History of the Expedition to Russia. comte de Philippe-Paul Ségur
of his position, and would enter into every kind of arrangement which his repose required; in spite of which, Alexander, instead of modifying his ukase, had assembled 80,000 men, under pretence of supporting his custom-house officers; that he had suffered himself to be seduced by England; that, lastly, he even now refused to recognize the thirty-second military division, and demanded the evacuation of Prussia by the French; which was equivalent to a declaration of war."
Through all these complaints, some persons thought they perceived that the pride of Napoleon was wounded by the independent attitude which Russia was daily resuming. The dispossession of the Russian Princess of Oldenburg of her duchy led to other conjectures; it was said that hints had been given both at Tilsit and Erfurt about a divorce, after which a closer alliance might be contracted with Russia; that these hints had not been encouraged, and that Napoleon retained a resentful remembrance of it. This fact is affirmed by some, and denied by others.
But all those passions which so despotically govern other men, possessed but a feeble influence over a genius so firm and vast as his: at the utmost, they may have imparted the first momentum which impelled him into action earlier than he would have wished; but without penetrating so deeply beneath the folds of his great mind, a single idea, an obvious fact, was enough to hurry him, sooner or later, into that decisive struggle—that was, the existence of an empire, which rivalled his own in greatness, but was still young, like its prince, and growing every day; while the French empire, already mature, like its emperor, could scarcely anticipate any thing but its decrease.
Whatever was the height to which Napoleon had raised the throne of the south and west of Europe, he perceived the northern throne of Alexander ever ready to overshadow him by its eternally menacing position. On those icy summits of Europe, whence, in former times, so many floods of barbarians had rushed forth, he perceived all the elements of a new inundation collecting and maturing. Till then, Austria and Prussia had opposed sufficient barriers; but these he himself had humbled and overthrown: he stood, therefore, single, front to front with what he feared; he alone remained the champion of the civilization, the riches, and the enjoyments of the nations of the south, against the rude ignorance, and the fierce cupidity, of the poorer people of the north, and against the ambition of their emperor and his nobility.
It was obvious, that war alone could decide this great arbitrament—this great and eternal struggle between the poor and the rich; and, nevertheless, this war, with reference to us, was neither European, nor even national. Europe entered into it against her inclination, because the object of the expedition was to add to the strength of her conqueror. France was exhausted, and anxious for repose; her grandees, who formed the court of Napoleon, were alarmed at the double-headed character of the war, at the dispersion of our armies from Cadiz to Moscow; and even when admitting the eventual necessity of the struggle, its immediate urgency did not appear to them so legitimately proved.
They knew that it was more especially by an appeal to his political interest that they had any chance of shaking the resolution of a prince, whose principle was, "that there exist individuals whose conduct can but rarely be regulated by their private sentiments, but always by surrounding circumstances." In this persuasion, one of his ministers[6] said to him, "that his finances required tranquillity;" but he replied, "On the contrary, they are embarrassed, and require war." Another[7] added, "that the state of his revenues never, in fact, had been more flourishing; that, independent of a furnished account of from three to four millions, it was really wonderful to find France unencumbered with any urgent debts; but that this prosperous condition was approaching its termination, since it appeared that with the year 1812 a ruinous campaign was to commence; that hitherto, war had been made to support the expense of war; that we had every where found the table laid out; but that, in future, we could no longer live at the expense of Germany, since she had become our ally; but, on the contrary, it would be necessary to support her contingents, and that without any hope of remuneration, whatever the result might be; that we should have to pay at Paris for every ration of bread which would be consumed at Moscow, as the new scenes of action offered us no harvest to reap, independent of glory, but cordage, pitch, and shipping-tackle, which would certainly go but a small way towards the discharge of the expenses of a continental war. That France was not in a condition to subsidize all Europe in this manner, especially at a moment when her resources were drained by the war in Spain; that it was like lighting a fire at both ends at once, which, gaining ground upon the centre, exhausted by so many efforts—would probably end in consuming ourselves."
[6] Count Mollien.
[7] The Duke of Gaeta.
This minister was listened to; the emperor surveyed him with a smiling air, accompanied with one of his familiar caresses. He imagined that he had secured conviction, but Napoleon said to him—"So you think that I shall not be able to find a paymaster to discharge the expenses of the war?" The duke endeavoured to learn upon whom the burden was to fall, when the emperor, by a single word, disclosing all the grandeur of his designs, closed the lips of his astonished minister.
He estimated, however, but too accurately all the difficulties of his enterprise. It was that, perhaps, which drew upon him the reproach of availing himself of a method which he had rejected in the Austrian war, and of which the celebrated Pitt had set the example in 1793.
Towards the end of 1811, the prefect of police at Paris learnt, it was said, that a printer was secretly counterfeiting Russian bank-bills; he ordered him to be arrested; the printer resisted; but in the result his house was broken into, and himself taken before the magistrate, whom he astonished by his assurance, and still more by his appeal from the minister of police. This printer was instantly released: it has even been added, that he continued his counterfeiting employment; and that, from the moment of our first advance into Lithuania, we propagated the report that we had gained possession at Wilna of several millions of Russian bank-bills in the military chests of the hostile army.
Whatever may have been the origin of this counterfeit money, Napoleon contemplated it with extreme repugnance; it is even unknown whether he resolved on making any use of it; at least, it is certain that during the period of our retreat, and when we abandoned Wilna, the greater part of these bills were found there untouched, and burnt by his orders.
CHAP. II.
Prince Poniatowski, however, to whom this expedition appeared to hold out the prospect of a throne, generously united his exertions with those of the emperor's ministers in the attempt to demonstrate its danger. Love of country was in this Polish prince a great and noble passion; his life and death have proved it; but it never infatuated him. He depicted Lithuania as an impracticable desert; its nobility as already become half Russian; the character of its inhabitants as cold and backward: but the impatient emperor interrupted him; he required information for the sake of conducting the enterprise, and not to be deterred from it.
It is true that the greater part of these objections were but a feeble repetition of all those which, for a long time past, had presented themselves to his own mind. People were not aware of the extent to which he had appreciated the danger; of his multiplied exertions, from the 30th of December 1810, to ascertain the nature of the territory which, sooner or later, was destined to become the theatre of a decisive war; how many emissaries he had despatched for the purpose of survey; the multitude of memorials which he caused to be prepared for him respecting the roads to Petersburgh and Moscow; respecting the dispositions of the inhabitants, especially of the mercantile class; and, finally, the resources of every kind which the country was enabled to supply. If he persevered, it was because, far from deceiving himself as to the extent of his force, he did not share in that confidence which, perhaps, precluded others from perceiving of how much consequence the humiliation of Russia was to the future existence of the great French empire.
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