Napoleon's Marshals. Dunn-Pattison R. P.

suspected, that Bonaparte's promises were only made to be broken; for he found the troops entrusted to his care the mere shadow of an army, the hospitals full, bands of soldiers, even whole battalions, quitting their posts and trying to escape into France, and the officers and generals absolutely unable to contend with the mass of misery and want. In spite of his able lieutenants, Soult and Suchet, he could make no head against the Austrians in the field, and after some gallant engagements was driven back into Genoa, where, for two months, he held out against famine and the assaults of the enemy. While the wretched inhabitants starved, the troops were fed on "a miserable ration of a quarter of a pound of horse-flesh and a quarter of a pound of what was called bread – a horrible compound of damaged flour, sawdust, starch, hair-powder, oatmeal, linseed, rancid nuts, and other nasty substances, to which a little solidity was given by the admixture of a small portion of cocoa. Each loaf, moreover, was held together by little bits of wood, without which it would have fallen to powder." A revolt, threatened by the inhabitants, was checked by Masséna's order that an assemblage of over five persons should be fired on, and the approaches to the principal streets were commanded by guns. Still he refused to surrender, as every day he expected to hear the cannon of the First Consul's army thundering on the Austrian rear. One day the hopes of all were aroused by a distant roar in the mountains, only to be dashed by finding it to be thunder. It was simply the ascendancy of Masséna's personality which prolonged the agony and upheld his authority, and in bitter earnestness the soldiers used to say, "He will make us eat his boots before he will surrender." At last the accumulated horrors shook even his firm spirit, and on June 4th a capitulation was agreed on. The terms were most favourable to the French; but, as Lord Keith, the English admiral, said, "General, your defence has been so heroic that we can refuse you nothing." However, the sufferings of Genoa were not in vain, for Masséna had played his part and held the main Austrian force in check for ten days longer than had been demanded of him; thus the First Consul had time to fall on the enemies' line of communication, and it may be truly said that without the siege of Genoa there could have been no Marengo. Masséna had once again demonstrated the importance of the individual in war; as Bonaparte wrote to him during the siege, "In such a situation as you are, a man like you is worth twenty thousand men." In spite of this, at St. Helena, the Emperor, ever jealous of his own glory, affected to despise Masséna's generalship and endurance at Genoa, and blamed him for not taking the offensive in the field, forgetting the state of his army and the paucity of his troops. But at the moment he showed his appreciation of his services by giving him the command of the army when he himself retired to Paris after the victory of Marengo. Unfortunately Masséna's avarice and greed were unable to withstand the temptations of the position, and the First Consul had very soon to recall him from Italy and mark his displeasure by placing him on half-pay.

      For two years the disgraced general brooded over his wrongs in retirement, and showed his attitude of mind by voting against the Consulate for life and the establishment of the Empire. The gift of a Marshal's bâton did little to reconcile him to the Emperor, for, as he scoffingly replied to Thiebault's congratulations, "Oh, there are fourteen of us." So uncertain was the Emperor of his Marshal's disposition that, on the outbreak of the war with Austria, Masséna alone of all the greater Marshals held no command. But with the prospect of heavy fighting in Italy the Emperor could not afford to entrust the Italian divisions to a blunderer, and he once again posted Masséna to his old command. The Austrians had occupied the strong position of Caldiero, near the marshes of Arcola, and the French in vain attempted to force them from it, but the success of the Emperor on the Danube at last compelled the Archduke John to fall back on Austria. The Marshal at once commenced a spirited pursuit, and ultimately joined hands with the Grand Army, south of the Danube.

      After the treaty of Pressburg Napoleon despatched Masséna to conquer Naples, which he had given as a kingdom to his brother Joseph. With fifty thousand men the Marshal swept through Italy. In vain the gallant Queen Caroline armed the lazzaroni; Capua opened its gates, Gaeta fell after twelve days' bombardment, and Joseph entered Naples in triumph. Calabria alone offered a stern resistance, and this resistance the French brought upon themselves by their cruelty to the peasantry, whom they treated as brigands. Unfortunately his success in Naples was once again tarnished by his greed, for the Marshal, by selling licences to merchants and conniving at their escape from the custom-house dues, amassed, within a few months of his entering Naples, a sum of three million francs. Napoleon heard of this from his spies, and, writing to him, demanded a loan of a million francs. The Duke of Rivoli replied that he was the poorest of the Marshals, and had a numerous family to maintain and was heavily in debt, so he regretted that he could send him nothing. Unfortunately, the Emperor knew where he banked in Leghorn, and as he refused to disgorge a third of his illicit profits, the Emperor sent the inspector of the French Treasury and a police commissary to the bank, and demanded that the three millions, which lay at his account there, should be handed over. The seizure was made in legal form; the banker, who lost nothing, was bound to comply with it. Masséna, on hearing of this misfortune, was so furious that he fell ill, but he did not dare to remonstrate, knowing that he was in the wrong, but he never forgave the Emperor: his titles and a pension never consoled him for what he lost at Leghorn, and, in spite of his cautious habits, he was sometimes heard to say, "I was fighting in his service and he was cruel enough to take away my little savings which I had invested at Leghorn."

      From what he called a military promenade in Italy the Marshal was summoned early in 1807 to the Grand Army in Poland, and was present in command of one of the army corps at Pultusk, Ostralenka, and Friedland. In 1808 he received his title of Duke of Rivoli and a pension of three hundred thousand francs per annum, but in spite of this he absented himself from the court. When Joseph was given the crown of Spain he requested his brother to send Masséna to aid him in his new sphere, but the Emperor, full of mistrust, refused, while the Marshal himself had no great desire to serve in Spain. When it was clear that Austria was going to seize the occasion of the Spanish War once again to fight France, Napoleon hastened to send the veteran Duke of Rivoli to the army on the Danube. At Abensberg and Eckmühl, for the first time since 1797, he fought under the eye of Napoleon himself. "Activité, activité, vitesse," wrote the Emperor, and well his lieutenant carried out his orders. Following up the Five Days' Fighting, Masséna led the advance guard to Vienna, and commanded the left wing at Aspern-Essling. Standing in the churchyard at Aspern, with the boughs swept down by grapeshot crashing round him, he was in his element; never had his tenacity, his resource, and skill been seen to such advantage. But in spite of his skill and the courage of his troops, at the end of the first day's fighting his shattered forces were driven out of the heap of smoking ruins which marked all that remained of Aspern. On the morning of the second day he had regained half of the village when news came that the bridge was broken, and that he was to hold off the Austrians while communication with the Isle of Lobau was being established. The enemy, invigorated by the news of the success of their plan for breaking the bridges, strained every nerve to annihilate the French force on the left bank of the river, but Masséna, Lannes, and Napoleon worked marvels with their exhausted troops. The Duke of Rivoli seemed ubiquitous: at one moment on horseback and at another on foot with drawn sword, wherever the enemy pressed he was there animating his troops, directing their fire, hurrying up supports; thus, thanks to his exertions, the Austrians were held off, the cavalry and the artillery safely crossed the bridge, and the veteran Marshal at midnight brought the last of the rear-guard safely to the Isle of Lobau, where, exhausted by fatigue, the troops fell asleep in their ranks.

      The death of Lannes threw Napoleon back on the Duke of Rivoli, who for the time became his confidant and right-hand man. It was Masséna who commanded at Lobau and made all the arrangements for the crossing before Wagram. The Emperor and his lieutenant were indefatigable in the care with which they made their preparations. On one occasion, wishing to inspect the Austrian position, dressed in sergeants' greatcoats, attended by a single aide-de-camp in the kit of a private, they went alone up the north bank of the island and took their coats off as if they wanted to bathe. The Austrian sentinels, seeing, as they thought, two French soldiers enjoying a wash, took no notice of them, and thus the Emperor and the Marshal were able to determine the exact spot for launching the bridges. On another occasion, while they were riding round the island, the Marshal's horse put its foot into a hole and fell, and injured the rider's leg so that he could not mount again. This unfortunate accident happened a few days before the battle of Wagram, so the Duke of Rivoli went into battle lying in a light calèche, drawn