Chapter XIII.

The entire duration of the armistice was employed in negotiations tending to a treaty of peace, which the Emperor ardently desired, especially since he had seen the honor of his army restored on the fields of Lutzen and Bautzen; but unfortunately he desired it only on conditions to which the enemy would not consent, and soon the second series of our disasters recommenced, and rendered peace more and more impossible. Besides, from the beginning of negotiations relative to the armistice, whose limit we had now nearly reached, the emperor Alexander, notwithstanding the three battles won by Napoleon, would listen to no direct proposals from France, except on the sole condition that Austria should act as mediator. This distrust, as might be expected, did not tend to produce a final. reconciliation, and, being the conquering party, the Emperor was naturally irritated by it; nevertheless, under these grave circumstances he conquered the just resentment caused by the conduct of the Emperor of Russia towards himself. The result of the time lost at Dresden, like the prolongation of our sojourn at Moscow, was a great advantage to the enemy.

All hopes of a peaceful adjustment of affairs now having vanished, on the 15th of August the Emperor ordered his carriage; we left Dresden, and the war recommenced. The French army was still magnificent and imposing, with a force of two hundred thousand infantry, but only forty thousand cavalry, as it had been entirely impossible to repair completely the immense loss of horses that had been sustained. The most serious danger at that time arose from the fact that England was the soul of the coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Sweden against France. Her subsidies having obtained her the supreme control, nothing could be decided without consulting her; and I have since learned that even during the pretended negotiations the British government had declared to the Emperor of Russia that under the circumstances the conditions of the treaty of Luneville would be far too favorable to France. All these complications might be expressed in these words: "We desire war!" War was then waged, or rather the scourge continued to desolate Germany, and soon threatened and invaded France. I should, moreover, call attention to the fact that what contributed to render our position extremely critical in case of reverses was that Prussia waged on us not simply a war of regular armies, but that it had now assumed the character of a national war, by the calling out of the Zandwehr and Zandsturm which made the situation far more dangerous than against the tactics of the best disciplined army. To so many other complications was added the fear, soon only too well justified, of seeing Austria from an inoffensive and unbiased mediator become a declared enemy.

Before going farther, I deem it best to refer again to two or three occurrences I have inadvertently omitted which took place during our stay at Dresden previous to what might be called the second campaign of 1813. The first of these was the appearance at Dresden of the Duke of Otranto, whom his Majesty had summoned.

He had been very rarely seen at the Tuileries since the Duke of Rovigo had replaced him as minister of general police; and I noticed that his presence at headquarters was a great surprise to every one, as he was thought to be in complete disgrace. Those who seek to explain the causes of the smallest events think that his Majesty’s idea was to oppose the subtle expedients of the police under M. Fouche to the then all-powerful police of the Baron de Stein, the armed head of all the secret parties which were forming in every direction, and which were regarded, not without reason, as the rulers of popular opinion in Prussia and Germany, and, above all, in the numerous schools, where the students were only awaiting the moment for taking up arms. These conjectures as to M. Fouche’s presence at Dresden were without foundation. The Emperor in recalling him had a real motive, which he, however, disguised under a specious pretext. Having been deeply impressed by the conspiracy of Malet, his Majesty thought that it would not be prudent to leave at Paris during his absence a person so discontented and at the same time so influential as the Duke of Otranto; and I heard him many times express himself on this subject in a manner which left no room for doubt. But in order to disguise this real motive, the Emperor appointed M. Fouche governor of the Illyrian provinces in place of Count Bertrand, who was given the command of an army-corps, and was soon after appointed to succeed the adorable General Duroc in the functions of grand marshal of the palace. Whatever the justice of this distrust of Fouche, it is very certain that few persons were so well convinced of the superiority of his talents as a police officer as his Majesty himself. Several times when anything extraordinary occurred at Paris, and especially when he learned of the conspiracy of Malet, the Emperor, recalling in the evening what had impressed him most deeply during the day, ended by saying, "This would not have happened if Fouche had been minister of police!" Perhaps this was undue partiality; for the Emperor assuredly never had a more faithful and devoted servant than the Duke of Rovigo, although many jests were made in Paris over his custom of punishing by a few hours imprisonment.

Prince Eugene having returned to Italy at the beginning of the campaign in order to organize a new army in that country, we did not see him at Dresden; the King of Naples, who had arrived on the night of the 13th or 14th August presented himself there almost alone; and his contribution to the grand army consisted of only the small number of Neapolitan troops he had left there on his departure for Naples.

I was in the Emperor’s apartment when the King of Naples entered, and saw him for the first time. I did not know to what cause to attribute it, but I noticed that the Emperor did not give his brother-in-law as cordial a welcome as in the past. Prince Murat said that he could no longer remain idle at Naples, knowing that the French army to which he still belonged was in the field, and he asked only to be allowed to fight in its ranks. The Emperor took him with him to the parade, and gave him the command of the Imperial Guard; and a more intrepid commander would have been difficult to find. Later he was given the general command of the cavalry.

During the whole time of the armistice, spun out rather than filled with the slow and useless conferences of the Congress of Prague, it would be impossible to describe the various labors in which the Emperor occupied himself from morning till evening, and often far into the night. He could frequently be seen bending over his maps, making, so to speak, a rehearsal of the battles he meditated. Nevertheless, greatly exasperated by the slowness of the negotiations as to the issue of which he could no longer delude himself, he ordered, shortly before the end of July, that everything should be prepared and in readiness for a journey he intended making as far as Mayence. He made an appointment to meet the Empress there; and as she was to arrive on the 25th, the Emperor consequently arranged his departure so as to arrive only a short time after. I recall this journey only as a fact, since it was signalized by nothing remarkable, except the information the Emperor received at this time of the death of the Duke of Abrantes, who had just succumbed at Dijon to a violent attack of his former malady. Although the Emperor was already aware that he was in a deplorable state of mental alienation, and must consequently have expected this loss, he felt it none the less sensibly, and sincerely mourned his former aide-decamp.

The Emperor remained only a few days with the Empress, whom he met again with extreme pleasure. But as important political considerations recalled him, he returned to Dresden, visiting several places on his route, and the 4th of August we returned to the capital of Saxony. Travelers who had seen this beautiful country only in a time of peace would have recognized it with difficulty. Immense fortifications had metamorphosed it into a warlike town; numerous batteries had been placed in the suburbs overlooking the opposite bank of the Elbe. Everything assumed a warlike attitude, and the Emperor’s time became so completely and entirely absorbed that he remained nearly three days without leaving his cabinet.

Nevertheless, in the midst of the preparations for war all arrangements were made to celebrate on the 10th of August the Emperor’s fete, which had been advanced five days, because, as I have previously observed, the armistice expired precisely on the anniversary of Saint-Napoleon; and, as may be readily inferred from his natural passion for war, the resumption of hostilities was not an addition to his fete which he would be likely to disdain.

There was at Dresden, as had been customary at Paris, a special representation at the theater on the evening before the Emperor’s fete. The actors of the French theater played two comedies on the 9th at five o’clock in the evening; which representation was the last, as the actors of the French Comedy received orders immediately afterwards to return to Paris. The next day the King of Saxony, accompanied by all the princes of the royal family, repaired at nine o’clock in the morning to the Marcolini palace, in order to pay his respects to the Emperor; after which a grand morning reception was held as was the custom at the Tuileries, and a review, at which the Emperor inspected a part of his guard, several regiments, and the Saxon troops, who were invited to dine by the French troops. On that day the city of Dresden without much exaggeration might have been compared to a great dining-hall. In fact, while his Majesty was dining in state at the palace of the King of Saxony, where the whole family of this prince was assembled, the entire diplomatic corps was seated at the table of the Duke of Bassano; Baron Bignon, envoy from France to Warsaw, feasted all the distinguished Poles present in Dresden; Count Darn gave a grand dinner to the French authorities; General Friant to the French and Saxon generals; and Baron de Serra, minister from France to Dresden, to the chiefs of the Saxon colleges. This day of dinings was concluded by a supper for nearly two hundred guests, which General Henri Durosnel, Governor of Dresden, gave that evening at the close of a magnificent ball at the residence of M. de Serra.

On our return from Mayence to Dresden I learned that the residence of General Durosnel was the rendezvous of all the highest circles of society, both Saxon and French. During the absence of his Majesty, the general, taking advantage of this leisure, gave numerous fetes, among others one to the actors and actresses of French Comedy. I recall in this connection an amusing anecdote which was related to me at the time. Baptiste junior, with no lack either of decorum or refinement, contributed greatly to the amusement of the evening, being presented under the name of my Lord Bristol, English diplomat, en route to the Council of Prague. His disguise was so perfect, his accent so natural, and his phlegm so imperturbable, that many persons of the Saxon court were completely deceived, which did not in the least astonish me; and I thereby saw that Baptiste junior’s talent for mystification had lost nothing since the time when I had been so highly diverted at the breakfasts of Colonel Beauharnais. How many events had occurred since that time.

The Emperor, seeing that nothing could longer delay the resumption of hostilities, had consequently divided the two hundred thousand men of his infantry into fourteen army corps, the command of which was given to Marshals Victor, Ney, Marmont, Augereau, Macdonald, Oudinot, Davoust, and Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Prince Poniatowski, and Generals Reynier, Rapp, Lauriston, Vandamme, and Bertrand,. The forty thousand cavalry formed six grand divisions under the command of Generals Nansouty, Latour- Maubourg, Sebastiani, Arrighi, Milhaud, and Kellermann; and, as I have already said, the King of Naples had the command of the Imperial Guard. Moreover, in this campaign appeared for the first time on our fields of battle the guard of honor, a select troop recruited from the richest and most distinguished families, and which had been increased to more than ten thousand men, divided into two divisions under the simple title of regiments; one of which was commanded by General Count of Pully, and the other, if I am not mistaken, by General Segur. These youths, but lately idlers given up to repose and pleasure, became in a short time most excellent cavalry, which signalized itself on various occasions, notably at the battle of Dresden, of which I shall soon have occasion to speak.

The strength of the French army has been previously stated. The combined army of the allies amounted to four hundred and twenty thousand infantry, and its cavalry to hardly less than one hundred thousand, without counting a reserve army corps of eighty thousand Russians, in readiness to leave Poland under the command of General Beningsen. Thus the enemy’s army outnumbered ours in the proportion of two to one.

At the time we entered into this campaign, Austria had just declared war openly against us. This blow, although not unexpected, struck the Emperor deeply, and he expressed himself freely in regard to it before all persons who had the honor to approach him. M. de Metternich, I have heard it stated, had almost certainly forewarned him of this in the last interviews this minister had at Dresden with his Majesty; but the Emperor had been entirely unable to bring himself to the belief that the Emperor of Austria would make common cause with the coalition of the north against his own daughter and grandson. Finally all doubts were solved by the arrival of Count Louis de Narbonne, who was returning from Prague to Dresden, as bearer of a declaration of war from Austria. Every one foresaw that France must soon count among its enemies all the countries no longer occupied by its troops, and results justified this prediction only too well. Nevertheless, everything was not lost, for we had not yet been compelled to take the defensive.