Chapter XVIII.
The Pope - Conscription - Evasions Of Blockade - Tilsit Agreement Broken
"This child in concert with our Eugene will constitute our happiness
and that of France," so Napoleon had written Josephine after the birth of
the King of Rome, but it soon became evident that he was wrong. There
were causes of uneasiness and discontent in France which had been
operating for a long time, and which were only aggravated by the apparent
solidity that an heir gave to the Napoleonic dynasty.
First among these was religious disaffection. Towards the end of
1808, being doubtful of the Pope's loyalty, Napoleon had sent French
troops to Rome; the spring following, without any plausible excuse, he had
annexed four Papal States to the kingdom of Italy; and in 1809 the Pope
had been made a prisoner at Savona. When the divorce was asked, it was
not the Pope, but the clergy, of Paris, who had granted it. When the
religious marriage of Marie Louise and Napoleon came to be celebrated,
thirteen cardinals refused to appear; the "black cardinals" they were
thereafter called, one of their punishments for non-appearance at the
wedding being that they could no longer wear their red gowns. To the
pious all this friction with the fathers of the Church was a deplorable
irritation. It was impossible to show contempt for the authority of Pope
and cardinals and not wound one of the deepest sentiments of France, and
one which ten years before Napoleon had braved most to satisfy.
To the irritation against the emperor's church policy was added
bitter resentment against the conscription, that tax of blood and muscle
demanded of the country. Napoleon had formulated and attempted to make
tolerable the principle born of the Revolution, which declared that every
male citizen of age owed the state a service of blood in case it needed
him. The wisdom of his management of the conscription had prevented
discontent until 1807; then the draft on life had begun to be arbitrary
and grievous. The laws of exemptions were disregarded. The "only son of
his mother" no longer remained at her side. The father whose little
children were motherless must leave them; aged and helpless parents no
longer gave immunity. Those who had bought their exemption by heavy
sacrifices were obliged to go. Persons whom the law made subject to
conscription in 1807, were called out in 1806; those of 1808, in 1807. So
far was this premature drafting pushed, that the armies were said to be
made up of "boy soldiers," weak, unformed youths, fresh from school, who
wilted in a sun like that of Spain, and dropped out in the march.
At the rate at which men had been killed, however, there was no other
way of keeping up the army. Between 1804 and 1811 one million seven
hundred thousand men had perished in battle. What wonder that now the
boys of France were pressed into service! At the same time the country
was overrun with the lame, the blind, the broken-down, who had come back
from war to live on their friends or on charity. It was not only the
funeral crape on almost every door which made Frenchmen hate the
conscription, it was the crippled men whom they met at every corner.
While within, the people fretted over the religious disturbances and
the abuses of the conscription, without, the continental blockade was
causing serious trouble between Napoleon and the kings he ruled. In spite
of all his efforts English merchandise penetrated everywhere. The fair at
Rotterdam in 1807 was filled with English goods. They passed into Italy
under false seals. They came into France on pretence that they were for
the empress. Napoleon remonstrated and threatened, but he could not check
the traffic. The most serious trouble caused by this violation of the
Berlin Decree was with Louis, King of Holland. In 1808 Napoleon
complained to his brother that more than one hundred ships passed between
his kingdom and England every month, and a year later he wrote in
desperation, "Holland is an English province."
The relations of the brothers grew more and more bitter. Napoleon
resented the half support Louis gave him, and as a punishment he took away
his provinces, filled his forts with French troops, threatened him with
war if he did not break up the trade. So far did these hostilities go,
that in the summer of 1810 King Louis abdicated in favor of his son and
retired to Austria. Napoleon tried his best to persuade him at least to
return into French territory, but he refused. This break was the sadder
because Louis was the brother for whom Napoleon had really done most.
Joseph was not happier than Louis. The Spanish war still went on,
and no better than in 1808. Joseph, humbled and unhappy, had even prayed
to be freed of the throne.
The relations with Sweden were seriously strained. Since 1810
Bernadotte had been by adoption the crown prince of that country.
Although he had emphatically refused, in accepting the position, to agree
never to take up arms against France, as Napoleon wished him to do, he had
later consented to the continental blockade, and had declared war against
England; but this declaration both England and Sweden considered simply as
a facon de parler. Napoleon, conscious that Bernadotte was not carrying
out the blockade, and irritated by his persistent refusal to enter into
French combinations, and pay tribute to carry on French wars, had
suppressed his revenues as a French prince - Bernadotte had been created
Prince of Ponte-Corvo in 1806 - had refused to communicate with him, and
when the King of Rome was born had sent back the Swedish decoration
offered. Finally, in January, 1812, French troops invaded certain Swedish
possessions, and the country concluded an alliance with England and
Russia.
With Russia, the "other half" of the machine, the ally upon whom the
great plan of Tilsit and Erfurt depended, there was such a bad state of
feeling that, in 1811, it became certain that war would result. Causes
had been accumulating upon each side since the Erfurt meeting.
The continental system weighed heavily on the interests of Russia.
The people constantly rebelled against it and evaded it in every way. The
business depressions from which they suffered they charged to Napoleon,
and a strong party arose in the empire which used every method of showing
the czar that the "unnatural alliance," as they called the agreement
between Alexander and Napoleon, was unpopular. The czar could not refuse
to listen to this party. More, he feared that Napoleon was getting ready
to restore Poland. He was offended by the haste with which his ally had
dismissed the idea of marriage with his sister and had taken up Marie
Louise. He complained of the changes of boundaries in Germany. Napoleon,
on his part, saw with irritation that English goods were admitted into
Russia. He resented the failure of Alexander to join heartily in the
wide-sweeping application he had made of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and
to persecute neutral flags of all nations, even of those so far away from
the Continent as the United States. He remembered that Russia had not
supported him loyally in 1809. He was suspicious, too, of the good
understanding which seemed to be growing between Sweden, Russia, and
England.
During many months the two emperors remained in a half-hostile
condition, but the strain finally became too great. War was inevitable,
and Napoleon set about preparing for the struggle. During the latter
months of 1811 and the first of 1812 his attention was given almost
entirely to the military and diplomatic preparations necessary before
beginning the Russian campaign. By the 1st of May, 1812, he was ready to
join his army, which he had centred at Dresden. Accompanied by Marie
Louise he arrived at Dresden on the 16th of May, 1812, where he was
greeted by the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and other
sovereigns with whom he had formed alliances.
The force Napoleon had brought to the field showed graphically the
extension and the character of the France of 1812. The "army of twenty
nations," the Russians called the host which was preparing to meet them,
and the expression was just, for in the ranks there were Spaniards,
Neapolitans, Piedmontese, Slavs, Kroats, Bavarians, Dutchmen, Poles,
Romans, and a dozen other nationalities, side by side with Frenchmen.
Indeed, nearly one-half the force was said to be foreign. The Grand Army,
as the active body was called, numbered, to quote the popular figures, six
hundred and seventy-eight thousand men. It is sure that this is an
exaggerated number, though certainly over half a million men entered
Russia. With reserves, the whole force numbered one million one hundred
thousand. The necessity for so large a body of reserves is explained by
the length of the line of communication Napoleon had to keep. From the
Nieman to Paris the way must be open, supply stations guarded, fortified
towns equipped. It took nearly as many men to insure the rear of the
Grand Army as it did to make up the army itself.
With this imposing force at his command, Napoleon believed that he
could compel Alexander to support the continental blockade, for come what
might that system must succeed. For it the reigning house had been driven
from Portugal, the Pope despoiled and imprisoned, Louis gone into exile,
Bernadotte driven into a new alliance. For it the Grand Army was led into
Russia. It had become, as its inventor proclaimed, the fundamental law of
the empire.
Until he crossed the Nieman, Napoleon preserved the hope of being
able to avoid war. Numerous letters to the Russian emperor, almost
pathetic in their overtures, exist. But Alexander never replied. He
simply allowed his enemy to advance. The Grand Army was doomed to make
the Russian campaign.
