Latest / A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo / 37 - A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson

Transcript

37 - A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson · A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section thirty seven of a short History of France by
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Mary Duclo. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Read by Pamel Andagami, Part four, Chapter three Napoleon, Part three. Therefore,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Napoleon abandoned the intended invasion of England, and indeed, in
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: after days was prone to say that he had never
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: seriously meant it, and turned his mind to conquest of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the continental powers. He had soon provoked Austrians Russians Prussians
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to a half unwilling quarrel. The two emperors Austria Russia
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: took the field. The latter a young man, Alexander, believed
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in his innocence that he could beat Napoleon, and his
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: first experience was Austerlitz. The battle began on the anniversary
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: of Bonaparte's coronation, the second of December eighteen o five,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: early in the morning. An hour after midday. Napoleon was
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Master of Europe. A few days later, the Austrian Francis
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the Second signed the Peace of Presbourg. He renounced the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: proud title of Emperor of Germany. There no longer existed
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: a holy Roman Empire. That age, long enemy of France
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: simply disappeared, but Napoleon permitted his vanquished foe to adopt
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the humbler style of Emperor of Austria, as he signed
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: away Venice, Eastria, Dalmatia to roll in Many lands in
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: southern Germany, and in place of the historic Empire, the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: natural enemy of France, Napoleon created a new league of
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the German states, which he called the Confederation of the Rhine.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: No terrible foe, but in mister Fisher's excellent phrase, a
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: mosaic of weak and warring governments, For what Napoleon feared
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: above all things was the unity of Germany. Then the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: King of Prussia declared war on France. His two armies
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: were annihilated in nine days at Jena, as our Stadt
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: followed Austolitz, and Napoleon marched into Berlin. There he learns
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: that the Russians are coming to the aid of their allies.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Russia's toward them beats them five times running on the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: banks of the Vistula and hunts them into Poland. At Alao,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: they attempt to resist, but at Friedland the Russian general
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: allows himself to be caught as in a trap, and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the French victory was so complete that Alexander believed his
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: defeat irretrievable and consented to the conqueror's terms of peace
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: at Tilsit. At the first contact with his enemy, the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: enthusiastic Alexander became his adoring friend. By this campaign, Prussia
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: was hopelessly mutilated, exhausted, and burdened with a French army
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: of occupation. Russia had to recognize these changes and to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: accept a new kingdom of Westphalia with Napoleon's brother Jerome
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: for its king. What is more, the Russian emperor had
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to consent to an alliance with the new Charlemagne. Napoleon
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: was in the finest spirits. He liked the alliance. He
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: liked the Czar, a very handsome, good young emperor with
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: more mind than he is generally credited with. He liked
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: being able to patronize handsome emperors, beautiful propitiatory queens like
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Louisa of Prussia and his old enemy, the ex Emperor
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of Germany. He loved to dominate. And again he turned
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: his thoughts to our unconquered island, more hated than ever
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: now since at Trafalgar in eighteen o five, Nelson had
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: destroyed the French fleet so Master of Europe. In eighteen
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: o seven, Napoleon perished the thrust by decreeing the Continental Blockade.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: That is to say, all your Ropean ports were to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: be closed to English trade. They should neither buy, nor sell,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: nor have any traffic with US. England was excommunicated and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: then irrepressible Austria, always defeated, never irremediably vanquished. Austria, influenced
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: by England, again declared war. Napoleon, who just then was
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: occupied in Spain, in a blaze of anger, rushed across
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the Pyrenees, darted his lightnings on Austria, conquered again at
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Vagram An imposed peace at Vienna in eighteen o nine,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Revally in seventeen ninety six, Marengo in eighteen hundred, Austerlitz
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: in eighteen o five, Vagram in eighteen o nine. How
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: many more crushing defeats would Austria require before Napoleon could
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: be sure of her submission? Did some accident set him
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to thinking of the old distick, how Austria made her
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: way in the world not by fighting, but by marrying
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: two Felik's Austria Nube. Did the constant revolts of the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: untamed empire make him devise a new manner of bond
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and kerb did the difficulties of establishing a succession for
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the throne of France suggest the wisdom of an imperial alliance.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Josephine was six years older than her husband. She could
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: no longer expect to give him an air. He had
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: loved her with an ardent, sensual, jealous passion. She was
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the only woman he had loved, so he averred on
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Saint Helena. But it was clear that she could not
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: give a prince to the empire. Reasons of state prevailed.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Like Titus demissic in uitus in wiitam, a divorce was
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: pronounced between the French Emperor and his wife. In eighteen ten,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: he married the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, Maria Louisa.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: In eighteen eleven, my son was born to them. The
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: King of Rome Napoleon had now entered the family of monarchs.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: The little Corsican lieutenant had become the nephew by marriage
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of Marie Antoinette. So lofty, so rapid an ascension may
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: well disturb a conqueror's moral balance. If I had been
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: placed so high, said the Russian Emperor as he gazed
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: on Napoleon's statue dominating the column of the Place von Dome.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: If I had been placed so high, my head too
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: would have been dizzy. Lord Rosebery is right in supposing
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that supreme power destroyed the equilibrium of Napoleon's mind after Vagram,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: after the Austrian alliance, it is easy to see now
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: that the conqueror should have lain low, should have consolidated
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: his magnificent position, and not have sought to extend it.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: It was difficult for the society of sovereigns to admit
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: into their circle this victorious usurper who had miliated them all. Yet,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: if Buonaparte had shown himself the Bonaparte of seventeen ninety nine,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the scholarly quiet on assuming Bonaparte, who had disarmed suspicion
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: before displaying his full power, it is probable that Europe
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: would have swallowed that difficult doctrine of the natural limits
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: would have accorded France the left bank of the Rhine
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and the frontiers of the Empire of Gaul. But now
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that Napoleon thought himself sure of the non opposition and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: even of the support of Austria, he became more than ever,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: overweening and extravagant in his pretensions. The expansion of France
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: threatened the breathing space of Europe. Charlemagne of old had
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: had one only brother with whom to divide the spoils
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of empire. Napoleon had a whole ravenous family to find
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: in thrones and crowns. France, Naples, Westphalia, Holland did not
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: exhaust his Requirerons Lucien, Poline, Caroline Elisa were still without
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: a scepter. The Napoleon, who declared that all the countries
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: of Europe should keep their archives in Paris, that the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: French Empire should become the mother country of all sovereignties,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: that all the kings of the earth should have palaces
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: of residence in Paris and attend in state the coronations
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of the French emperors, had obviously lost the balance of
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: his reason. He had ceased to calculate coolie and to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: see any bounds moral, physical, or international, to any freak
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of ambition which might occur to him. At this period
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of his career, did Napoleon lose his grasp of reality?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Was he really mad? His ministers thought so. His wild
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: dreams of universal conquests filled them with mortal apprehension. The
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: feelings of Tolerance and Fouchet may be likened to those
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of a traveler driven by a lure to tic chauffeur
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: along some mountain road that skirts a precipice. And not
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: only themselves, but the future of France was imperiled. All
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the great functionaries who approached the emperor at that moment
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: appear to have shared their dire misgiving. Voulez vou ksuvou
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: des Laveride, said decree the Minister of Marine to Marshal Marmont,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Duke of Ragusa in eighteen ten, Ule vu kzuvou des
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: le veride, l'amberreu e fu tut Dave fou il Nukulbutera
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Tonkusum and Bernardotte, his old comrade in arms, just adopted
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: by the King of Sweden for his heir, did not
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: scruple to call his Emperor of yesterday on Foudnjerreur a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: dangerous lunatic Narban, his general, his minister, the man whom
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Napoleon loved, exclaimed in eighteen twelve, where is the keeper
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of this man of genius? He's a madman, said Fouchet,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: set on ens sanseil il faut anfignill. Was he mad
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: or was he merely, as Tolerance said, uncivilized? At any rate,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: His vast dreams, his disregard of the possible, his violence,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: his impulsiveness, his egotism fostered in those whom he offended,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a belief in the derangement of his mind. A Volney
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: whom he kicked in the stomach for saying that France
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: wanted the Bourbon and who was carried unconscious from his presence,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: or Berthier, whom he is said to have attacked with tongs,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: or that Chief Justice, whom he belabored with his fists,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: may be excused for having their doubts as to his sanity.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Too often his servants and his ministers pleaded lunacy and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: their sovereign to attenuate the vileness of their treacherous intrigues.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Yet in the treachery of a fouchet or a tolerant
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: love of country played its part. These menaces had undergone
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the strenuous training of the Jacobins. In all their avatars,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: whether terrorists, republicans, pillars of the Empire or the restoration,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: they were at heart the men of ninety three. They
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: had one religion their country, and one only virtue, patriotism.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Despite their lack of honor, fidelity, morality, or truth, they
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: had one ideal which constantly they served the ultimate advantage
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of France. And it was not to the advantage of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: France in their thinking that Napoleon should whirl her without
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: cease along the mad career of a second Attila. From
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the day when the Emperor began to cast his eyes
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: with envy on Turkey and India, a secret discord divided
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: him from the heads of his administration. For Tolerant and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Fouchet were disciples of Danton. They conceived France as a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: modern gaul so much no more certainly not a union
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: versal Monarchia laurent lesalp les pirnee, said Tolerant Son, la
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: conquet nacionale, l reste e la conquete de l'Empereur la
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: France Ntiempa and the ministers of a dangerous madman, as
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: they thought, began to hold private confabulations with his enemies.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: In eighteen o nine, they did all they could to undermine,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: by secret intrigue the policy of their sovereign traders to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Napoleon not to France. When in eighteen o eight Napoleon
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: went to Erfort to discuss with Alexander the proposed conquest
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of Constantinople, Toleron lay in wait for the Czar and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: accosted him, Sire, what are you doing here? Your part
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: is to save Europe, and you can only save Europe
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: by resisting Napoleon. The French nation is civilized, its sovereign
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is not civilized. The Emperor of Russia is civilized, not
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: so the Russian people. Let the Emperor of Russia be
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the ally of the people of France. The subtle, sentimental,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: vacillating Alexander was taken with this argument. Indeed, already the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: fascinating prestige of Napoleon, which had aroused his enthusiasm at Tilsit,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: was wearing thin. He perceived that the lion's ally must
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: always accept the second place. Russia was sacrificed to the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: exigencies of the Continental Blockade. The trade of Russia demanded
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: intercourse with England, which the French Emperor forbade end of
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Section thirty seven.