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to degrade and undervalue the character of those whose actions have spoken for themselves, imitates but the spleen of the idiot who spits against the wind, and the disgusting marks of whose malice are returned on his own visage.

Such must be the feeling of every reader, when he reads the petty insinuations by which Gourgaud or his master attempts to undermine the fame of Wellington. Several of these we shall notice in the subsequent part of this review; but it would be difficult for us to keep a moment's silence upon the wonderful discovery that it was to the errors, not to the skill, of Wellington, that Napoleon owed his defeat. "According to the generally received rules of war," we are informed, "that the choice of the field of battle at Waterloo, in front of a forest, and of a great town, after Blucher had been defeated, was a circumstance which might have had the most fatal results for the English army and the whole coalition." He ought, it seems, to have fallen back, and effected a junction with Blucher a day's march to the rear of Waterloo (where, by the way, there is not the semblance of a position), and he would thus have concentrated his forces with those of Prussia. Even then, it seems the opinion of General Gourgaud, that the British and Prussian Generals should have avoided an action until the Russians and Austrians were upon the Meuse. That Wellington thought, and found himself competent, to destroy Bonaparte's army instead of running away from it, was, it seems, a blundering into success," according to the phrase applied to the present ministry; and if he triumphed over Napoleon, it was only as Yorick triumphed over Eugenius-like a fool. The Duke, it seems, won the game, precisely because he did not know how to play it; and Bonaparte lost it as a great fencer may be foiled by the raw-boned clown who beats down his guard by brute force. Comfortable reflections these for an Ex-Imperial General to add zest to his segar or cup of coffee-and much good may they do those who can swallow them.

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Much is, of course, said of the extreme bravery of the French soldiers -not a word of the steadiness of those by whom it was opposed, foiled, and rendered nugatory.

On this point we cannot help sus
VOL. IV.

pecting there have been elisions in the manuscript, and that the vindictive Italian may have struck out branches of some sentences which the better taste of the vain-glorious but polite Frenchman had inserted. Here, for example, is a passage which seems truncated and mutilated. General Gourgaud, in estimating the comparative strength of the army under Bonaparte, and that under Wellington, says, that the former was inferior in number (a point we shall examine hereafter), but superior in the quality of troops, Les solduts Belges et Allemands ne valaient pas les soldats Français. It would, we conceive, have been natural to complete the parallel with some phrase equivalent to "whatever might be thought of the British.” But on this point the General does not hazard an opinion, unless by the following sweeping conclusion deduced from the incidents of the campaign. P. 106-" Never have the French troops more perfectly shown their superiority over all the troops in Europe, than during this short campaign, where they have been so constantly outnumbered." Over ALL the troops of Europe!! But be it so; if their pretended superiority be always demonstrated in the same manner, we cheerfully make them welcome to every Te Deum which they may chant upon similar occasions.

It is necessary in military narratives, as well as elsewhere, that causes should be assigned for events; and as it was the rule of Bonaparte neither to allow talent in the generals by whom he was defeated, or valour in their troops, or the possibility of error in his own plans, the occasion of his misfortune was to be imputed to some other cause. It was his custom to divide this inevitable load of censure between his generals and the blind goddess Fortune; and his bulletins afford many instances in which both are overloaded by the proportion allotted to them.

In the campaign of 1814, indisputably that in which Bonaparte displayed greatest talent as a general, he was often obliged to assign to his marechals the discharge of points of duty for which he could only appropriate very disproportioned forces; being under the constant necessity of keeping under his own immediate command the most effective 2 F

part of his army, for the execution of the masterly military manoeuvres by which he so long retarded his fall. It was a necessary consequence, that the generals to whom the subordinate departments of the campaign were assigned, were often baffled or overpowered by the superior forces to which they were opposed. On such unwilling failures the ruthless bulletin had no mercy; nor did the remembrance of past services, or the pressure of circumstances, or the inadequacy of the means committed to them, alleviate the censure of the Emperor. It was this circumstance which greatly alienated the affections of his principal generals, who thought they perceived in it an attempt to save his own reputation at the expense of theirs, and to assume the principal merit of success, while he loaded them with all the disgrace attaching itself to failure, This propensity to throw blame upon the subordinate agents of Bonaparte's will, and executors of his orders, pervades every page of Gourgaud's Relation, of which the following instances will satisfy the reader.

piric. At first it works wonders which are attested in every newspaper; when it has been some time in use, unfavourable cases occur; and when five or six people have died of the prescription, the patients, as Dr Last himself was obliged to complain, become timorous and unwilling to take the doses. Moscow, and Leipsic, and Montmartre-Busaco, Salamanca, Vittoria, and many other dispiriting recollections, sate heavy on the souls of the generals who had witnessed those fatal scenes; and while the recollection seems neither to have deprived them of the skill or inclination to discharge their duty, it probably made them anxious, in so dangerous a game, to abide by his instructions, on whose account they played it, and to whom the great stake belonged. Nor must it escape us, that the French generals were well aware at what risk they were to display the brilliant audacity and enterprise which these reflections appear to have demanded from them, and how heavy a responsibility was imposed upon them in case of their zeal leading It is remarked, p. 57, that although them too far beyond the strict letter of the French soldiery shewed, in the their orders. And we will hereafter campaign of 1815, the same confidence see, that Ney, who is chiefly censured and bravery which they had so often as having lost the energy of his early displayed during their most brilliant days, is afterwards blamed still more actions, several of the generals, even severely for having of his own motion Ney himself, were no longer the same occasioned the loss of the battle of men. "They had no longer that ener-Waterloo, by precipitating an attack of gy and brilliant audacity which they cavalry. had so often displayed upon other occasions, and which had so much share in achieving great victories. They were become timid and circumspect in their operations, and their personal bravery was the only kind of courage which remained to them. They seem, ed contending who should commit himself the least."

We have little doubt that this may have been the case-that the ignorant soldiery, confiding on the stars, the fortunes, and the name of the Emperor, were animated to their usual pitch of enthusiasm; while the generals, who measured with a more experienced eye the comparative strength and skill by which Bonaparte was now opposed, should have executed his orders with less confidence of a favourable result than in his former enterprises. The tactics of Bonaparte resembled, in some degree, the peri lous nostrum of some dashing em

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Besides this sweeping charge, that the French Generals under Bonaparte did not in this campaign do their utmost to enforce and carry through his plans, distinct errors are imputed to one or two of them by name. Upon the 15th July, Vandamme, it is said, arrived at Charleroi four hours later than he ought to have done, which is described as un funeste contretemps."Again, upon the juncture of the corps of Vandamme with that of Grouchy at Gilly, it is stated, that these generals, deceived by false intelligence, remained stationary, instead of attacking a small part of the Prussian army under Zeithen, which they had mistaken for Blucher's main body. And Grouchy is elsewhere censured (with more apparent reason), for not moving to his left, and placing himself in communi cation with Bonaparte, instead of remaining with his division at Wavre during the whole of the 18th. This

is a subject which we afterwards propose to enter upon more specifically.

These, and other charges against Vandamme and Grouchy, are made with moderation, and under qualifying circumstances of excuse and of commendation. Upon two individuals, the unmitigated censure of Gourgaud, and as we suppose, of Bonaparte, descends in full stream. These are, Joachim Murat and Michael Ney. By a singular coincidence they are both no more the safer subjects, therefore, to be converted into convenient scapegoats. The dead can neither vindicate themselves, nor retort upon others; and the blame which, if imputed to them, Grouchy or Vandamme might have flung back in the face of their censor, may be securely piled on the bloody graves of Ney and of Murat.

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Of Murat, it is said in a note, p. 20, that the bad politics of that unhappy prince had the chief share in the first and second overthrow of Napoleon. If, in 1814, he had not abandoned the cause of France for that of Austria, France would not have been invaded. And if, in 1815, he had not declared war against Austria, France would not probably have a second time undergone foreign subjugation. The Emperor of Austria, seeing his son-in-law again seated upon the throne of France, seemed disposed to enter into a treaty with him, when, upon the attack of Murat, which, he imagined, was the result of a plan concerted with Napoleon, he broke off the negotiation, observing, "How is it possible that I can treat with Napoleon, while he is causing me to be attacked in Italy by Murat." Unfortunate Murat, whose opposition or cooperation was equally fatal to thy brother-in-law! Since thy namesake, Murat the Unlucky, there was never, it seems, a more devoted victim to misfortune. Yet if a voice could have been heard to reply from the low and nameless tomb on the shores of Calabria, it might have pleaded, that if the Neapolitan forces could have executed a diversion formidable enough to have prevented the invasion of France in 1814, there seems no reason why they should have been less formidable in 1815-it might have told the subject of that continued, though concealed correspondence betwixt Elba and Naples, which preceded the landing of Bonaparte, and the expedition of Mu

rat.-It might have mentioned where, and in whose presence, the busts of these two illustrious adventurers were crowned with laurel, as hopeful associates in the same joint adventure. It might-But our present concern is with military events, and not with politics,-with Ney, rather than with Murat.

It is the unfortunate Ney to whom the fatal errors of the action at Quatre Bras are ascribed, with the necessary inference, that had he conducted himself as he ought to have done, that battle must have been won, and the defeat of Waterloo prevented. The general censure of this unfortunate soldier, once termed by Bonaparte the bravest of the brave, occurs in more than one passage of the relation.

"It seemed that the recollection of his (Ney's) conduct in 1814, and afterwards in March 1815, had occasioned a total confusion of mind, (bouleversement moral) which affected all his actions. Besides, the Marechal, in actual combat the bravest of the brave, frequently was deceived in the operations of the campaign."-p. 41, Note. In another passage, the same imputation is again cast on the memory of this unhappy man. "Marechal Ney, perhaps in consequence of his moral situation, had fallen into an aberration of mind, from which he only recovered in the midst of the fire, when natural and constitutional bravery surmounted those feelings, and restored him the use of his faculties. One of the faults with which the Emperor reproaches himself, is the having employed that Marechal, or at least having given him so important a command."-p. 95.

We will hardly be suspected of paying much respect to the memory of Ney: But

Suum cuique is our Roman justice.

While he lived, he was undeniably the bravest soldier and generally ac counted the best general of the French service for the petite guerre, in which cavalry and light infantry are employed. In his death he paid the debt of his treason; and nothing can be now more disgusting than the hypocritical malignity which assigns to him an alienation of mind, and gravely imputes it to remorse occasioned by those very crimes in which Bonaparte and his minions had involved him. It is true that Ney was accessible to the

weakness of remorse, that the recollection of his traitorous defection at Lons-le-saulnier haunted him, and that he appeared, and was in reality, less completely won over to Bonaparte's cause and measures than others in his situation. It is perhaps such recollections, with those relating to the part which Ney played in the Senate, after the defeat of Waterloo, where he tore the veil from the specious picture of the French resources, with which Carnot endeavoured to impose on that assembly-it is perhaps such remembrances which dwell in Bonaparte's memory, and lead him to trample on the memory of the man who had "Put rancours in the vessel of his peace, Only for him; and his eternal jewel, Given to the common enemy of man, To make him king."

But although Ney had the weakness, such General Gourgaud and General Gourgaud's master may consider it, to be but half villain; and although, in his retirement at his estate of Coudreaux, his inequality of temper betrayed his internal remorse, it is certain all around him remarked, that after he joined the army of Bonaparte (which was on the 11th June, at Lisle), the joy of finding himself among the troops which he had so often commanded, and the clang of arms to which his ear was so well accustomed, served to silence the feelings by which he had been agitated since his defection, and restored to him that energy of mind which was proper to his character.

Had it been otherwise than we have stated-had that moral aberration, that confusion of ideas, that propensity to blunder even in the field of battle, now imputed to Ney, really displayed themselves-is it possible a mental disease whose symptoms are particularly visible should have escaped the eye of such a keen observer as Bonaparte? Is he likely to have assigned to a hypochondriac, sinking under a sense of dishonour and remorse, the command of his army at Quatre Bras? Would it have been rational for any commander-in-chief-would it have been consistent with the character of Bonaparte in particular-to have sent to such an one a message on the morning of the 16th, by Forbin-Janson, to assure him that the fate of France was in his hands?" Or, if Ney gave the first marks of this moral aberration during the bat

tle of Quatre Bras, and committed in that action the enormous blunders attributed to him by Gourgaud, would Bonaparte have employed his services as leader of the vanguard which was to press Wellington's retreat on the 17th, and, finally, have assigned him the most important part in the concluding tragedy of the 18th, at Waterloo? The repeated acts of undoubting and most vital confidence reposed by Bonaparte in Ney are sufficient to confute the tale of pretended imbecility now charged against him; unless, indeed, we should suppose the Ex-Emperor had adopted the policy of an old friend of ours-a man of business, as they are termed in Scotland— who put his own affairs, and those of his clients, under the charge of a mad elerk, merely because he found that the poor man's derangement formed a ready apology when any thing went

wrong.

We hold it of considerable importance to us to establish this point; because, if Ney shall be found to stand, in the law phrase, rectus in curia, we have a title to adduce him as a witness in the cause, and to shew, by his evidence, that Gourgaud or Bonaparte is now loading his memory with faults, which the testimony of the Marechal, while alive, charged upon Napoleon himself.

We have still to remark another peculiarity of Bonaparte's military_narratives, which we recognise in Gourgaud's Relation. As, in telling his ownstory, he was neither prone to acknowledge talents or bravery in his enemies, nor occasional errors or deficiencies in himself, as all his own schemes were held up as shewing the quintessence of military science, while the efforts of his opponents, even when most successful, were said to exhibit the blunders of ignorant novices in the art of war, there was often a load of blame to be laid somewhere, more than the shoulders of his subordinate generals could possibly bear. In such emergency, the Spoiled Child of Fortune did not (as we have already hinted) hesitate to impute the greater share of his misadventures to some freakish humour of that Deity who had once so highly favoured him. Circumstances of mere chance, the most unlikely and the most improbable, were gravely stated as having impeded the success of his wisest mea

sures. No reader can have forgotten the ill-imagined incident of the blowing up the bridge at Leipsic, owing to the unhappy precipitation of the corporal of engineers, who lighted the fatal match, not having observed that only half the French army had crossed it. To complete, therefore, the accordance of skill and incident betwixt Gourgaud's narrative and an imperial bulletin, the relation ought to present us with some specious miracle, which (reversing the dramatic rule) should be introduced, not to rescue the Hero of the tale, but to account for his not being able to rescue himself. We hope to be equally successful in tracing this strong point of similarity, as we have been in making good the others. It is true, we can point out no incident so bold in the outline, and so highly coloured, as story of the corporal and the bridge. But if the reader can be satisfied with the march and counter-march of a division of twenty thousand men, performed without orders from any human being or if he can be amused with cries of treason and mutiny, which, though sufficient to check an army in its career of victory, were heard by no ears save those of Gourgaud and Bonaparte, his taste for the marvellous shall be so far gratified.

the

For the present, suffice it to say, that we consider this Relation as being drawn up under Bonaparte's eye and direction, and as containing what he desires should be received as the authentic narration of this important campaign. It may serve him in double point of view. For either its falsehoods being discerned and confuted, he may learn to what tone they ought to be modified in his avowed Memoirs; or else he may hope, that, by again and again repeating the same tale, he may at length impress it upon that numerous class of readers, to whom the reiteration of the same story forms at length a proof of its credibility.

These preliminary observations have been offered, to prove its general resemblance to the similar details which he sent forth respecting the disasters of Moscow and Leipsic, and the campaign of 1814. In our next Number, some pages will be employed in winnowing the particulars which the Relation lays before us, in pointing out such as throw light upon incidents hitherto incompletely explained, and in contrasting

those which seem to be fictitious, with the intelligence derived from other

sources.

We cannot part with General Gourgaud without noticing his preface, the first sentence of which asserts the fact which we have endeavoured to corroborate.

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L'empereur Napoléon ayant daigné me faire connaître son opinion sur les principales opérations de la Campagne de 1815; je des souvenirs de la grande catastrophe dont profitai de cette circonstance favorable, et j'avais été témoin, pour écrire cette relation."

Of the truth of this statement we have no doubt, any more than that the memory of General Gourgaud was a very complaisant memory, and remembered just as much, and no more, of

their transactions than confirmed the

opinion of the Emperor Napoleon.

Again, the General assures us, that his narration has been written to counteract the effect of a number of accounts by authors who, blinded by excessive national vanity, had given a false idea of these events. No doubt there was not a single disinterested or faithful narrator of this memorable history to be found excepting General Gourgaud and his Emperor. did any one discover the vulgar atrocity and immorality of the English character, until it was put in its true light by General Pillet. We are much obliged to them both.

Neither

The General next assures us, that, as a miltary man, he meddles only with military details, and gravely putting the question, Whether the battle of Waterloo has confirmed or shaken the thrones of Europe? ensured her tranquillity, or sapp'd its foundations? he oracularly answers, the "future will shew." We venture to add our hope, that the future will confirm the experience of two former years, and the well grounded expectation of the present. There are few things, we think, could defeat them, unless unfortunately Monseigneur should come in good earnest, and thus find means to be an actor in new scenes, instead of recording in his island those which have passed away.

Next we are informed, that it is the object of the work to afford the French a new proof that their glories have not been tarnished in the field of Waterloo. We wish them joy of the as

surance.

Then are the ministers of the powers

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