Paris, he received instructions from the Count of Palikao to
+march with the four army corps at his disposal northward toward the
+Meuse, and to give a hand to the beleaguered Bazaine.
+
+MacMahon prepared to obey. But circumstances ordered otherwise. On the
+night of August 31st, accompanied by the emperor--who, having
+transferred his authority to the Empress Eugenie and his command to
+Bazaine, followed the army as mere spectator--MacMahon reached Sedan,
+and there ranged his troops so as to meet an attack which he foresaw
+inevitable, and fatal too. Placing his strongest force to the east,
+his right wing was at Bazeilles and the left at Illy. The ground in
+front of his main defence was naturally strong, the entire front being
+covered by the Givonne rivulet, and the slopes to that rivulet, on the
+French side of it.
+
+The possibility that the French marshal would accept battle at Sedan
+had been considered at the German headquarters on the night of the
+31st, and arrangements had been made to meet his wishes. The army of
+the crown prince of Saxony (the Fourth Army) occupied the right of the
+German forces, the Bavarian Corps formed the centre, and the Prussians
+the left wing. The advanced troops of the army were ranged in the
+following order. On the right stood the Twelfth Corps, then the Fourth
+Prussian Corps, the Prussian Guards, and finally the Fourth Cavalry
+Division, their backs to Remilly. From this point they were linked to
+the First and Second Bavarian Corps, opposite Bazeilles; they, in
+turn, to the Eleventh and Fifth Corps; and they, at Dom-le-Mesnil, to
+the Würtembergers. The Sixth Prussian Corps was placed in reserve
+between Attigny and Le Chene.
+
+A word now as to the nature of the ground on which the impending
+battle was to be fought. Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the
+valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and,
+within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette,
+Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left
+bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the
+river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan. The character
+of the locality may best be described as a ground covered with fruit
+gardens and vineyards, narrow streets shut in by stone walls, the
+roads overhung by forests, the egress from which was in many places
+steep and abrupt. Such was the ground. One word now as to the troops.
+
+The German army before Sedan counted, all told, 240,000 men; the
+French 180,000. But the disparity in numbers was the least of the
+differences between the two armies. The one was flushed with victory,
+the other dispirited by defeat. The one had absolute confidence in
+their generals and their officers, the other had the most supreme
+contempt for theirs. The one had marched from Metz on a settled plan,
+to be modified according to circumstances, the drift of which was
+apparent to the meanest soldier; the other had been marched hither and
+thither, now toward Montmedy, now toward Paris, then again back toward
+Montmedy, losing much time; the men eager for a pitched battle, then
+suddenly surprised through the carelessness of their commanders, and
+compelled at last to take refuge in a town from which there was no
+issue. There was hardly an officer of rank who knew aught about the
+country in which he found himself. The men were longing to fight to
+the death, but they, one and all, distrusted their leaders. It did not
+tend, moreover, to the encouragement of the army to see the now
+phantom emperor, without authority to command even a corporal's guard,
+dragged about the country, more as a pageant than a sovereign. He,
+poor man, was much to be pitied. He keenly felt his position, and
+longed for the day when he might, in a great battle, meet the glorious
+death which France might accept as an atonement for his misfortunes.
+
+The battle began at daybreak on the morning of the 1st of September.
+Under cover of a brisk artillery fire, the Bavarians advanced, and
+opened, at six o'clock, a very heavy musketry fire on Bazeilles. The
+masonry buildings of this village were all armed and occupied, and
+they were defended very valiantly. The defenders drove back the enemy
+as they advanced and kept them at bay for two hours. Then the Saxons
+came up to the aid of the Bavarians, and forced the first position.
+Still the defence continued, and the clocks were striking ten when the
+Bavarians succeeded in entering the place. Even then a house-to-house
+defence prolonged the battle, and it was not until every house but
+one[2] had been either stormed or burned that the Germans could call
+the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile,
+on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St.
+Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a
+sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it
+slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their
+ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single
+aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the emperor,
+cool, calm, and full of sorrow, earnestly longing for the shell or the
+bullet which should give a soldier's finish to his career. MacMahon,
+too, was there, doing all that a general could do to encourage his
+men. The enemy were, however, gradually but surely making way. To
+hedge the French within the narrowest compass, the Fifth and Eleventh
+Corps of the Third Army had crossed the Meuse to the left of Sedan,
+and were marching now to roll up the French left. But before their
+attack had been felt, an event had occurred full of significance for
+the French army.
+
+Early in the day, while yet the Bavarians were fighting to get
+possession of Bazeilles, Marshal MacMahon was so severely wounded that
+he had to be carried from the field into Sedan. He made over the
+command of the army to General Ducrot. That general had even before
+recognized the impossibility of maintaining the position before Sedan
+against the superior numbers of the German army, and had seen that the
+one chance of saving his army was to fall back on Mezieres. He at
+once, then, on assuming command, issued orders to that effect. But it
+was already too late. The march by the defile of St. Albert had been
+indeed possible at any time during the night or in the very early
+morning. But it was now no longer so. The German troops swarmed in the
+plains of Donchery, and the route by Carignan could only be gained by
+passing over the bodies of a more numerous and still living foe. Still
+Ducrot had given the order, and the staff officers did their utmost to
+cause it to be obeyed. The crowded streets of Sedan were being
+vacated, when suddenly the orders were countermanded. General Wimpffen
+had arrived from Paris the previous day to replace the incapable De
+Failly in command of the Fifth Corps, carrying in his pocket an order
+from the Minister of War to assume the command-in-chief in the event
+of any accident to MacMahon. The emperor had no voice in the matter,
+for, while the regency of the empress existed, he no longer
+represented the government. The two generals met, and, after a
+somewhat lively discussion, Ducrot was forced to acknowledge the
+authority of the minister. Wimpffen then assumed command. His first
+act was to countermand the order to retreat on Mezieres, and to direct
+the troops to reassume the positions they had occupied when MacMahon
+had been wounded. This order was carried out as far as was possible.
+
+Meanwhile the Germans were pressing more and more those positions.
+About midday the Guards, having made their way step by step, each one
+bravely contested, gave their hand to the left wing of the Third Army.
+Then Illy and Floing, which had been defended with extraordinary
+tenacity, as the keys of the advanced French position, were stormed.
+The conquest of those heights completed the investment of Sedan. There
+was now no possible egress for the French. Their soldiers retreated
+into the town and the suburbs, while five hundred German guns hurled
+their missiles, their round shot and their shells, against the walls
+and the crowded masses behind them.
+
+Vainly then did Wimpffen direct an assembly in mass of his men to
+break through the serried columns of the enemy. In the disordered
+state of the French army the thing was impossible. The emperor, who
+had courted death in vain, recognized the truth, and, desirous to
+spare the sacrifice of life produced by the continued cannonade,
+ordered, on his own responsibility, the hoisting of a white flag on
+the highest point of the defences, as a signal of surrender. But the
+firing still continued, and Wimpffen, still bent on breaking through,
+would not hear of surrender. Then Napoleon despatched his chief
+aide-de-camp, General Keille, with a letter to the king of Prussia.
+
+King William early that day had taken his stand on an eminence which
+commanded an extensive view and which rises a little south of Frenois.
+There, his staff about him, he watched the progress of the fight.
+Toward this eminence Reille rode. Walking his horse up the steep, he
+dismounted, and raising his cap presented the letter. King William,
+breaking the imperial seal, read these phrases, which, if somewhat
+dramatic, are striking in their brevity:[3]
+
+"MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu
+de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu' à remettre mon epée entre
+les mains de Votre Majeste.
+
+"Je suis de Votre Majeste,
+"le bon Frere,
+
+"NAPOLÉON.
+
+"Sédan, le 1er Septembre, 1870."
+
+"Only one half hour earlier," writes Mr. George Hooper in his
+"Campaign of Sedan," "had the information been brought that the
+emperor was in Sedan." Mr. Hooper adds:
+
+"The king conferred with his son, who had been hastily summoned, and
+with others of his trusty servants, all deeply moved by complex
+emotions at the grandeur of their victory. What should be done? The
+emperor spoke for himself only, and his surrender would not settle the
+great issue. It was necessary to obtain something definite, and the
+result of a short conference was that Count Hatzfeldt, instructed by
+the chancellor, retired to draft a reply. 'After some minutes he
+brought it,' writes Dr. Busch, 'and the king wrote it out, sitting on
+one chair, while the seat of a second was held up by Major von Alten,
+who knelt on one knee and supported the chair on the other.' The
+king's letter, brief and business-like, began and ended with the
+customary royal forms, and ran as follows:
+
+"'Regretting the circumstances in which we meet, I accept your
+Majesty's sword, and beg that you will be good enough to name an
+officer furnished with full powers to treat for the capitulation of
+the army which has fought so bravely under your orders. On my side I
+have designated General von Moltke for that purpose.'
+
+"General Reille returned to his master, and as he rode down the hill
+the astounding purport of his visit flew from lip to lip through the
+exulting army which now hoped that, after this colossal success, the
+days of ceaseless marching and fighting would soon end. As a contrast
+to this natural outburst of joy and hope we may note the provident
+Moltke, who was always resolved to 'mak siker.' His general order,
+issued at once, suspending hostilities during the night, declared that
+they would begin again in the morning should the negotiations produce
+no result. In that case, he said, the signal for battle would be the
+reopening of fire by the batteries on the heights east of Frenois.
+
+"The signal was not given. Late on the evening of September 1st a
+momentous session was held in Donchery, the little town which commands
+a bridge over the Meuse below Sedan. On one side of a square table
+covered with red baize sat General von Moltke, having on his right
+hand the quartermaster-general Von Podbielski, according to one
+account, and Von Blumenthal according to another, and behind them
+several officers, while Count von Nostitz stood near the hearth to
+take notes. Opposite to Von Moltke sat De Wimpffen alone; while in
+rear, 'almost in the shade,' were General Faure, Count Castelnau, and
+other Frenchmen, among whom was a cuirassier, Captain d'Orcet, who had
+observant eyes and a retentive memory. Then there ensued a brief
+silence, for Von Moltke looked straight before him and said nothing,
+while De Wimpffen, oppressed by the number present, hesitated to
+engage in a debate 'with the two men admitted to be the most capable
+of our age, each in his kind.' But he soon plucked up courage, and
+frankly accepted the conditions of the combat. What terms, he asked,
+would the king of Prussia grant to a valiant army which, could he have
+had his will, would have continued to fight? 'They are very simple,'
+answered Von Moltke. 'The entire army, with arms and baggage, must
+surrender as prisoners of war.' 'Very hard,' replied the Frenchman.
+'We merit better treatment. Could you not be satisfied with the
+fortress and the artillery, and allow the army to retire with arms,
+flags and baggage, on condition of serving no more against Germany
+during the war?' No. 'Moltke,' said Bismarck, recounting the
+interview, 'coldly persisted in his demand,' or as the attentive
+d'Orcet puts it, 'Von Moltke was pitiless.' Then De Wimpffen tried to
+soften his grim adversary by painting his own position. He had just
+come from the depths of the African desert; he had an irreproachable
+military reputation; he had taken command in the midst of a battle,
+and found himself obliged to set his name to a disastrous
+capitulation. 'Can you not,' he said, 'sympathize with an officer in
+such a plight, and soften, for me, the bitterness of my situation by
+granting more honorable conditions?' He painted in moving terms his
+own sad case, and described what he might have done; but seeing that
+his personal pleadings were unheeded, he took a tone of defiance, less
+likely to prevail. 'If you will not give better terms,' he went on, 'I
+shall appeal to the honor of the army, and break out, or, at least,
+defend Sedan.' Then the German general struck in with emphasis, 'I
+regret that I cannot do what you ask,' he said; 'but as to making a
+sortie, that is just as impossible as the defence of Sedan. You have
+some excellent troops, but the greater part of your infantry is
+demoralized. To-day, during the battle, we captured more than twenty
+thousand unwounded prisoners. You have only eighty thousand men left.
+My troops and guns around the town would smash yours before they could
+make a movement; and as to defending Sedan, you have not provisions
+for eight-and-forty hours, nor ammunition which would suffice for that
+period.' Then, says De Wimpffen, he entered into details respecting
+our situation, which, 'unfortunately, were too true,' and he offered
+to permit an officer to verify his statements, an offer which the
+Frenchman did not then accept.
+
+"Beaten off the military ground, De Wimpffen sought refuge in
+politics. 'It is your interest, from a political standpoint, to grant
+us honorable conditions,' he said. 'France is generous and chivalric,
+responsive to generosity, and grateful for consideration. A peace,
+based on conditions which would flatter the amour-propre of the army,
+and diminish the bitterness of defeat, would be durable; whereas
+rigorous measures would awaken bad passions, and, perhaps, bring on an
+endless war between France and Prussia.' The new ground broken called
+up Bismarck, 'because the matter seemed to belong to my province,' he
+observed when telling the story; and he was very outspoken as usual.
+'I said to him that we might build on the gratitude of a prince, but
+certainly not on the gratitude of a people--least of all on the
+gratitude of the French. That in France neither institutions nor
+circumstances were enduring; that governments and dynasties were
+constantly changing, and the one need not carry out what the other had
+bound itself to do. That if the emperor had been firm on his throne,
+his gratitude for our granting good conditions might have been counted
+upon; but as things stood it would be folly if we did not make full
+use of our success. That the French were a nation full of envy and
+jealousy, that they had been much mortified by our success at
+Koniggratz, and could not forgive it, though it in nowise damaged
+them. How, then, should any magnanimity on our side move them not to
+bear us a grudge for Sedan.' This Wimpffen would not admit. 'France,'
+he said, 'had much changed latterly; it had learned under the empire
+to think more of the interests of peace than of the glory of war.
+France was ready to proclaim the fraternity of nations;' and more of
+the same kind. Captain d'Orcet reports that, in addition, Bismarck
+denied that France had changed, and that to curb her mania for glory,
+to punish her pride, her aggressive and ambitious character, it was
+imperative that there should be a glacis between France and Germany.
+'We must have territory, fortresses and frontiers which will shelter
+us forever from an attack on her part.' Further remonstrances from De
+Wimpffen only drew down fresh showers of rough speech very trying to
+bear, and when Bismarck said, 'We cannot change our conditions,' De
+Wimpffen exclaimed, 'Very well; it is equally impossible for me to
+sign such a capitulation, and we shall renew the battle.'
+
+"Here Count Castelnau interposed meekly to say, on behalf of the
+emperor, that he had surrendered, personally, in the hope that his
+self-sacrifice would induce the king to grant the army honorable
+terms. 'Is that all?' Bismarck inquired. 'Yes,' said the Frenchman.
+'But what is the sword surrendered,' asked the chancellor; 'is it his
+own sword, or the sword of France?' 'It is only the sword of the
+emperor,' was Castelnau's reply. 'Well, there is no use talking about
+other conditions,' said Von Moltke, sharply, while a look of
+contentment and gratification passed over his face, according to
+Bismarck; one 'almost joyful,' writes the keen Captain d'Orcet. 'After
+the last words of Von Moltke,' he continues, 'De Wimpffen exclaimed,
+"We shall renew the battle." "The truce," retorted the German general,
+"expires to-morrow morning at four o'clock. At four, precisely, I
+shall open fire." We were all standing. After Von Moltke's words no
+one spoke a syllable. The silence was icy.' But then Bismarck
+intervened to soothe excited feelings, and called on his soldier-
+comrade to show, once more, how impossible resistance had become. The
+group sat down again at the red baize-covered table, and Von Moltke
+began his demonstration afresh. 'Ah,' said De Wimpffen, 'your
+positions are not so strong as you would have us believe them to be.'
+'You do not know the topography of the country about Sedan,' was Von
+Moltke's true and crushing answer. 'Here is a bizarre detail which
+illustrates the presumptuous and inconsequent character of your
+people,' he went on, now thoroughly aroused. 'When the war began you
+supplied your officers with maps of Germany at a time when they could
+not study the geography of their own country for want of French maps.
+I tell you that our positions are not only very strong, they are
+inexpugnable.' It was then that De Wimpffen, unable to reply, wished
+to accept the offer made but not accepted at an earlier period, and to
+send an officer to verify these assertions. 'You will send nobody,'
+exclaimed the iron general. 'It is useless, and you can believe my
+word. Besides, you have not long to reflect. It is now midnight; the
+truce ends at four o'clock, and I will grant no delay.' Driven to his
+last ditch, De Wimpffen pleaded that he must consult his fellow-
+generals, and he could not obtain their opinions by four o'clock. Once
+more the diplomatic peacemaker intervened, and Von Moltke agreed to
+fix the final limit at nine. 'He gave way at last,' says Bismarck,
+'when I showed him that it could do no harm.' The conference so
+dramatic broke up, and each one went his way; but, says the German
+official narrative, 'as it was not doubtful that the hostile army,
+completely beaten and nearly surrounded, would be obliged to submit to
+the clauses already indicated, the great headquarter staff was
+occupied, that very night, in drawing up the text of the
+capitulation,' a significant and practical comment, showing what stuff
+there was behind the severe language which, at the midnight meeting,
+fell from the Chief of that able and sleepless body of chosen men.
+
+"From this conference General de Wimpffen went straight to the wearied
+emperor, who had gone to bed. But he received his visitor, who told
+him that the proposed conditions were hard, and that the sole chance
+of mitigation lay in the efforts of his Majesty. 'General,' said the
+emperor, 'I shall start at five o'clock for the German headquarters,
+and I shall see whether the king will be more favorable;' for he seems
+to have become possessed of an idea that King William would personally
+treat with him. The emperor kept his word. Believing that he would be
+permitted to return to Sedan, he drove forth without bidding farewell
+to any of his troops; but, as the drawbridge of Torcy was lowered and
+he passed over, the Zouaves on duty shouted 'Vive l'Empereur!' This
+cry was 'the last adieu which fell on his ears' as we read in the
+narrative given to the world on his behalf. He drove in a droshki
+toward Donchery, preceded by General Reille, who, before six o'clock,
+awoke Bismarck from his slumbers, and warned him that the emperor
+desired to speak with him. 'I went with him directly,' said Bismarck,
+in a conversation reported by Busch; 'and got on my horse, all dusty
+and dirty as I was, in an old cap and my great waterproof boots, to
+ride to Sedan, where I supposed him to be.' But he met him on the
+highroad near Frenois, 'sitting in a two-horse carriage.' Beside him
+was the Prince de la Moskowa, and on horseback Castelnau and Reille.
+'I gave the military salute,' says Bismarck. 'He took his cap off and
+the officers did the same; whereupon I took off mine, although it was
+contrary to rule. He said, "Couvrez-vous, done." I behaved to him just
+as if in St. Cloud, and asked his commands.' Naturally, he wanted to
+see the king, but that could not be allowed. Then Bismarck placed his
+quarters in Donchery at the emperor's disposal, but he declined the
+courtesy, and preferred to rest in a house by the wayside. The cottage
+of a Belgian weaver unexpectedly became famous; a one-storied house,
+painted yellow, with white shutters and Venetian blinds. He and the
+chancellor entered the house, and went up to the first floor where
+there was 'a little room with one window. It was the best in the
+house, but had only one deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs.' In
+that lowly abode they talked together of many things for three-
+quarters of an hour, among others about the origin of the war--which,
+it seems, neither desired--the emperor asserting, Bismarck reports,
+that 'he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion,' a
+very inadequate representation of the curious incidents which preceded
+the fatal decision. But when the emperor began to ask for more
+favorable terms, he was told that, on a military question, Von Moltke
+alone could speak. On the other hand, Bismarck's request to know who
+now had authority to make peace was met by a reference to 'the
+Government in Paris'; so that no progress was made. Then 'we must
+stand to our demands with regard to the Army of Sedan,' said Bismarck.
+General von Moltke was summoned, and 'Napoleon III. demanded that
+nothing should be decided before he had seen the king, for he hoped to
+obtain from his Majesty some favorable concessions for the army.' The
+German official narrative of the war states that the emperor expressed
+a wish that the army might be permitted to enter Belgium, but that, of
+course, the chief of the staff could not accept the proposal. General
+von Moltke forthwith set out for Vendresse, where the king was, to
+report progress. He met his Majesty on the road, and there 'the king
+fully approved the proposed conditions of capitulation, and declared
+that he would not see the emperor until the terms prescribed had been
+accepted'; a decision which gratified the chancellor as well as the
+chief of the staff. 'I did not wish them to come together,' observed
+the count, 'until we had settled the matter of the capitulation';
+sparing the feelings of both and leaving the business to the hard
+military men.
+
+"The emperor lingered about in the garden of the weaver's cottage; he
+seems to have desired fresh air after his unpleasant talk with the
+chancellor. Dr. Moritz Busch, who had hurried to the spot, has left a
+characteristic description of the emperor. He saw there 'a little
+thick-set man,' wearing jauntily a red cap with a gold border, a black
+paletôt lined with red, red trousers, and white kid gloves. 'The look
+in his light gray eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of
+people who have lived hard. His whole appearance,' says the irreverent
+Busch, 'was a little unsoldierlike. The man looked too soft, I might
+say too shabby, for the uniform he wore.' While one scene in the
+stupendous drama was performed at the weaver's cottage, another was
+acted or endured in Sedan, where De Wimpffen had summoned the generals
+to consider the terms of capitulation. He has given his own account of
+the incident; but the fullest report is supplied by Lebrun. There were
+present at this council of war more than thirty generals. With tearful
+eyes and a voice broken by sobs, the unhappy and most ill-starred De
+Wimpffen described his interview and conflict with Von Moltke and
+Bismarck, and its dire result--the army to surrender as prisoners of
+war, the officers alone to retain their arms, and by way of mitigating
+the rigor of these conditions, full permission to return home would be
+given to any officer, provided he would engage in writing and on honor
+not to serve again during the war. The generals, save one or two, and
+these finally acquiesced, felt that the conditions could not be
+refused; but they were indignant at the clause suggesting that the
+officers might escape the captivity which would befall their soldiers,
+provided they would engage to become mere spectators of the invasion
+of their country. In the midst of these mournful deliberations Captain
+von Zingler, a messenger from Von Moltke, entered, and the scene
+became still more exciting. 'I am instructed,' he said, 'to remind you
+how urgent it is that you should come to a decision. At ten o'clock,
+precisely, if you have not come to a resolution, the German batteries
+will fire on Sedan. It is now nine, and I shall have barely time to
+carry your answer to headquarters.' To this sharp summons De Wimpffen
+answered that he could not decide until he knew the result of the
+interview between the emperor and the king.' 'That interview,' said
+the stern captain, 'will not in any way affect the military
+operations, which can only he determined by the generals who have full
+power to resume or stop the strife.' It was, indeed, as Lebrun
+remarked, useless to argue with a captain charged to state a fact; and
+at the general's suggestion De Wimpffen agreed to accompany Captain
+von Zingler to the German headquarters.
+
+"These were, for the occasion, the Château de Bellevue, where the
+emperor himself had been induced to take up his abode, and about
+eleven o'clock, in a room under the imperial chamber, De Wimpffen put
+his name at the foot of the document drawn up, during the night, by
+the German staff. Then he sought out the emperor, and, greatly moved,
+told him that 'all was finished.' His majesty, he writes, 'with tears
+in his eyes, approached me, pressed my hand, and embraced me,' and 'my
+sad and painful duty having been accomplished, I remounted my horse
+and road back to Sedan, '"la mort dans l'âme."'
+
+"So soon as the convention was signed, the king arrived, accompanied
+by the crown prince. Three years before, as the emperor reminds us in
+the writing attributed to him, the king had been his guest in Paris,
+where all the sovereigns of Europe had come to behold the marvels of
+the famous Exhibition. 'Now,' so runs the lamentation, 'betrayed by
+fortune, Napoleon III. had lost all, and had placed in the hands of
+his conqueror the sole thing left him--his liberty.' And he goes on to
+say, in general terms, that the king deeply sympathized with his
+misfortunes, but nevertheless could not grant better conditions to the
+army. 'He told the emperor that the castle of Wilhelmshohe had been
+selected as his residence; the crown prince then entered and cordially
+shook hands with Napoleon; and at the end of a quarter of an hour the
+king withdrew. The emperor was permitted to send a telegram in cipher
+to the empress, to tell her what had happened, and urge her to
+negotiate a peace.' Such is the bald record of this impressive event.
+The telegram, which reached the empress at four o'clock on the
+afternoon of the 3d, was in these words: 'The army is defeated and
+captive; I myself am a prisoner.'
+
+"For one day more the fallen sovereign rested at Bellevue to meditate
+on the caprices of fortune or the decrees of fate. But that day, at
+the head of a splendid company of princes and generals, King William,
+crossing the bridge of Donchery, rode throughout the whole vast extent
+of the German lines, to greet his hardy warriors and be greeted by
+them on the very scene of their victories. And well they deserved
+regal gratitude, for together with their comrades who surrounded Metz,
+by dint of long swift marches and steadfast valor, they had overcome
+two great armies in thirty days.
+
+"During the battle of Sedan, the Germans lost in killed and wounded
+8,924 officers and men. On the other hand, the French lost 3,000
+killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 captured in the battle. The number
+of prisoners by capitulation was 83,000, while 3,000 were disarmed in
+Belgium, and a few hundreds, more or less, made their way by devious
+routes near and over the frontier, to Mezières, Rocroi, and other
+places in France. In addition, were taken one eagle and two flags, 419
+field guns and mitrailleuses, 139 garrison guns, many wagons, muskets,
+and horses. On the day after the surrender, the French soldiers,
+having stacked their arms in Sedan, marched into the peninsula formed
+by the deep loop of the Meuse--'le Camp de Misère' as they called
+it--and were sent thence in successive batches, numbered by thousands,
+to Germany. Such was the astonishing end of the Army of Chalons, which
+had been impelled to its woful doom by the Comte de Palikao and the
+Paris politicians."
+
+Here closes the first and most dramatic phase of the war. Thereafter
+the enemy was smitten hip and thigh. At once hurry orders were given
+to open the line which led from Nancy to Paris. What followed must be
+briefly told.
+
+On the 5th of September the king of Prussia entered Rheims. On the 8th
+Laon surrendered. On the 15th advanced troops halted within three
+hours of the capital of France, making a half circle round its
+defences. This investment Ducrot--who had escaped from Sedan--
+attempted to prevent. His resources consisted in the Thirteenth Corps
+under General Vinoy, and the Fourteenth under General Renault, and
+18,000 marines, excellent soldiers, a total of 88,000 regular troops.
+He had also in the camps of Vincennes and St. Maur 100,000
+Garde-Mobiles, only very imperfectly disciplined; 10,000 volunteers
+from the provinces, resolute men, prepared to give their lives for
+their country; the National Guard, composed of sixty old and a hundred
+and ninety-four new battalions which, with other miscellaneous
+volunteers of Paris, numbered perhaps 200,000 men, not, however,
+thoroughly to be depended upon. Altogether the defenders numbered
+about 400,000, but of these only the 88,000 regular troops and the
+10,000 volunteers from the provinces could be reckoned as trustworthy.
+
+Nevertheless, the Third German Army had no difficulty in establishing
+itself in a position embracing the southern and southeastern front of
+the city, from Sèvres to the Marne; the Fourth Army faced the
+northeast and northern front, the cavalry the west front, so far as
+the windings of the Seine would permit it. On the 5th of October the
+crown prince took up his headquarters at Versailles, those of the king
+being at Ferrières, the seat of the Paris Rothschilds. Here took
+place, on the 19th October, the famous interview between the French
+foreign minister, Jules Favre, and Bismarck, in which the former made
+his declaration that France would surrender neither one inch of her
+territories nor one stone of her fortresses. The interview remained
+without result.
+
+Meanwhile the fortress of Toul had surrendered. Strasburg, after a
+siege of six weeks, also surrendered, and, on October 27, Bazaine
+handed over Metz and an army consisting of three marshals of France,
+6,000 officers, and 173,000 soldiers--an act for which after the
+conclusion of the war he was court-martialled, declared guilty of
+treason, and sentenced to death and degradation. The then president of
+the republic, Marshal MacMahon, commuted the death sentence into one
+of imprisonment for twenty years. Confined in the fort of the island
+St. Marguerite, near Cannes, Bazaine escaped, and lived in Spain till
+his death.
+
+Bazaine's surrender made the Germans masters of one of the strongest
+fortresses in Europe, with 800 heavy guns, 102 mitrailleuses, 300,000
+Chassepots, and placed at the disposal of the king an entire
+blockading army.
+
+It was at this juncture that Gambetta astonished the world. Reaching
+Tours in a balloon from Paris, and there assuming the ministry of war,
+he became practically dictator of France. Thence he issued a
+proclamation to the people of France, urging them to continue their
+resistance to the bitter end, and directed that all men, capable of
+bearing arms, should lend their hands to the work, and should join the
+troops of the line at Tours. In this way he formed an Army of the
+North, and an Army of the Loire, and, later, an Army of the East. In
+all respects he displayed a fertility of resource which astounded. He
+obtained arms, uniforms, munitions, and other necessaries from foreign
+countries, especially from England. He bestowed the greatest pains in
+selecting as generals of the new levies men who should be real
+soldiers. Under his inspiring influence the war in the provinces
+assumed a very serious complexion. France had responded nobly to the
+call he had made upon her people. Early reverses gave vigor to the new
+levies, and they fought with energy against the Bavarians under Von
+der Than at Arthenay and Orleans, and against the division of Wittich
+at Châteaudun and Chartres. But they were fighting against increasing
+odds. Every day brought reinforcements to the Germans.
+
+With the exception of a momentary gleam of success on the Loire,
+France met with nothing but disaster. In Paris matters were critical.
+Every one of the different sorties made by her defenders had been
+repulsed; the hope by which the spirits of her defenders had been
+buoyed was vanishing fast: famine was approaching with giant strides;
+the strong places outside the circle of her defences were falling one
+after another; the fire of the enemy was, by the nearer approach of
+their troops, becoming more concentrated and more severe. Peace must
+be had. On January 28th, then, there was concluded at Versailles an
+armistice for three weeks. Then a national assembly was summoned to
+Bordeaux to consider how peace might be restored. In that assembly
+Thiers received full administrative powers, including the power of
+nominating his own ministers. He himself, with Jules Favre, undertook
+the negotiations with Bismarck. To insure the success of those
+negotiations the armistice was twice prolonged. This was done at the
+instance of Thiers, for the conditions insisted upon by Bismarck were
+hard, and the French statesman struggled with all his energies to
+induce him to abate his demands. Especially did he strive to save
+Metz, or, at least, to receive Luxemburg in compensation.
+
+But his endeavors were fruitless. The utmost that Bismarck would do
+was not to insist upon securing the still unconquered Belfort.
+Despairing of moving him further, Thiers and Favre gave way on the
+24th of February, and signed the preliminaries of peace. They were,
+first, the transfer to Germany of the northeast portion of Lorraine,
+with Metz and Diedenhofen, and of Alsace, Belfort excepted; second,
+the payment to Germany by France of one milliard of francs in 1871,
+and four milliards in the three years following; third, the Germans to
+begin to evacuate French territory immediately after the ratification
+of the treaty; Paris and its forts on the left bank of the Seine and
+certain departments at once; the forts on the right bank after the
+ratification and the payment of the first half milliard. After the
+payment of two milliards the German occupation of the departments
+Marne, Ardennes, Upper Marne, Meuae, the Vosges, and Meurthe, and the
+fortress of Belfort should cease. Interest at five per cent to be
+charged on the milliards remaining unpaid from the date of
+ratification; fourth, the German troops remaining in France to make no
+requisitions on the departments in which they were located, but to be
+fed at the cost of France; fifth, the inhabitants of the sequestered
+provinces to be allowed a certain fixed time in which to make their
+choice between the two countries; sixth, all prisoners to be at once
+restored; seventh, a treaty embodying all these terms to be settled at
+Brussels. It was further arranged that the German army should not
+occupy Paris, but should content itself with marching through the
+city.
+
+Meanwhile, negotiations between the statesmen and governments of
+Germany resulted in a proposal to King William that, as head of the
+confederation, he should assume the title of German emperor. A
+resolution to that effect was passed by the North German Reichstag on
+the 9th of December, and a deputation proceeded to the royal
+headquarters at Versailles, where, on the 18th of December, the
+imperial crown was offered to the brother of the king who had once
+refused it. Deeply touched, King William accepted, and in the palace
+of Louis XIV., surrounded by a brilliant assembly of princes,
+officers, and ministers of state, the venerable monarch was proclaimed
+Deutscher Kaiser.
+
+Then at last was the dream of centuries realized. At last was the
+empire restored. Not the Holy Roman Empire, not the empire of the
+Middle Ages, but the empire as a national state.
+
+Under the leadership of Bismarck, to whom the restoration of the
+empire was directly due, the new Reich began its organization as a
+united federation. Among its earliest difficulties was an
+ecclesiastical contest with the Church of Rome. Known as the
+Kulturkampf, this struggle was an effort to vindicate the right of the
+state to interfere in the affairs of all German religious societies.
+Another difficulty which demanded government interference was the
+Judenhetze, or persecution of the Jews, which reached a climax in
+1881. A further difficulty was encountered in the quick growth of
+socialism. Two attempts on the life of the kaiser were attributed to
+it, and a plot being discovered, which had for object the elimination
+of the emperor and other German rulers, repressive measures resulted.
+Meanwhile an alliance offensive and defensive between Germany and
+Austria had been formed, into which Italy subsequently entered.
+
+On March 9, 1888, the Emperor William I. died. His son, Frederick, at
+that time suffering from a cancerous affection of the throat, became
+kaiser. Three months later he also died, and William II. succeeded
+him.
+
+The latter's first step of any importance was to get in front of half
+a million bayonets. Coincidently he declared that those bayonets and
+he--or rather he and those bayonets--were born for one another.
+Incidentally he announced that he was a monarch, specially conceived,
+specially created, specially ordained by the Almighty.
+
+The step and the remarks were tantamount to a call to quarters. It
+would be dramatic to state that the circumjacent territories trembled,
+but it is exact to affirm that there was a war scare at once, one
+which by no means diminished when a little later he showed Bismarck
+the door.
+
+As already noted, the refounding of the empire was Bismarck's work. To
+achieve his purpose he had--to again quote Colonel Malleson--defied
+parliaments and people. He had led his master and his country over
+abysses, in the traversing of which one false step would have been
+fatal. Aided a great deal by the wretched diplomacy of Austria, by the
+deterioration of the powers of the French emperor, and by his sublime
+audacity, he had compelled to his will all the moral difficulties of
+the undertaking. Von Boon and Moltke had done the rest. No longer,
+however, was he allowed to put forth his hand to sustain the work
+which he had created. For him it had been better to die, like Von
+Boon, like Moltke, keeping to the end the confidence of his sovereign,
+than to feel himself impelled, dismissed from office, to pour out his
+grievances to every passing listener, to speak in terms not far
+removed from treason of the sovereign who had declined to be his
+pupil. Was it for this, he must have muttered, that I forced on the
+war which gave Prussia Schleswig and Holstein in 1864; that I
+compelled unwilling Austria to declare war in 1866; that, by the
+freest circulation of exaggerated statements, I roused a bitter
+feeling in Germany against France, and excited the statesmen, and,
+above all, the mob, of Paris in 1870?--for this, that, the work
+accomplished, an empire given to the Hohenzollerns, I might be cast
+aside like a squeezed-out orange? Well might these be his thoughts,
+for it was he who made possible the task of German unity, though in a
+manner which will commend itself only to those who argue that the end
+justifies the means.
+
+A journalist wrote a pamphlet on the subject. In it he compared the
+kaiser to Caligula. For his pains he was sent to jail. He might better
+have been sent to school. Caligula was a poet in love with the moon.
+The kaiser is a poseur in love with himself. One of Caligula's many
+diversions was killing his people. Such slaughter as the kaiser has
+effected consists in twenty-five thousand head of game. The career of
+Caligula is horrible, yet in the horrible is sometimes the sublime.
+The career of the kaiser has been theatrical, and in the theatrical is
+always the absurd. The single parallel between the two lies in the
+fact that all young emperors stand on a peak so lofty that, do they
+look below, vertigo rises, while from above delirium comes. There is
+nothing astonishing in that. It would be astonishing were it
+otherwise. What does astonish is the equilibrium which the kaiser, in
+spite of his words, his threats and actions, has managed to maintain.
+Regarded as a firebrand and a menace to the peace of Europe, with the
+exception of two big blunders--an invitation to King Humbert to
+promenade with him through Strasburg, and the message which he sent to
+President Kruger of the Transvaal after the failure of the Jameson
+raid--with these exceptions he has exhibited a regard for
+international etiquette entirely immaculate, and not always returned.
+
+In recompense for overtures to France he has been snubbed. In
+recompense for others to Russia he has been ignored. Neither Austria
+nor Italy love him. He has weakened the Triple Alliance, alienated
+England, and lost his place. When he ascended the throne Germany's
+position on the continent was preponderant. That position is Russia's
+to-day.
+
+Had he had the power--which he has always denied--to return to France
+the keys of Metz and Strasburg, and had he had the ability--which
+others have denied for him--to coalesce with France and Russia he
+would have been warlord indeed. As it is, failing in an effort to
+realize the dream of Napoleon I., he has at present writing subsided
+into a martinet.
+
+What the future holds for Germany and for him the future will tell.
+But into the future it is not given to any one, even to an emperor, to
+look.
+
+[Footnote 1: G. B. Malleson: The Refounding of the German Empire.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The house is called "A la derniere Cartouche," and is the
+subject of De Neuville's splendid painting.]
+
+[Footnote 3: "Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops,
+nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of your
+Majesty."]
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4
+by Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMAN HISTORY, V4 ***
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