Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV. Вальтер Скотт

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СКАЧАТЬ her resolutions; who gave her power to uphold her own good cause, which, in truth, was that of European independence, and courage to trust in the justice of Heaven, when the odds mustered against her seemed, in earthly calculation, so dreadful as to deprive, the wise of the head to counsel; the brave, of the heart to resist!

      Denmark, so powerful was the voice which France had in her councils, might almost be accounted humbled to one of the federative principalities.

      Sweden had but a moderate and second-rate degree of power. She felt, as other German nations, the withering blight of the Continental, or Anti-social System; but, circumstanced as she was, with the possession of Swedish Pomerania dependent on French pleasure, she had no other remedy than to wait her opportunity.

      Still more was this the case with Prussia, through all her provinces the mortal enemy of the French name, but whom the large garrisons which France had planted in her dominions, and the numerous forces which she maintained there, compelled for the time to be as submissive as a handmaiden. It was true that the court were as noiselessly as possible, endeavouring to revive their military establishment; that they were dismissing the villains who had sold and betrayed their country, and replacing them by age which had been tried, or youth which had witnessed the agony of their country, and been trained up in thinking, that to avenge her was their dearest duty. True it was, also, that the people in Prussia, and many other parts of Germany, waited as for the day dawning, for the hope of winning back their freedom; but outward appearances indicated nothing of these smothered hopes, wishes, and preparations; and the general eye saw in Prussia only a nation resigned to her bondage, without, apparently, any hope of redemption.

      Austria, besides the terrible losses which the last war had brought upon her, was now fettered to Napoleon by a link which gave the proud House of Hapsburg an apology for the submission, or at least the observance, which she paid to the son-in-law of her Emperor.

      Turkey, though she would have had her turn, had the tide of fortune continued to keep the course in which it had so long flowed, was not yet in the way of being comprehended in Napoleon's plan of politics.

      Russia was waging with the Porte an impolitic war of acquisition, to realise some of the selfish plans of aggrandisement which Napoleon had assented to, or perhaps suggested, at Tilsit and Erfurt. But he now witnessed them without wishing them success, and listened to the complaints of Austria, who unwillingly saw the ambitious views of Russia in these provinces. Of all the continental states, therefore, assuming even the semblance of independence, Russia seemed alone to possess it in reality; and from late acts of estrangement – such as the protest on the subject of the Duchy of Oldenburg, and the reception of British ships and merchandise into her ports – it certainly appeared that a different spirit was in the councils of this great empire than had ruled them during the meetings at Tilsit and Erfurt. Yet there were but few who thought that Russia, in opposition to the whole continent of Europe, would dare confront Napoleon; and still fewer, even of the most sanguine politicians, had any deep-grounded hope that her opposition would be effectual. Out of such a Cimmerian midnight, to all human views, was the day-spring of European liberty destined to arise.

      America, happy in the Atlantic which severed her from Europe, now an almost universal scene of war or slavery, looked on in conscious security, and by reviving at this crisis disputed claims upon Britain, seemed to listen more to the recollection of recent enmity, than of mutual language, manners, and descent.

BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME

      Within a year after her marriage with Napoleon, the young Empress was announced to have been taken with the pains of labour. The case was a difficult and distressing one; and the professional person employed lost courage, and was afraid to do what was necessary. Napoleon appeared in the apartment, and commanded him to proceed as if the patient were the wife of an ordinary burgess. She was at length successfully and safely delivered of a fine boy, which Buonaparte, with feelings, doubtless, as highly strung as after a battle gained, carried into the next apartment, and exhibited in triumph to the great officers and courtiers, by whom he was unanimously hailed King of Rome, the dignity which had been destined to the heir of the French Republic.

      The title did not, indeed, pass uncriticised. Some said, that taking the regal designation from a city where the very name of king had been accounted unlucky, had an ominous presage. Catholics objected to it, as it necessarily carried with it the recollection of the sacrilegious violence which had stripped the Pope of his temporal possessions. And lastly, it was asked, what chance there ever was of the execution of that part of the Italian constitution, which, after Napoleon's death, guaranteed the succession in the kingdom of Italy to some one different from the Emperor of France, when the title of King of Rome was assumed as that of the heir of the French empire?79

      Such ominous remarks, however, only circulated among the disaffected, or passed with anti-imperial jests, satires, and calembourgs, through such saloons of the Faubourg St. Germain, as were still tenanted by the ancient and faithful adherents of the House of Bourbon. The city of Paris made as general a show of rejoicing as they ever testified when an heir was born to one of their most beloved sovereigns; deputations with addresses came from public bodies of every description; and, that flattery might sound the very base string of humility, the fashionable colour of dress for the season bore a name alluding to the young King of Rome, which delicacy, if not pride, ought to have rejected. But, perhaps, the strangest circumstance of the whole was, that the old dethroned King of Spain, and his consort, undertook a journey, for the purpose of carrying their personal congratulations on the birth of an heir, to one who had deposed, and was detaining in prison their own lineage, and had laid Spain, their native dominions, in blood, from the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules.

      Napoleon, and his more devoted admirers, rejoiced in this happy incident, as that which was most likely, in their eyes, to sustain the Empire of France, when fate should remove him by whom it was founded. The protection of the House of Austria, and the charm flung around the child by the high fame of the father, could not, it was thought, but ensure a peaceful accession to the throne, and an undisturbed security in possessing it. His life, too, was ensured in future against such fanatics as that of Schoenbrun; for what purpose would it serve to cut off the Emperor, when the empire was to survive, and descend in all its strength upon his son and heir?

      Others there were, who pretended that the advantages arising from the birth of the King of Rome, were balanced by corresponding inconveniences. These asserted, that several of the French great generals had followed the fortunes of Napoleon, in hopes that, upon his death in battle, or upon his natural decease, they, or some of them, might, like the successors of Alexander the Great, share amongst them the ample succession of kingdoms and principalities which were likely to become the property of the strongest and bravest, in the lottery which might be expected to take place on the death of the great favourite of Fortune. These great soldiers, it was surmised, being cut short of this fair prospect, would no longer have the same motives for serving the living Napoleon, whose inheritance at his death was now to descend, like the patrimony of a peasant or burgess, in the regular and lawful line of inheritance. But the politicians who argued thus, did not sufficiently regard the pitch of superiority which Napoleon had attained over those around him; his habit of absolute command, theirs of implicit obedience; and the small likelihood there was of any one who served under him venturing to incur his displeasure, and the risk of losing the rank and fortune which most had actually obtained, by showing any marks of coldness or dissatisfaction, on account of the disappointment of distant and visionary hopes.

      There were others who augured different consequences, from the effect of the same event on the feelings of Buonaparte's enemies, both open and unavowed. It had been a general belief, and certainly was founded on probability, that the immense but ill-constructed empire which Napoleon had erected would fall to pieces, so soon as it was not kept steady and compact by the fear and admiration of his personal talents. Hence the damp cast by persons affecting a wise caution, upon the general desire to shake off the yoke of France. They enlarged upon the invincible talent, upon the inevitable destinies of Napoleon personally; but they consoled СКАЧАТЬ