Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
Tyrol, and it was necessary to his success that, by a terrible example, he should teach those whom he left behind, that they could not rise upon him with impunity. War is necessarily a system of cruelty and of blood. Napoleon was an energetic warrior. He recoiled not from any severities which he deemed indispensable to the success of his horrible mission. "A man of refined sensibilities," says the Duke of Wellington, "has no right to meddle with the profession of a soldier." "Pavia," said Napoleon, "is the only place I ever gave up to pillage. I promised that the soldiers should have it, at their mercy, for twenty-four hours. But after three hours I could bear such scenes of outrage no longer, and put an end to them. Policy and morality are equally opposed to the system. Nothing is so certain to disorganize and completely ruin an army."
It is wonderfully characteristic of this most extraordinary man, that in the midst of these terrible scenes, and when encompassed by such perils and pressed by such urgent haste, he could have found time and the disposition to visit a literary institution. When the whole city of Pavia was in consternation, he entered the celebrated university, accompanied by his splendid military suite. With the utmost celerity he moved from class to class, asking questions with such rapidity that the professors could hardly find time or breath to answer him. "What class is this?" he inquired, as he entered the first recitation room. "The class of metaphysics," was the reply. Napoleon, who had but little respect for the uncertain deductions of mental philosophy, exclaimed, very emphatically, "Bah!" and took a pinch of snuff. Turning to one of the pupils, he inquired, "What is the difference between sleep and death?" The embarrassed pupil turned to the professor for assistance. The professor plunged into a learned disquisition upon death. The uncourteous examiner left him in the midst of his sentences, and hastened to another room. "What class is this?" he said. "The mathematical class," he was answered. It was his favorite science. His eye sparkled with pleasure, and seizing a book from one of the pupils, he hastily turned over the leaves and gave him a very difficult problem to solve. He chanced to fall upon an excellent scholar, who did the work very promptly and correctly. Napoleon glanced his eye over the work and said, "You are wrong." The pupil insisted that he was right. Napoleon took the slate and sat down to work the problem himself. In a moment he saw his own error, and returning the slate to the pupil, with ill-concealed chagrin, exclaimed, "Yes? yes! you are right." He then proceeded to another room, when he met the celebrated Volta, "the Newton of electricity." Napoleon was delighted to see the distinguished philosopher, and ran and threw his arms around his neck, and begged him immediately to draw out his class. The President of the University, in a very eulogistic address to the young general, said, "Charles the Great laid the foundations of this University. May Napoleon the Great give it the completion of its glory."
Having quelled the insurrection, in flames and blood, the only way in which, by any possibility it could have been quelled, Napoleon turned proudly again, with his little band, to encounter the whole power of the Austrian empire, now effectually aroused to crush him. The dominions of Venice contained three millions of souls. Its fleet ruled the Adriatic, and it could command an army of fifty thousand men. The Venetians though unfriendly to France preferred neutrality. Beaulieu had fled through their territories, leaving a garrison at Mantua. Napoleon pursued them. To the remonstrances of the Venetians he replied: "Venice has either afforded refuge to the Austrians, in which case it is the enemy of France, or it was unable to prevent the Austrians from invading its territory, and is consequently too weak to claim the right of neutrality." The government deliberated in much perplexity, whether to throw themselves as allies into the arms of France or of Austria. They at last decided, if possible, to continue neutral. They sent to Napoleon twelve hundred thousand dollars, as a bribe or a present to secure his friendship. He decisively rejected it. To some friends who urged the perfect propriety of his receiving the money, he replied:
"If my commissary should see me accept this money, who can tell to what lengths he might go." The Venetian envoys retired from their mission deeply impressed with the genius of Napoleon. They had expected to find only a stern warrior. To their surprise they met a statesman, whose profoundness of views, power of eloquence, extent of information, and promptness of decision excited both their admiration and amazement. They were venerable men, accustomed to consideration and power. Napoleon was but twenty-five. Yet the veterans were entirely overawed by his brilliant and commanding powers. "This extraordinary young man," they wrote to the senate, "will one day exert great influence over his country."
No man ever had more wealth at his disposal than Napoleon, or was more scrupulous as to the appropriation of any of it to himself. For two years he maintained the army in Italy, calling upon the government for no supplies whatever. He sent more than two millions of dollars to Paris to relieve the Directory from its embarrassments. Without the slightest difficulty he might have accumulated millions of dollars for his own private fortune. His friends urged him to do so, assuring him that the Directory, jealous of his fame and power, would try to crush rather than to reward him. But he turned a deaf ear to all such suggestions, and returned to Paris, from this most brilliant campaign, comparatively a poor man. He had clothed the armies of France, and replenished the impoverished treasury of the Republic, and filled the Museum of Paris with paintings and statuary. But all was for France. He reserved neither money, nor painting, nor statue for himself. "Every one," said he afterward, "has his relative ideas. I have a taste for founding not for possessing. My riches consist in glory and celebrity. The Simplon and the Louvre were in the eyes of the people and of foreigners more my property than any private domains could possibly have been." This was surely a lofty and a noble ambition.
Napoleon soon overtook the Austrians. He found a division of the army strongly intrenched upon the banks of the Mincio, determined to arrest his passage. Though the Austrians were some fifteen thousand strong, and though they had partially demolished the bridge, the march of Napoleon was retarded scarcely an hour. Napoleon was that day sick, suffering from a violent headache. Having crossed the river and concerted all his plans for the pursuit of the flying enemy, he went into an old castle, by the river's side, to try the effect of a foot-bath. He had but a small retinue with him, his troops being dispersed in pursuit of the fugitives. He had but just placed his feet in the warm water when he heard the loud clatter of horses' hoofs, as a squadron of Austrian dragoons galloped into the court-yard. The sentinel at the door shouted, "To arms! to arms! the Austrians!" Napoleon sprang from the bath, hastily drew on one boot, and with the other in his hand, leaped from the window, escaped through the back gate of the garden, mounted a horse and galloped to Massena's division, who were cooking their dinner at a little distance from the castle. The appearance of their commander-in-chief among them in such a plight roused the soldiers from their camp-kettles, and they rushed in pursuit of the Austrians, who, in their turn, retreated. This personal risk induced Napoleon to establish a body guard, to consist of five hundred veterans, of at least ten years' service, who were ever to accompany him. This was the origin of that Imperial Guard, which, in the subsequent wars of Napoleon, obtained such a world-wide renown.
Napoleon soon encamped before the almost impregnable fortress of Mantua. About twenty thousand men composed its garrison. As it was impossible to surmount such formidable defenses by assault, Napoleon was compelled to have recourse to the more tedious operations of a siege.
The Austrian government, dissatisfied with the generalship of Beaulieu, withdrew him from the service and sent General Wurmser to assume the command, with a reinforcement of sixty thousand men. Napoleon's army had also been reinforced, so that he had about thirty thousand men with whom to meet the eighty thousand which would compose the Austrian army when united. It would require, however, at least a month before Wurmser could arrive at the gates of Mantua. Napoleon resolved to improve the moments of leisure in disarming his enemies in the south of Italy.
The kingdom of Naples, situated at the southern extremity of the peninsula, is the most powerful state in Italy. A Bourbon prince, dissolute and effeminate, sat upon the throne. Its fleet had been actively allied with the English in the attack upon Toulon. Her troops were now associated with the Austrians in the warfare against France. The king, seeing the Austrians, and his own troops united with them, driven from every part of Italy except the fortress of Mantua, was exceedingly alarmed, and sent to Napoleon imploring peace. Napoleon, not being able to march an army into his territory to impose contributions, and yet being very anxious to detach from the alliance the army of sixty thousand men which Naples could bring into the field, granted an armistice upon terms so easy as to provoke the displeasure of the