| | | That Napoleon Buonaparte should have been, and | should still be, much overrated by his own countrymen, the | French, no man wonders. Man is naturally a religious being, | and prone, above all things, to that sort of veneration which | lies nearest to him, namely |

"Hero worship."

As a chief part of the | volatile Frenchman's religion is the love of glory, it is natural | that he should be the idolator of Napoleon; but that John | Bull, with his British pride, his Nelson and his Trafalgar, his | Wellington and his Waterloo, should have allowed himself to | fall prostrate, in any unworthy way before a French Dagon, seems a | thing scarcely credible. And yet the intelligent author of the | volumes here before us tells us, that we have, all in a body, | Whig, Tory, and Radical, more or less been guilty of this | great sin; we have paid homage to a brilliant apparition of | vain continental quackery, and allowed our sober eye sight to | be blinded in many important views by a magnificent | conglomeration of French dust. Is there any truth in this? Is it | common, is it fashionable with any class of men at the | present moment to overrate Napoleon Buonaparte? Let us see | how the tendencies and the probabilities lie; it is a question of | some moment. | Napoleon appeared publicly on the stage of Europe in | the year 1800, before the battle of Marengo, as the

"heir of | the Revolution,"

and the

"armed champion of democracy." |

His first act as consul of the new-modelled republic was to | fight and to beat the Emperor of one of the oldest and most | conservative monarchies in Europe. He was, therefore, by | position and by achievement the public and declared enemy | of all who were the enemies of the state of things produced | by the French Revolution; he was, in fact, historically | identified with the Revolution, and with liberal principles on | the continent; and, as such, was naturally acknowledged and | recognized by the advocates of these principles all over | Europe. In Great Britain, especially, he at once became a | party-name. The English Tories, originally at war with the | principles of the Revolution, naturally transferred their | hostility to the man who had adopted the championship of the | results of these principles; and the | English liberals transferred their admiration of the | revolutionary principles to the man, whom Providence | seemed plainly to have set forth, if not as a sower of liberal | seed, at least as the watchman and guardian god of that field | where the good seed had been sown. Here, therefore, was a | strong foundation laid for an over-appreciation of Napoleon | on the part of the liberals, just as naturally as the Tory brain | in the same direction was fertile only in the grossest calumny | and libel; and we are not, therefore, to be surprised if we find | a Hazlitt, in this country, taking up ground, with regard to the | famous Corsican, little distinguishable from that of a Thiers | or a Norvins in France. The liberals of the last generation, | that is to say, those who were in their prime thirty years ago, | so long as the Tory government remained in power, could | hardly avoid a sort of championship, and here and there a | direct

"hero-worship"

of Buonaparte; but what are we to say | of the Tories? Colonel Mitchell says, pretty plainly, that they | also, as a body, have egregiously overrated the talents of their | adversary. Is this true? And how did it come to pass? We | think it is both true, and came to pass in the most natural way | imaginable. The man who required twenty years of good hard | Tory fighting to beat him out of Europe, surely seemed | entitled to at least one praise, that of being a good fighter; | and, whatever vile things might have been cast in his teeth, in | the progress of the contest, when he was once worsted, it is | plain that, to exalt his talents, and to trumpet his | extraordinary genius, was nothing more than what was | absolutely necessary for the due exaltation of the great Duke | who beat him. If the Frenchman was only an

"ordinary man," |

(as Colonel Mitchell more than once calls him,) then the | Englishman who conquered him might have been an ordinary | man too. The Tories, therefore, immediately after Waterloo, | had as great a direct interest to magnify the genius of | Napoleon as the Whigs had before that event; and thus both | parties in the state might have been drawn, by the | unconscious influence of position and sympathy, to an | exaggerated notion of the person of a man to whose | principles they were both equally hostile; for the principles of | the British Tories are, and were, essentially aristocratic, those | of the liberals democratic in various degrees; both equally | remote from the monstrous aristocracy, and military | dictatorship of the man who, because he plucked the fruit, | was not, for that reason, the less | | ready to pull up the root of liberalism on the continent. | But there was more in the matter than this. John Bull, though | proud and distant in his exterior, is by no means an | ungenerous or an unfair fellow at the core; he understands | how to treat a fallen enemy nobly; and when Napoleon fell, | as he did fall terribly after that three days' earthquake at | Leipzig, and the woful precipitation at Waterloo, John Bull | did not exult with unbecoming ferocity over the humiliation | of his adversary, but rather, (especially after the Bellerophon | and the St. Helena catastrophe,) began to relent, and to | compassionate. Nay, not a few, especially of the liberal party, | as much, no doubt, from a spirit of stiff anti-Toryism, as of | pure human sympathy ~~ became quite sentimental on the | occasion, and began to weep tears and spout poetry over the | caged eagle of St. Helena, ~~ innocently oblivious, all the | while, how that eagle had fattened itself, vulture-like, on | Europe's best blood, for two decades, , and how the | same crimson monster, having been once continued, with | chivalrous unsuspiciousness, at Elba, had prepared for itself, | with deliberate recklessness, the bloody banquets of Ligny | and Waterloo. Thus Tories and Whigs, and humanity, all | conspired to weave a consecrated halo of glorification round | the bloody memory of Napoleon Buonaparte. But another, | also, and a strong influence, contributed to produce the same | effect. In addition to the political and the humane, a notable | literary juggle came into play. Books were written about | Napoleon of course, and the materials for these books were | taken chiefly, ~~ as, indeed, was hardly to be avoided in the | first instance, ~~ from France. But the French are | proverbially a vain, and, because a vain, an exaggerating | people; they are also a restless people, and a military people. | It was not in the nature of human testimony that they should | speak soberly, honestly, and truly about Napoleon that our | British biographers of the Corsican soldier, after making | every allowance for French exaggeration, should still sign | their name, in all honesty, to a respectable number of | vain-glorious fables; should, in spite even of strong prejudices | to the contrary, have given back by reflection, no dim radiation | of merely French lights thrown on the undoubted facts of the | imperial adventurer's extraordinary career. There were | indeed, other sources which the British biographer of | Napoleon might have consulted; there were German sources. | But partly John Bull was too busy with Greek at Oxford, to | know anything | about German; partly the Germans were too | much muzzled by the censorship, to send forth their memoir | literature in a shape that could prove attractive to the British | reader; and thus, while a continued flood of false French | Napoleonism circulated freely through this country, only a | stray beam of honest German Franzosen-Hass | found it sways across the ocean, and mixed itself | up with the general mass of British opinion on the subject. | We conclude, therefore, on the whole, that there have been | causes at work in this country strong enough to have | produced such a general tendency to overrate Napoleon, as | Colonel Mitchell supposes; and if it des exist still to any | extent, notwithstanding the lapse of full thirty years since the | battle of Waterloo, there can be no doubt of the great literary | value of a work, substantially executed, of which . | Such a work of Colonel Mitchell's "Fall of Napoleon" claims | to be; and the execution, we are bound to say, is in every | respect worthy of the promise; manly, vigorous, and | soldierly; comprehensive, and large-viewed; thorough, | accurate, and scholar-like; altogether a masterly performance. | When we give this high praise to the present work, we should | by no means be understood as saying, that Colonel Mitchell | is in every respect a safe and a sufficient guide to a just | appreciation of the remarkable soldier, whose Europe-shaking | precipitation he has undertaken to record. The very | object of the work, announced in the words just quoted, | precludes the possibility of this. The colonel is not a party, or | a prejudiced writer, in the common sense of the term; but, | having undertaken to write a book for the express purpose of | uncanonizing a false saint, it lay, in the very nature of the | undertaking, that he should not draw an altogether impartial | portrait. He has done his duty to the public, and achieved the | praise of substantial authorship, if, in the first place, his view | of Napoleon's character be, in the grand lines and most | characteristic features, the correct view; and if, in the second | place, he has supported this view by a searching examination | of original documents, and an ample deduction from these. | Now, in both these respects, according to the best opinion we | can form, the present, work we repeat, is a masterly | performance. | Colonel Mitchell, indeed, has come to the execution of one of | the most difficult tasks of modern authorship, with three | grand qualification for the work, which have never yet, in | this country, been combined. He brings practical soldiership, | a grand spirit of moral indignation, and an extensive | knowledge of German, to bear upon the theme. Now, all | these three things we hold essential to the author who shall | attempt, profoundly and thoroughly, to grapple with the | history of Napoleon. Of the great advantage derive from | practical soldiership, in judging of the deeds and fortunes of a | soldier, every page of Colonel Mitchell's work bears | testimony. He may not, indeed, in every case, be right, (no | man is infallible:) but he knows what he is talking about, and | the reader feels that he knows it. Then, as to moral | indignation, that, even more than a sound military judgment, | is indispensable to the write who would give a vigorous and | healthy-toned portrait of the most gigantic development of | political immorality that the world had witnessed since the | days of Sylla and Julius Caesar. Napoleon personally, is this | view, was an intensive embodiment of that | | spirit of daring audacity, overcoming self-confidence, | insatiate selfishness, and unblushing mendacity, which | characterized so many of the more prominent actors in the | bloody drama of the French Revolution. It is natural, indeed, | that we, who hold liberal opinions, should wish to represent | the Revolution by which these opinions were propagated | through Europe, as having been achieved altogether by moral | and noble instruments. But facts are facts; and Providence | often brings about the greatest political and ecclesiastical | changes, by means the very reverse of what their originators | contemplated. The principles of the Revolution were good; | the changes achieved by them, necessary and beneficial. This | is best proved by the conduct of Prussia in 1808, a despotic | state, which saved itself from utter destruction only by an | agrarian law, and an overturning of the aristocracy, as | complete as anything | that the Revolution had effected in | France; but it may, nevertheless, be true ~~ and to deny it | now were merely to kick against the pricks ~~ that some of | the daring and fortunate men who stood forward to contend | with European Tories, as the representatives of Liberal | principles, were amongst the most illiberal, narrow-hearted, | selfish, false, reckless, and depraved characters, that every | played a distinguished part in the history of the world. If this | be true, it is plain that, without a certain grand instinct of | moral indignation, no edifying history of Napoleon, and the | results of the French Revolution, | can be written. A mere man of imagination may paint | pictures, and, with the addiction of feeling, he may make his | pictures glow: these will amuse; but, without intense moral | earnestness, and unflinching principle, there can be no | edification. Not only with falsehood, and treachery, and | ungenerousness of every kind, must the man carry on an | internecine war who would justly estimate the character of | the Corsican, but with the (as our | theologian phrase it,) in every shape and transfiguration, and | with the devil, when most like an angel of light, and with that | deceptive web of practiced speech which wreathes itself | around the lips of the vain-glorious and false man, who can | Smile, and smile, and smile, and be a villain. | Novalis, in his "Thoughts on Morals," says, that . | Now, whatever intellectual or military virtues he might | possess, we think it admits of the most satisfactory proof in | detail, that the ideal represented by Napoleon, even as he is | painted by his greatest admirers, was nothing more than this | barbarian ideal of the ; an ideal which only requires | a little pride and vanity, and ambition mixed with it, to be the | perfect ideal of the devil. Any compromise with an ideal of | this kind, is dangerous; so far as morality is concerned, | therefore, Colonel Mitchell takes the only course that can | safely be taken with his hero: he beats him down with blast | after blast of stiff moral indignation; and there is no man of a | sound British heart who will not feel himself compelled to go | along with him. | Again, as to the German element, Colonel Mitchell comes | armed, not merely with the detailed military literature of | Germany, to counteract the French, but with the most recent | memoir literature of the same country, great part of which | Alison, (German and ultra-German as he is in some places,) | either was not, or could not be acquainted with. Now the | Germans are the people, above all others in Europe, best | calculated to bear important evidence, both to the military | and to the moral and political character of Napoleon. It was | by their weakness and division mainly that the conqueror first | rose, as it was by their subsequent strength and union that he | fell. It was they, above all others, that groaned for the longest | time, and with the deepest wounds under his iron dynasty; the | despising of the moral forces that lay hid in the bosom of the | German PEOPLE, was the real cause, Moscow only the | occasion of his fall; ~~ even as it was by despising the moral | forces of the French people, and the moral might of the | principles of the Revolution, that the monarchs of the original | coalition took up arms against France, only to prove their | weakness. The Germans paid war-contributions to the French | Emperor, after being beat by him: we paid war-taxes to the | Tory government that they might give him a beating. Hence | the difference of national estimate. If we want to bring down | our estimate of Napoleon to the true zero of Colonel | Mitchell's mark, we must study in the school where he has | studied; in the study of Arndt, of Hormayr, of Varnhagen von | Ense, and, above all, of the Baron von Stein. We do not say, | of course, that everything | that these sturdy French haters | assert, is to be taken for gospel; but the Germans are | proverbially more honest and less vain than the French; and, | at all events, without a careful and conscientious comparison | of the best German authorities with the French ones, no | impartial history of the Rise and Fall of Napoleon is possible. | Let this henceforward be distinctly understood. | These remarks appeared to us absolutely necessary in | order to show the reader distinctly in what position, as | contrasted with his fellow workers in the same department, | the present historian of Napoleon stands. We shall now | shortly direct attention to the work itself. | After an introductory book, entitled "The Ascent to | Power," in which a concise view is given of Napoleon's | fortunes, from the taking of Toulon to the war with Russia, | the proper business of the work commences with "Moscow." | Then follows the second scene in the great epos, entitled, | "The Rising of the Nations;" which means, strictly, the rising | of the Germans, and the German campaign of 1813. This | book, also, as its necessary sequel, takes in the campaign of | 1814, in France, and brings us to Montmartre, and to the | gates of Paris. The next book is entitled, "The Abdication;" | | the fourth, "Waterloo," and the fifth, "St. Helena." The whole | is followed up by three chapters of general recapitulation, in | which, with all the energy and vehemence of a Scottish | judge, the criminal at the bar is arraigned before the moral | and military, before the legal and political conscience of | Europe, and declared worthy of execution. Let us commence | with Moscow. | That the expedition to Russia, in 1812, was undertaken | for no wise or intelligible purpose, and with no prudent | foresight or sagacious calculation, but merely from the | morbid restlessness, unbounded ambition, and overweening | self-confidence of the French Emperor, all readers, who are | not Napoleon mad, will now be ready to admit. But that the | elements, the frost and the fire, did not conspire, in an | unlooked for way, to punish the presumption of the spoiled | child of fortune, will not seem so evident to many. That the | frost and the fire did the invader much damage that | he did not look for, is, however, all | that Colonel Mitchell can admit; a French general certainly | ought to have looked for frost and snow | in the fall of the year in Lithuania and Muscovy. But, from | the Egyptian expedition downwards, blind rashness, and | inconsiderate daring, had been a characteristic feature in | Napoleon's character; and, though he escaped punishment | nineteen times, it was only the more natural to look for it the | twentieth time. To his own native and unchecked fool- hardiness, | let the Moscow precipitation be ascribed; all | dispassionate persons will agree in this: but Colonel Mitchell, | with a thoroughness of purpose, and a radicalism of | execution which we cannot but admire, goes a step farther, | and denies, point-blank, that the Russians did burn Moscow. | | Now, how is this question to be settled? The mere | starting of it, in the first place does Colonel Mitchell a great | deal of credit. Alison never states any doubt about the matter; | and the evidence he adduces is scarcely sufficient to prove | the point. He says, that Rostopchin, in Paris, with his own | lips, told him that he had applied the incendiary torch with | his own hands; but to what? To a bed in his own

"country | palace."

But the country is not the town, an individual is not a | nation, and a personal whim is not a national scheme. The | French evidence, of course, is worth nothing; they had, in | fact, no means of knowing who set fire to the town, whether | their own soldiers, as Colonel Mitchell says, or the Russians | themselves; they had strong motives, however, for saying the | latter, and therefore they said it. As for Bouturlin's statement, | (the only Russian one given,) it must be received with great | suspicion; first, because the | Russians who did burn some of their | villages, might naturally feel a barbaric price in having | it believed that they had the savage courage to fire their | metropolis also, to save their country; and, | second, because Arndt, who was in Petersburg at the | time, and who takes it for granted that Rostopchin did the | deed, states expressly that he did so without the knowledge of | the Russian people, and without the approbation of the | Emperor. Let it remain, therefore, a question | undecided, who burnt Moscow; one thing is certain, that | though the fire had not come, the frost and snow would | certainly not have been kept back; and in a deserted city in | Muscovy, what were thousands and myriads of French | people to do through a long winter but to starve? We agree | entirely with the writer's arguments on this point. Combined | with the rashness and thoughtlessness of the invader, all that | was required to defeat the French in Petersburg, was | patriotism, ~~ steady and unyielding, ~~ not so much active, | as dogged passive patriotism on the part of the Russians. | The next scene in the Fall of Napoleon, is the Rising of | the Germans. Vain ambition, rashness, and imprudence had | ruined him in Russia; to what cause are we to attribute his | loss of Germany? To this plain cause, that the country had | been gained physically only, not morally: it was lost, as we | said above, by a contempt of the moral forces, and by the just | judgment of God upon acts of the most haughty tyranny, and | the most grinding oppression. The German war of | 1813 is accordingly, the soul and inspiration of colonel | | Mitchell's book; and, next to the German people, and the | Prussian militia, Blucher is the string from which he strikes | the most lusty chords of patriotic melody. | | With every word of this we most cordially agree. Now | for the hot hoary Achilles of this strife ~~ for Marshal | "Forwards" himself. | | The course of the campaign is shortly told. At Paris, in | the spring of 1814, as at Warsaw in that famous conversation | with Du Pradt, Napoleon wore that air of affected | indifference, and unaffected self-confidence, which was the | natural result of his strange temperament, and the strange | circumstances in which he was placed; and as this was the | first time in which the great European | | Invincible had really been vanquished in Europe, (the disaster | at Aspern having been obliterated by Wagram,) we are not to | be surprised to see him recovering from this tremendous | blow with a speed and an energy that seemed not unworthy | of this best days. The conscription, indeed, was a severe | goad, against which many French hearts rebelled. But now | was no time for wincing; the combined Prussians and | Russians had crossed the Elbe, and might soon cross the | Rhine; and, accordingly, before the summer's sun had | acquired strength enough to melt the last snow wreath from | the brow of the Schneekoppe, on the 2d of May, we find the |

"equestrian Robespierre"

mounted again, and driving his | combined adversaries murderously before him from the field | of Lutzen, (sic miles from Leipzig,) towards the mountains of | Silesia. And when this blow was followed by another, the | battle of Bautzen, (between Dresden and Breslau,) 21st May, | ~~ all Europe was willing to believe that only the elements | had conquered the invincible in Muscovy, and that for poor | Germany there was no hope. But there was a great mistake | here. The fact is, from the campaign of 1792, down to this | moment, the strength of Germany never had been fairly | pitted against the French: Napoleon had warred successfully | (and what wonder!) against Austria and Prussia singly ~~ | both countries were inferior to him in strength ~~ but he had | never known what it was to encounter Germany; and with the | usual error of conceit and vain-confidence, he underrated the | strength of this new adversary. Accordingly, we find him | making use of the armistice of Poischwitz, (4th June, 1813,) | not like that of Znaym in 1809, to work upon the fears of an | unstable enemy for the achievement of a glorious peace, but | only to make sure his own destruction; and by the ancient | grudge of Austria, added to the new wrath of Russia and | Prussia, to prepare the iron web that was to hedge him round | with death at Leipzig. After Lutzen and Bautzen, he might no | doubt have dictated terms of accommodation, for which | France could have no reason to blush: such terms were, | indeed, within his grasp once and again; but wisdom, justice, | and moderation were not words of which the insolent soldier, | and the spoiled despot, could now the meaning. The terms | could not be agreed on; the war was renewed; Russia, | Prussia, and the German People, against the tyrant of Europe; | for

"it was written in heaven"

that pride | should have a fall. The series of battles and movements that | followed on the resumption of hostilities (17th August) is too | complex to be detailed in this place: suffice it to say, that | while in hand-to-hand fighting, (as at Katzbach and | Dennewitz,) the Frenchman shewed himself | nowhere a | match for the Prussian; so far as generalship was concerned, | that was ample room for Napoleon to have achieved the most | splendid things against the timid and hampered | Schwarzenberg, had he known how to do it. But he could | effect nothing, even with the help of the

"false movement" |

against Dresden; and thus was forced, after darting about, | like an enraged rattlesnake, in all directions, with his tail | always fixed at Dresden, to retreat to Leipzig, and there | receive the outburst of the cloud of retribution that frowned | always darker and darker as it came more neat. The real truth | is, however, that no generalship could have saved him now; | for a new enemy was in the field against him, of whose | existence, in his blind despot's heart, he had no knowledge, | and against which his strongest weapons must fall powerless, | even as the charmed life of Macbeth, though cased in by the | triple mail of hell, was forced to open its red fountains to the | avenging steel of Macduff. This enemy was, as here already | indicated, the German people; and with a great people really | roused, from Marathon to Leipzig, no mere conqueror ever | yet contended successfully. See what a spirit was abroad in | Germany! | | | After this extract, we shall ask the admirers of Napoleon | one question. Suppose that at Marengo, (a battle more than | half lost before it was gained,) in the commencement of his | public career, Napoleon had been | met, not by the superannuated nominee of Viennese aulic | councilors, but by a whole people, so roused as the Prussians | were in 1813, what would have become of his extraordinary | genius? We do not deny that he had genius ~~ and great | genius of a certain volcanic and purely physical kind ~~ but | more extraordinary than his genius unquestionably was his | good fortune, in that his early adversaries were feeble and | divided, and that the popular enthusiasm ~~ whatever there | might be worthy of that name ~~ was at first all on the side of | a despot. | The three days' terrible fighting at Leipzig (16th, 17th, | and 18th October) were the thunderbelt that finally crushed | Napoleon. What followed, indeed ~~ the campaign of 1814 | in France ~~ was a necessary consequence of having to do | with so obstinate and haughty an adversary; but we look | upon that campaign, brilliant as it was in one or two detached | points for Napoleon, as well as that which followed in 1815, | rather as gigantic convulsions of proud desperation, than as | well calculated schemes of probable success. | True, Schwarzenberg was cautious, and crowned heads | were wavering; but the German people were now free, | central Europe was independent, and with that the continental | despotism of Napoleon was necessarily at an end. What one | half of Germany could do against the whole of France had | been shewn already in 1809. Not the blood spilt at Wagram | ~~ for it was spilt equally on both sides, and the victors could | boast no trophies ~~ not craven fear in the heart of the | Austrian people, led to the fatal peace of Vienna in 1809; but | wavering and vacillation in head-quarters, as Hormayr | proves,

"want of mental | courage"

in the Archduke Charles, as Colonel Mitchell | particularizes it. Now, however, that the whole of | Deutschland was roused ~~ now that the Teut had measured | his arm against the Celt, in such fields as Katzbach, | Dennewitz, Culm, and Leipzig, the doom of the continental | despot was sealed, the vocation of Napoleon was gone. We | agree, therefore, altogether with the Marquis of Londonderry, | that the fall of Napoleon was morally and epically (we may | add) completed at Leipzig. Here, therefore, we shall | conclude, anxious as we were to bring before the reader some | of the Colonel's military criticism on the campaigns of 1814 | and 1815, which is altogether most instructive, and to our | view, so far as a civilian may have an opinion on these | matters, perfectly conclusive. The Colonel gainsays stoutly | Mr. Alison's well-known assertion, that Napoleon surprised | Wellington in the Waterloo campaign; and altogether his | remarks will have a salutary effect in tuning down the key of | the Frenchman's purely military laudators. To compensate for | our military omissions, however, let his one concluding | summary serve ~~ | |