NAPOLEON TO HIS SOLDIERS. his words refer to the country he invades. He addresses Europe, and speaks of the world. If he designates the army he leads, it is the Grand Army! If he refers to the nation he represents, it is the Great Nation! He blots empires from the map with the dash of his pen, and dots down new kingdoms with the hilt of his sword. He pronounces the fate of dynasties amidst thunder and lightning. His voice is the voice of destiny! To reproduce his highly figurative language, after the fever of universal enthusiasm, in the midst of which it was uttered, has cooled down, is hazardous. It may seem to border on the ridiculous. Sublimity itself, when the hearer is not excited to the proper pitch, does so. The very generation which felt the enthusiasm of victory has nearly passed away, and another has grown up, all whose aspirations have been di rected to far different objects. Other wants, other wishes, other ideas, other sentimentsnay, even other prejudices, have grown up. In the days of Napoleon's splendour military renown was all in all. The revolution had swept away all political and almost all geographi cal landmarks. An undefined future presented itself to all minds. The marvellous achievements of the French army itself, led by a boy on the plains illustrated in other days by Roman glory, heated all imaginations to a point which enabled them to admire what may seem to border on bombast in the present prevalence of the intellectual over the imaginative, and of the practical over the poetical. Let the reader, then, try to transport himself back to the exciting scenes amidst which Napoleon acted and spoke. It was in his harangues to his soldiers, delivered on the spur of the moment, and inspired by the exigency of the occasion, and by the circumstances with which he found himself surrounded, that the peculiar excellence of the First Napoleon as an orator was developed. The same instinct of improvisation which prompted so many of his stratgetical evolutions, was manifested in his language and sentiments. At an age, and in the practice of a profession, in which the resources of the orator are not usually available or even accessible, he evinced a fertility, a suppleness, and a finesse which bordered on the marvellous, and which, with an audience not highly informed, might easily pass for inspiration. What language it were best to use, what conduct it were best to pursue, and what character it were best to assume on each occasion which presented itself, he appeared to know, instantaneously and instinctively, without consideration, and without apparent effort of judgment. He gained this knowledge from no teacher, for he never had a mentor; he gained it not from experience, for he had not years. He had it as a gift. It was a natural instinct. While he captured the pontifical cities, and sent the treasures of art of the Vatican to Paris, he was profoundly reverential to the Pope. Seeking an interview with the Archduke Charles, the lieutenant of artillery, sprung from the people, met the descendant of the Cæsars with all the pride of an equal, and all the elevated courtesy of a high-born chevalier. He enforced discipline, honoured the arts and sciences, protected religion and property, and respected age and sex. In the city he sacked, he put sentinels at the church-doors to prevent At six-and-twenty he superseded Scherer in the desecration of the altar. To set the exam-the command of the army of Italy, surrounded ple of respect for divine things, he commanded with disasters, oppressed with despair, and uthis marshals with their staffs to attend mass. terly destitute of every provision necessary for He managed opinion, and twined popular pre- the well-being of the soldier. He fell upon the judice to the purposes of power. In Egypt he enemy with all the confidence of victory which would wear the turban and quote the Koran. would have been inspired by superior numbers, His genius for administration was no way in- discipline, and equipment. In a fortnight the ferior to his genius for conquest. He could whole aspect of things was changed; and here not brook a superior, even when his rank and was his first address to the army: position were subordinate. In his first Italian campaign, as the general of the Directory, he treated not in the name of the Directors, but in the name of Bonaparte. He was not merely commander-in-chief of the army, he was its master: and the army felt this, and the republican tacitly acknowledged it. The oldest generals quailed under the eagle eye of this youth of five-and-twenty. His eloquence of the field has no example in ancient or modern times. His words are not the words of a mortal; they are the announce ments of an oracle. It is not to the enemies that are opposed to him that he speaks, nor do "Soldiers! You have, in fifteen days, gained six victories, taken twenty-one standards, fifty pieces of cannon, several fortresses, made fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed or wounded more than ten thousand men! You have equalled the conquerors of Holland and the Rhine. Destitute of all necessaries you have supplied all your wants; without cannon you have gained battles; without bridges you have crossed rivers; without shoes you have made forced marches; without brandy, and often without bread, you have bivouacked! Republican phalanxes, soldiers of liberty, alone could have survived what you have suffered! Thanks to you, soldiers! your grateful country has reason to expect great things of you! You have still battles to fight, towns to take, rivers to pass. Is there one among you whose courage is relaxed? Is there one who would prefer to return to the barren summits of the Appenines and the Alps, to endure patiently the insults of these soldier-slaves? No! there is none such among the victors of Montenotte, of Millesimo, of Dégo, and of Mondovi! My friends, I promise you this glorious conquest; but be the liberators, and not the scourges of the people you subdue!" Such addresses acted on the army with electrical effect. Bonaparte had only to walk over Northern Italy, passing from triumph to triumph in that immortal campaign with a facility and rapidity which resembled the shifting views of a phantasmagoria. He entered Milan, and there, to swell and stimulate his legions, he again addressed them: "You have descended from the summits of the Alps like a cataract. Piedmont is delivered. Milan is your own. Your banners wave over the fertile plains of Lombardy. You have passed the Po, the Tessino, the Adda-those vaunted bulwarks of Italy. Your fathers, your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your betrothed will exult in your triumphs, and will be proud to claim you as their own. Yes, soldiers, you have done much, but much more is still to be accomplished. Will you leave it in the power of posterity to say, that in Lombardy you have found a Capua? Let us go on! We have still forced marches to make, enemies to subdue, laurels to gather, and insults to avenge. To re-establish the capitol, and re-erect the statues of its heroes-to awake the Roman people sunk under the torpor of ages of bondagebehold! what remains to be done! After accomplishing this you will return to your hearths; and your fellow-citizens, when they behold you pass them, will point at you, and say, 'He was a soldier of the army of Italy!' Such language was never before addressed to a French army. It excited the soldiers even to delirium. They would have followed him to the ends of the earth. Nor was such an event foreign to his thoughts. The army no longer obeyed; it was devoted. It was not led by a mortal commander; it followed a demigod. When he sailed from the shores of France, on the celebrated expedition to Egypt, the destination of the fleet was confided to none but himself. Its course was directed first to Malta, which, as is well known, submitted without resistance. When lying off its harbour, Bonaparte thus addresed the splendid army which floated around him: "Soldiers! you are a wing of the army of France: you have made war on mountain and plain, and have made sieges. It still remains for you to make a maritime war. The legions of Rome, which you have sometimes imitated, but not yet equalled, warred with Carthage by turns on the sea and on the plains of Zama. Victory never abandoned them, because they were brave in combat, patient under fatigue, obedient to their commanders, and firm against their foes. But, soldiers, Europe has its eyes upon you; you have great destinies to fulfil, battles to wage, and fatigues to suffer." When the men from the mast-tops discovered the towers of Alexandria, Bonaparte first announced to them the destination of the expedition: "Frenchmen! you are going to attempt conquests, the effects of which on the civilization and commerce of the world are incalculable. Behold the first city we are about to attack-it was built by Alexander." As he advanced through Egypt he soon perceived that he was among a people who were fanatical, ignorant, and vindictive, who distrusted the Christians, but who still more profoundly detested the insults, exactions, pride, and tyranny of the Mamelukes. To flatter their prejudices and confirm their hatred, he addressed them in a proclamation conceived in their own oriental style: "Cadis, Sheiks, Imans, Charbaagys, they will say to you that I have come to destroy your religion. Believe them not. Tell them that I come to restore your rights, and to punish your usurpers, and that I, much more than the Mamelukes, respect God, His prophet, and the Koran! "Tell it to the people, that all men are equal before God. Say that wisdom, talents, and virtue alone constitute the difference between man and man. "Is there on your land a fine farm? it belongs to the Mamelukes. Is there anywhere a beautiful slave, a fine horse, a splendid house? they all belong to the Mamelukes. If Egypt be really their farm, let them show what grant God has given them of it. But God is just and merciful towards his people. All Egyptians have equal rights. Let the most wise, the most enlightened, and the most virtuous rule, and the people will be happy. "There were in former days among you great cities, great canals, and vast trade. What has destroyed all these, if it be not the cupidity, the injustice, and the tyranny of the Mamelukes? "Cadis, Sheiks, Imans, Charbadgys, tell it to the people that we are also true Mussulmans. Was it not we who subdued the Pope, who exhorted nations to war on the Mussulmans ? Are we not also friends of the Grand Signor?" "Thrice happy those who shall be on our side! Happy those who shall be neuter; they will have time to be acquainted with us, and to join with us. "But woe, woe to those who shall take arms for the Mamelukes, and who shall combat against us? For them there will be no hope! They shall perish!" After quelling the revolt at Cairo, he availed himself of the terror and superstition of the Egyptians, to present himself to them as a superior being, as a messenger of God, and the inevitable instrumen of fate: "Sheiks, Ulemas. Worshippers of Mohammed, tell the people that those who have been my enemies shall have no refuge in this world or in the next! Is there a man among them so blind as not to see fate itself directing my movements? "Tell the people, that since the world was a world, it has been written, that, after having destroyed the enemies of Islamism, after having beaten down their crosses, I should come from the depths of the west to fulfil the task which has been committed to me. Show the people that in the holy volume of the Koran, in mare than twenty places, what happens has been foretold, and what will happen is likewise written. "I can call each of you to account for the most hidden thoughts of your heart; for I know all, even the things you have not whispered to another. But a day will come when all the world will plainly see that I am conducted by orders from above, and that no efforts can prevail against me!" Where charlatanism was the weapon most effective, he scrupled not to wield it for the attainment of his ends. contentment with his soldiers; he walks through their ranks; he reminds them whom they have conquered, what they have done, and what will be said of them, but not one word does he utter of their chiefs. The emperor and the soldiersFrance for a perspective-peace for a reward— and glory for a recollection! What a commence. ment, and what a termination! "Soldiers! I am content with you; you have covered your eagles with immortal glory. An army of one hundred thousand men, commanded by the Emperors of Russia and of Austria, have been, in less than four hours, cut to pieces and dispersed; whoever has escaped your sword has been drowned in the lakes. Forty stand of colours-the standards of the imperial guard of Russia-one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, twenty generals, and more than thirty thousand prisoners are the results of this day, forever celebrated. That infantry, so much boasted of, and in numbers so superior to you, could not resist your shock, and henceforth you have no longer any rivals to fear. "Soldiers! when the French people placed upon my head the imperial crown, Ỉ intrusted myself to you; I relied upon you to maintain it in the high splendour and glory, which alone can give it value in my eyes. Soldiers! I will soon bring you back to France; there you will After the eighteenth Brumaire, surrounded be the object of my most tender solicitude. It by his brilliant staff, he apostrophized the Direc-will be sufficient for you to say, 'I was at the tory with the haughty tone of a master who battle of Austerlitz,' in order that your countrydemands an account of his servavts, and as men may answer, Voila un brave!' though he were already absolute sovereign of France: "What have you done with that France which I left you surrounded with such splendour ? I left you peace, I return and find war. I left you the millions of Italy, I return and find spoliation and misery! What have you done with the hundred thousand brave French, my companions in arms, in glory, and in toil? They are dead!" 6 On the anniversary of this battle, he used to recapitulate with pleasure the accumulated spoils that fell into the hands of the French, and he used to inflame their ardour against the Prussians by the recollection of those victories. Thus, on the morning of another fight, he apostrophized his soldies in the following manner: "These [pointing to the enemy], and yourselves, are you not still the soldiers of Aus terlitz?" This was the stroke of a master. Bonaparte was remarkable for contemptuously breaking through the traditions of military "Soldiers! it is to-day oue year, this very practice. Thus, on the eve of the battle of hour, that you were on the memorable field of Austerlitz, he adopted the startling and un- Austerlitz. The Russian battalions fled terriusual course of disclosing the plan of his cam-fied; their allies were destroyed; their strong paign to the private soldiers of his army : Oder, the Warta, the deserts of Poland, the bad weather-nothing has stopped you. All have fled at your approach. The French eagle soars over the Vistula; the brave and unfortunate Poles imagine that they see again the legions of Sobieski. places, their capitals, their magazines, their "The Russians," said he, "want to turn my arsenals, two hundred and eighty standards, right, and they will present to me their flank. seven hundred pieces of cannon, five grand Soldiers, I will myself direct all your battal-fortified places, were in your power. The ions; depend upon me to keep myself far from the fire, so long as, with your accustomed bravery, you bring disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks; but, if victory were for one moment uncertain, you would see me in the foremost ranks, to expose myself to their attack. There will be the honour of the French infantry the first infantry in the world. This victory will terminate your campaign, and then the peace we shall make will be worthy of France, of you, and of me!" What grandeur, combined with what pride, we find in these last words! His speech after the battle is also a chefd'œuvre of military eloquence. He declares his "Soldiers! we will not lay down our arms until a general peace has restored to our commerce its liberty and its colonies. We have, on the Elbe and the Oder, recovered Pondichery, our Indian establishments, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spanish colonies. Who shall give to the Russians the hope to resist destiny? These and yourselves. Are we not the soldiers of Austerlitz?" "Soldiers! I am in the midst of you. You are the vanguard of a great people. You must not return to France unless you return under triumphal arches. What! shall it be said that you have braved the seasons, the deep, the deserts, conquered Europe, several times coalesced against you, carried your glory from the East to the West, only to return to your country like fugitives, and to hear it said that the French eagle had taken flight, terrified at the aspect of the Prussian armies? Let us advance, then; and since our moderation has not awakened them from their astonishing intoxication, let them learn that, if it is easy to obtain any increase of power from the friendship of a great people, its enmity is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean." On the eve of his celebrated entry into Berlin, he excited the pride of his troops by placing before them the rapidity of their march, and the grandeur of their triumphs: "The forests, the defiles of Franconia, the Saale, and the Elbe, which your fathers had not traversed in seven years, you have traversed in seven days, and in this interval you have fought four fights and one pitched battle. You have sent the renown of your victories before you to Potsdam and to Berlin. You have made sixty thousand prisoners, taken sixty-five standards, six hundred pieces of cannon, three fortresses, and more than twenty generals; and yet nearly one half of you still lament not having fired a shot. All the provinces of the Prussian monarchy, as far as the banks of the Oder, will be in your power." It is true, and it will occur to every mind, that a large part of the force of this eloquence of the camp in the case of Bonaparte, depended on the astounding character of the facts which he had the power of repeating. Even now, after these miracles of military prowess have been repeated in as many versions by a hundred contemporary historians in every living language, we cannot read the simple references to them without being overwhelmed with amazement. The narrative of them borders often on the impossible, and forcibly impresses us with the justness of the adage, that truth is often more wonderful than fiction, and that the historian has often to record that from which the novelist would shrink. At Eylau, he thus honoured the memory of his brave warriors who had fallen: "You have marched against the enemy, and you have pursued him, your swords in his reins, over a space of eighty leagues. You have taken from him sixty-five pieces of cannon, sixteen standards, and killed, wounded, or captured, more than forty-five thousand men. Our braves who have remained on the field of battle have died a glorious death. Theirs is the death of true soldiers." At Friedland, he again apostrophized his army: "In ten days you have taken one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, seven standards, killed, wounded, or captured sixty thousand Russian prisoners; taken from the enemy all its hospitals, all its magazines, all its ambulances, the fortress of Koenigsburg, the three hundred vessels that were in the port, laden with every species of munitions, and one hundred and sixty thousand muskets that England had sent to arm our enemies. From the banks of the Vistula you have passed to those of the Niemen, with the rapidity of the eagle. You celebrated at Austerlitz the anniversary of my coronation; you have this year celebrated here the anniversary of Marengo. Soldiers of the grand army of France, you have been worthy of yourselves and of me!" In 1809, when prepared to punish Austria for her treachery, he again adopted the bold and unexpected course of confiding to the army his great designs. He mingled amongst the soldiers, and made them share the spirit of his vengeance; he never allowed himself to be separated from them, and made his cause their cause. What a military elan there is in the following speech: "Soldiers! I was surrounded by you when the sovereign of Austria came to my bivouac in Moravia; you heard him implore my clemency, and swear eternal friendship for me, his victor in three campaigns. Austria owed everything to our generosity; three times has she perjured herself. Our past successes are a sure guarantee of the victories that await us: forward, then, and let the enemy acknowledge its conqueror in our very aspect." It was with a like ardour he animated the army sent to Naples against the English. His speech appeared to move with the pas de charge: "Šoldiers! march; throw yourselves upon them in a torrent, if these feeble battalions of the tyrants of the deep will even wait for your approach. Do not wait to inform me that the sanctity of treaties has been vindicated, and that the manes of my brave soldiers, murdered in the ports of Sicily, on their return from Egypt, after having escaped all the perils of the deep, of the deserts, and of a hundred fights, have at last been appeased!" It was also to beat down the power of his implacable and eternal enemy, that he harangued the army of Germany, on its return, and that he opened before its view the conquest of Spain: "Soldiers! after having triumphed on the Danube and the Vistula, you have traversed Germany by forced marches-I order you now to traverse France without a moment's repose. Soldiers! I have need of you. The hideous presence of the leopard defiles the peninsula of Spain and Portugal; let it fly terrified at your look. Carry your victorious eagles even to the columns of Hercules; there, also, you have treachery to revenge. Soldiers! you have surpassed the renown of modern armies, but have you equalled the glories of the legions of Rome, who, in the same campaign, triumphed on the L Rhine and on the Euphrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus?" "Soldiers ! behold the officers of the battalion, who have accompanied me in misfortune. They Let us now pass to the penultimate act of are all my friends-they were dear to my heart; this gorgeous drama. Behold! the scene is the wherever I saw them they represented to me the court of Fontainebleau. Listen to his solemn different regiments of the army. Among these adieu to the faithful remains of his army-six hundred veteran companions were men of to those soldiers who could not bring themselves voluntarily to separate from their general, and who were weeping around him. Antiquity af. fords no scene at once so heart-rending and so solemn: "Soldiers! I make you my adieux. For twenty years, that we have been together, I have been content with you! I have always found you on the road to glory. All the powers of Europe are armed against me alone; some of my generals have betrayed their duty and France. France has deserved other destinies. With you, and the other braves who have remained faithful to me, I could have maintained a civil war, but France would have been unhappy. Be faithful to your new king; be obedient to your new chiefs, and do not abandon your dear country. Do not lament my fate. I shall be happy so long as I know that you also are happy. I might have died. If I have consented to live, it is still to your glory. I will write the great deeds that you have done. I cannot embrace you all, but I embrace your general. Come, General Petit, let me press you to my heart. Bring me that eagle, and let me embrace it also. Ah! dear eagle, may this kiss which I give you be remembered by posterity! Adieu! my children. My prayers will always accompany you. Preserve my memory!" He departed, and in the island of Elba he organized that expedition, the mere narrative of which seems almost fabulous. He had not yet set foot on the shores of France, when already from the deck of that frail skiff" which bore Cæsar and his fortunes," he gave to the winds and the waves his celebrated proclamation. He evoked before the eyes of his soldiers the images of a hundred fights, and sent his eagles before him as the harbingers of his triumphant return: "Soldiers! in my exile I heard your voice. We have not been conquered, but betrayed. We must forget that we have been the masters of nations, but we must not allow others to mingle themselves in our affairs. Who shall pretend to be master in our country? Resume those eagles that you had at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Montmirail. The veterans of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, of the Rhine, of Italy, of Egypt, of the west, of the grand army, are humiliated. Come! place yourselves under the flag of your chief. Victory will march at the pas de charge. The eagle, with the national flag, shall fly from steeple to steeple, until she lights on the towers of Notre Dame !" On the morrow of his arrival at the Tuileries, and amidst the astonishment which followed that night of enthusiasm and intoxication, he called his Old Guard around its flag, and presented to it his brave companions of the island of Elba: all the regiments. All reminded me of those great days, the memory of which is so dear to me-for all were covered with honourable wounds received in those memorable battles, In loving them I loved you all. Soldiers of the French army! they bring you back those eagles, which will serve you as a rallying-point, In giving them to the Guard I give them to the whole army. Treason and unhappy circumstances have covered thein for a time with mourning, but, thanks to the French people and to you, they reappear, resplendent with all their former glory. Swear that they shall be found always wherever the interests of the country shall call them. Let the traitors and those who invade our territory never be able to stand before their looks." Some days afterwards, at the assembly in the Champs de Mars, be speaks not of the glory of the battles nor of the devotion of the soldiers, but, being in the presence of the people and of the legislative bodies, he extols the grand principle of national sovereignty: "Emperor, consul, soldier, I hold all from the people. In prosperity, in adversity, on the battle-field, at the council-board, on the throne, in exile, France has ever been the only and constant object of my thoughts and of my actions. Like that King of Athens, I sacrificed myself for my people, in the hope of seeing realized the promise given to preserve for France its national integrity, its honour, and its repose." On the meeting of the Chambers, he addressed them, conjuring them to forget their quarrels in the face of the imminent danger of the nation : "Let us not imitate the example of the lower empire, which, pursued on all sides by bar barians, exposed itself to the laughter of posterity by occupying itself with paltry dissensions at a moment when the battering-ram struck on the walls of the city. It is in difficult times that great nations, like great men, develop all the energy of their characters." Falling unexpectedly amongst the army, he recalled to its recollection that it ought not to allow itself to be alarmed by the great numbers of its enemies, that it had atrocious insults to avenge, that surrounding nations were impatient to shake off their yoke, and to combat the same enemies : "These and ourselves, are we no longer the same men. Soldiers at Jena, against these same Prussians, now so arrogant, you were one against two, and at Montmirail you were one against three. Let those among you who have been prisoners with the English tell you the tale of their prison-ships and of the frightful evils that they have suffered. The Saxons, the Belgians, the Hanoverians, the soldiers of the Confederation of the Rhine, groan at being |