Napoleon Bonaparte

The army now pressed forward, with great alacrity, along the banks of the Aosta. They were threading a beautiful valley, rich in verdure and blooming beneath the sun of early spring. Cottages, vineyards, and orchards, in full bloom, embellished their path, while upon each side of them rose, in majestic swell, the fir-clad sides of the mountains. The Austrians pressing against the frontiers of France, had no conception of the storm which had so suddenly gathered, and which was, with resistless sweep, approaching their rear. The French soldiers, elated with the Herculean achievement they had accomplished, and full of confidence in their leader, pressed gayly on. But the valley before them began to grow more and more narrow. The mountains, on either side, rose more precipitous and craggy. The Aosta, crowded into a narrow channel, rushed foaming over the rocks, leaving barely room for a road along the side of the mountain. Suddenly the march of the whole army was arrested by a fort, built upon an inaccessible rock, which rose pyramidally from the bed of the stream. Bristling cannon, skillfully arranged on well-constructed bastions, swept the pass, and rendered further advance apparently impossible. Rapidly the tidings of this unexpected obstruction spread from the van to the rear. Napoleon immediately hastened to the front ranks. Climbing the mountain opposite the fort, by a goat path, he threw himself down upon the ground, when a few bushes concealed his person from the shot of the enemy, and with his telescope long and carefully examined the fort and the surrounding crags. He perceived one elevated spot, far above the fort, where a cannon might by possibility be drawn. From that position its shot could be plunged upon the unprotected bastions below. Upon the face of the opposite cliff, far beyond the reach of cannon-balls, he discerned a narrow shelf in the rock by which he thought it possible that a man could pass. The march was immediately commenced, in single file, along this giddy ridge. ………. And even the horses, insured to the terrors of the Great St. Bernard, were led by their riders upon the narrow path, which a horse's hoof had never trod before, and probably will never tread again. The Austrians, in the fort, had the mortification of seeing thirty-five thousand soldiers, with numerous horses, defile along this airy line, as if adhering to the side of the rock. But neither bullet nor ball could harm them.

Napoleon ascended this mountain ridge, and upon its summit, quite exhausted with days and nights of sleeplessness and toil, laid himself down, in the shadow of the rock, and fell asleep. The long line filed carefully and silently by, each soldier hushing his comrade, that the repose of their beloved chieftain might not be disturbed. It was an interesting spectacle, to witness the tender affection, beaming from the countenances of these bronzed and war-worn veterans, as every foot trod softly, and each eye, in passing, was riveted upon the slender form, and upon the pale and wasted cheek of the sleeping Napoleon.

The artillery could by no possibility be thus transported; and an army without artillery is a soldier without weapons. The Austrian commander wrote to Melas, that he had seen an army of thirty-five thousand men and four thousand horse creeping by the fort, along the face of Mount Albaredo. He assured the commander-in-chief, however, that not one single piece of artillery had passed or could pass beneath the guns of his fortress. When he was writing this letter, already had one half of the cannon and ammunition of the army been conveyed by the fort, and were safely and rapidly proceeding on their way down the valley. In the darkness of the night trusty men, with great caution and silence, strewed hay and straw upon the road. The wheels of the lumbering carriages were carefully bound with cloths and wisps of straw, and, with axles well oiled, were drawn by the hands of these picked men, beneath the very walls of the fortress, and within half pistol-shot of its guns. In two nights the artillery and the baggage-trains were thus passed along, and in a few days the fort itself was compelled to surrender.

Melas, the Austrian commander, now awoke in consternation to a sense of his peril. Napoleon—the dreaded Napoleon—had, as by a miracle, crossed the Alps. He had cut off all his supplies, and was shutting the Austrians up from any possibility of retreat. Bewildered by the magnitude of his peril, he no longer thought of forcing his march upon Paris. The invasion of France was abandoned. His whole energies were directed to opening for himself a passage back to Austria. The most cruel perplexities agitated him. From the very pinnacle of victory, he was in danger of descending to the deepest abyss of defeat. It was also with Napoleon an hour of intense solicitude. He had but sixty thousand men, two-thirds of whom were new soldiers, who had never seen a shot fired in earnest, with whom he was to arrest the march of a desperate army of one hundred and twenty thousand veterans, abundantly provided with all the most efficient machinery of war. There were many paths by which Melas might escape, at leagues' distance from each other. It was necessary for Napoleon to divide his little band that he might guard them all. He was liable at any moment to have a division of his army attacked by an overwhelming force, and cut to pieces before it could receive any reinforcements. He ate not, he slept not, he rested not. Day and night, and night and day, he was on horseback, pale, pensive, apparently in feeble health, and interesting every beholder with his grave and melancholy beauty. His scouts were out in every direction. He studied all the possible movements and combinations of his foes. Rapidly he overran Lombardy, and entered Milan in triumph. Melas anxiously concentrated his forces, to break through the net with which he was entangled. He did every thing in his power to deceive Napoleon, by various feints, that the point of his contemplated attack might not be known. Napoleon, in the following clarion tones, appealed to the enthusiasm of his troops:

"Soldiers! when we began our march, one department of France was in the hands of the enemy. Consternation pervaded the south of the Republic. You advanced. Already the French territory is delivered. Joy and hope in our country have succeeded to consternation and fear. The enemy, terror-struck, seeks only to regain his frontiers. You have taken his hospitals, his magazines, his reserve parks. The first act of the campaign is finished. Millions of men address you in strains of praise. But shall we allow our audacious enemies to violate with impunity the territory of the Republic? Will you permit the army to escape which has carried terror into your families? You will not. March, then, to meet him. Tear from his brows the laurels he has won. Teach the world that a malediction attends those who violate the territory of the Great People. The result of our efforts will be unclouded glory, and a durable peace!"

The very day Napoleon left Paris, Desaix arrived in France from Egypt. Frank, sincere, upright, and punctiliously honorable, he was one of the few whom Napoleon truly loved. Desaix regarded Napoleon as infinitely his superior, and looked up to him with a species of adoration; he loved him with a fervor of feeling which amounted almost to a passion. Napoleon, touched, by the affection of a heart so noble, requited it with the most confiding friendship. Desaix, upon his arrival in Paris, found letters for him there from the First Consul. As he read the confidential lines, he was struck with the melancholy air with which they were pervaded. "Alas!" said he, "Napoleon has gained every thing, and yet he is unhappy. I must hasten to meet him." Without delay he crossed the Alps, and arrived at the head-quarters of Napoleon but a few days before the battle of Marengo. They passed the whole night together, talking over the events of Egypt and the prospects of France. Napoleon felt greatly strengthened by the arrival of his noble friend, and immediately assigned to him the command of a division of the army. "Desaix," said he, "is my sheet anchor."

"You have had a long interview with Desaix," said Bourrienne to Napoleon the next morning. "Yes!" he replied; "but I had my reasons. As soon as I return to Paris I shall make him Minister of War. He shall always be my lieutenant. I would make him a prince if I could. He is of the heroic mould of antiquity!"

Napoleon was fully aware that a decisive battle would soon take place. Melas was rapidly, from all points, concentrating his army. The following laconic and characteristic order was issued by the First Consul to Lannes and Murat: "Gather your forces at the river Stradella. On the 8th or 9th at the latest, you will have on your hands fifteen or eighteen thousand Austrians. Meet them, and cut them to pieces. It will be so many enemies less upon our hands on the day of the decisive battle we are to expect with the entire army of Melas." The prediction was true. An Austrian force advanced, eighteen thousand strong. Lannes met them upon the field of Montebello. They were strongly posted, with batteries ranged upon the hill sides, which swept the whole plain. It was of the utmost moment that this body should be prevented from combining with the other vast forces of the Austrians. Lannes had but eight thousand men. Could he sustain the unequal conflict for a few hours, Victor, who was some miles in the rear, could come up with a reserve of four thousand men. The French soldiers, fully conscious of the odds against which they were to contend, and of the carnage into the midst of which they were plunging, with shouts of enthusiasm rushed upon their foes. Instantaneously a storm of grape-shot from all the batteries swept through his ranks. Said Lannes, " I could hear the bones crash in my division, like glass in a hail-storm ." For nine long hours, from eleven in the morning till eight at night, the horrid carnage continued. Again and again the mangled, bleeding, wasted columns were rallied to the charge. At last, when three thousand Frenchmen were strewn dead upon the ground, the Austrians broke and fled, leaving also three thousand mutilated corpses and six thousand prisoners behind them. Napoleon, hastening to the aid of his lieutenant, arrived upon the field just in time to see the battle won. He rode up to Lannes. The intrepid soldier stood in the midst of mounds of the dead—his sword dripping with blood in his exhausted hand—his face blackened with powder and smoke—and his uniform soiled and tattered by the long and terrific strife. Napoleon silently, but proudly smiled upon the heroic general, and forgot not his reward. From this battle Lannes received the title of Duke of Montebello, a title by which his family is distinguished to the present day.

This was the opening of the campaign. It inspired the French with enthusiasm. It nerved the Austrians to despair. Melas now determined to make a desperate effort to break through the toils. Napoleon, with intense solicitude, was watching every movement of his foe, knowing not upon what point the onset would fall. Before day-break in the morning of the 14th of June, Melas, having accumulated forty thousand men, including seven thousand cavalry and two hundred pieces of cannon, made an impetuous assault upon the French, but twenty thousand in number drawn up upon the plain of Marengo. Desaix, with a reserve of six thousand men, was at such a distance, nearly thirty miles from Marengo, that he could not possibly be recalled before the close of the day. The danger was frightful that the French would be entirely cut to pieces, before any succor could arrive. But the quick ear of Desaix caught the sound of the heavy cannonade as it came booming over the plain, like distant thunder. He sprung from his couch and listened. The heavy and uninterrupted roar, proclaimed a pitched battle, and he was alarmed for his beloved chief. Immediately he roused his troops, and they started upon the rush to succor their comrades. Napoleon dispatched courier after courier to hurry the division along, while his troops stood firm through terrific hours, as their ranks were plowed by the murderous discharges of their foes. At last the destruction was too awful for mortal men to endure. Many divisions of the army broke and fled, crying " All is lost—save himself who can ." A scene of frightful disorder ensued. The whole plain was covered with fugitive, swept like an inundation before the multitudinous Austrians. Napoleon still held a few squares together, who slowly and sullenly retreated, while two hundred pieces of artillery, closely pressing them, poured incessant death into their ranks. Every foot of ground was left encumbered with the dead. It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. Melas, exhausted with toil, and assured that he had gained a complete victory, left Gen. Zach to finish the work. He retired to his head quarters, and immediately dispatched couriers all over Europe to announce the great victory of Marengo. Said an Austrian veteran, who had before encountered Napoleon at Arcola and Rivoli, "Melas is too sanguine. Depend upon it our day's work is not yet done. Napoleon will yet be upon us with his reserve."

Just then the anxious eye of the First Consulespied the solid columns of Desaix entering the plain. Desaix, plunging his spurs into his horse, outstripped all the rest, and galloped into the presence of Napoleon. As he cast a glance over the wild confusion and devastation of the field, the exclaimed hurriedly, "I see that the battle is lost. I suppose I can do no more for you than to secure your retreat." "By no means," Napoleon replied with apparently as much composure as if he had been sitting by his own fireside, "the battle, I trust, is gained. Charge with your column. The disordered troops will rally in your rear." Like a rock, Desaix, with his solid phalanx of ten thousand men, met the on-rolling billow of Austrian victory. At the same time Napoleon dispatched an order to Kellerman, with his cavalry, to charge the triumphant column of the Austrians in flank. It was the work of a moment, and the whole aspect of the field was changed. Napoleon rode along the lines of those on the retreat, exclaiming, "My friends, we have retreated far enough. It is now our turn to advance. Recollect that I am in the habit of sleeping on the field of battle." The fugitives, reanimated by the arrival of the reserve, immediately rallied in their rear. The double charge in front and flank was instantly made. The Austrians were checked and staggered. A perfect tornado of bullets from Desaix's division swept their ranks. They poured an answering volley into the bosoms of the French. A bullet pierced the breast of Desaix, and he fell and almost immediately expired. His last words were, "Tell the First Consul that my only regret in dying is, to have perished before having done enough to live in the recollection of posterity." The soldiers, who devotedly loved him, saw his fall, and rushed more madly on to avenge his death. The swollen tide of uproar, confusion, and dismay now turned, and rolled in surging billows in the opposite direction. Hardly one moment elapsed before the Austrians, flushed with victory, found themselves overwhelmed by defeat. In the midst of this terrific scene, an aid rode up to Napoleon and said, "Desaix is dead." But a moment before they were conversing side by side. Napoleon pressed his forehead convulsively with his hand, and exclaimed, mournfully, "Why is it not permitted me to weep! Victory at such a price is dear."

The French now made the welkin ring with shouts of victory. Indescribable dismay filled the Austrian ranks as wildly they rushed before their unrelenting pursuers. Their rout was utter and hopeless. When the sun went down over this field of blood, after twelve hours of the most frightful carnage, a scene was presented horrid enough to appall the heart of a demon. More than twenty thousand human bodies were strewn upon the ground, the dying and the dead, weltering in gore, and in every conceivable form of disfiguration. Horses, with limbs torn their bodies, were struggling in convulsive agonies. Fragments of guns and swords, and of military wagons of every kind were strewed around in wild ruin. Frequent piercing cries, which agony extorted from the lacerated victims of war, rose above the general moanings of anguish, which, like wailings of the storm, fell heavily upon the ear. The shades of night were now descending upon this awful scene of misery. The multitude of the wounded was so great, that notwithstanding the utmost exertions of the surgeons, hour after hour of the long night lingered away, while thousands of the wounded and the dying bit the dust in their agony.

If war has its chivalry and its pageantry, it has also revolting hideousness and demoniac woe. The young, the noble, the sanguine were writhing there in agony. Bullets respect not beauty. They tear out the eye, and shatter the jaw, and rend the cheek, and transform the human face divine into an aspect upon which one can not gaze but with horror. From the field of Marengo many a young man returned to his home so multilated as no longer to be recognized by friends, and passed a weary life in repulsive deformity. Mercy abandons the arena of battle. The frantic war-horse with iron hoof tramples upon the mangled face, the throbbing and inflamed wounds the splintered bones, and heeds not the shriek of torture. Crushed into the bloody mire by the ponderous wheels of heavy artillery, the victim of barbaric war thinks of mother, and father, and sister, and home, and shrieks, and moans, and dies; his body is stripped by the vagabonds who follow the camp; his naked mangled corpse is covered with a few shovels-full of earth, and left as food for vultures and for dogs and he is forgotten forever—and it is called glory . He who loves war, for the sake of its excitements, its pageantry, and its fancied glory, is the most eminent of all the dupes of folly and of sin. He who loathes war, with inexpressible loathing, who will do everything in his power to avert the dire and horrible calamity, but who will, nevertheless, in the last extremity, with a determined spirit, encounter all its perils, from love of country and of home, who is willing to sacrifice himself and all that is dear to him in life, to promote the well being of his fellow-man, will ever receive the homage of the world, and we also fully believe that he will receive the approval of God. Washington abhorred war in all its forms, yet he braved all its perils.

For the carnage of the field of Marengo, Napoleon can not be held responsible. Upon England and Austria must rest all the guilt of that awful tragedy. Napoleon had done every thing he could do to stop the effusion of blood. He had sacrificed the instincts of pride, in pleading with a haughty foe for peace. His plea was unavailing. Three hundred thousand men were marching upon France to force upon her a detested King. It was not the duty of France to submit to such dictation. Drawing the sword in self-defense, Napoleon fought and conquered. "Te Deum Laudamus."

It is not possible but that Napoleon must have been elated by so resplendent a victory. He knew that Marengo would be classed as the most brilliant of his achievements. The blow had fallen with such terrible severity that the haughty allies were thoroughly humbled. Melas was now at his mercy. Napoleon could dictate peace upon his own terms. Yet he rode over the field of his victory with a saddened spirit, and gazed mournfully upon the ruin and the wretchedness around him. As he was slowly and thoughtfully passing along, through the heaps of the dead with which the ground was encumbered, he met a number of carts, heavily laden with the wounded, torn by balls, and bullets, and fragments of shells, into most hideous spectacles of deformity. As the heavy wheels lumbered over the rough ground, grating the splintered bones, and bruising and opening afresh the inflamed wounds, shrieks of torture were extorted from the victims. Napoleon stopped his horse and uncovered his head, as the melancholy procession of misfortune and woe passed along. Turning to a companion, he said, "We can not but regret not being wounded like these unhappy men, that we might share their sufferings." A more touching expression of sympathy never has been recorded. He who says that this was hypocrisy is a stranger to the generous impulses of a noble heart. This instinctive outburst of emotion never could have been instigated by policy.

Napoleon had fearlessly exposed himself to every peril during this conflict. His clothes were repeatedly pierced by bullets. Balls struck between the legs of his horse, covering him with earth. A cannon-ball took away a piece of the boot from his left leg and a portion of the skin, leaving a scar which was never obliterated.

Before Napoleon Marched for Italy, he had made every effort in his power for the attainment of peace. Now, with magnanimity above all praise, without waiting for the first advance from his conquered foes, he wrote again imploring peace. Upon the field of Marengo, having scattered all his enemies like chaff before him, with the smoke of the conflict still darkening the air, and the groans of the dying swelling upon his ears, laying aside all the formalities of state, with heartfelt feeling and earnestness he wrote to the Emperor of Austria. This extraordinary epistle was thus commenced:

"Sire! It is on the field of battle, amid the sufferings of a multitude of wounded, and surrounded by fifteen thousand corpses, that I beseech your majesty to listen to the voice of humanity, and not to suffer two brave nations to cut each others' throats for interests not their own. It is my part to press this upon your majesty, being upon the very theatre of war. Your majesty's heart can not feel it so keenly as does mine."

The letter was long and most eloquent. "For what are you fighting?" said Napoleon. "For religion? Then make war on the Russians and the English who are the enemies of your faith. Do you wish to guard against revolutionary principles? It is this very war which has extended them over half the Continent, by extending the conquests of France. The continuance of the war can not fail to diffuse them still further. Is it for the balance of Europe? The English threaten that balance far more than does France, for they have become the masters and the tyrants of commerce, and are beyond the reach of resistance. Is it to secure the interests of the house of Austria! Let us then execute the treaty of Campo Formio, which secures to your majesty large indemnities in compensation for the provinces lost in the Netherlands, and secures them to you where you most wish to obtain them, that is, in Italy. Your majesty may send negotiators whither you will, and we will add to the treaty of Campo Formio stipulations calculated to assure you of the continued existence of the secondary states, of all which the French Republic is accused of having shaken. Upon these conditions pace is made, if you will. Let us make the armistice general for all the armies, and enter into negotiations instantly."

A courier was immediately dispatched to Vienna, to convey this letter to the Emperor. In the evening, Bourrienne hastened to congratulate Napoleon upon his extraordinary victory. "What a glorious day!" said Bourrienne. "Yes!" replied Napoleon, mournfully; "very glorious—could I this evening but have embraced Desaix upon the field of battle."

On the same day, and at nearly the same hour in which the fatal bullet pierced the breast of Desaix, an assassin in Egypt plunged a dagger into the bosom of Kleber. The spirits of these illustrious men, these blood-stained warriors, thus unexpectedly met in the spirit-land. There they wander now. How impenetrable the vail which shuts their destiny from our view. The soul longs for clearer vision of that far-distant world, people by the innumerable host of the mighty dead. There Napoleon now dwells. Does he retain his intellectual supremacy? Do his generals gather around him with love and homage! Has his pensive spirit sunk down into gloom and despair, or has it soared into cloudless regions of purity and peace! The mystery of death' Death alone can solve it. Christianity, with its lofty revealings, sheds but dim twilight upon the world off departed spirits. At St. Helena Napoleon said, "Of all the general I ever had under my command Desaix and Kleber possessed the greatest talent. In particular Desaix, as Kleber loved glory only as the means of acquiring wealth and pleasure. Desaix loved glory for itself, and despised every other consideration. To him riches and pleasure were of no value, nor did he ever give them a moment's thought. He was a little black-looking man, about an inch shorter than myself, always badly dressed, sometimes even ragged, and despising alike comfort and convenience. Enveloped in a cloak, Desaix would throw himself under a gun and sleep as contentedly as if reposing in a palace. Luxury had for him no charms. Frank and honest in all his proceedings, he was denominated by the Arabs Sultan the Just. Nature intended him to figure as a consummate general. Kleber and Desaix were irreparable losses to France."