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

with his doctor beside him changing the compresses on his injured leg every two hours. During the battle Masséna's corps formed the left of the line. While Davout was carrying out his great turning movement, it was the Duke of Rivoli who had to endure the full fury of the Austrians' attack. In the pursuit after the battle he pressed the enemy with his wonted activity. At the last encounter at Znaim he had a narrow escape, for hardly had he got out of his carriage when a cannon-ball struck it, and a moment later another shot killed one of the horses.

      After the treaty of Vienna the Marshal, newly created Prince of Essling, retired to rest at his country house at Rueil, but the Emperor could not spare him long. In April, 1810, within eight months, he was once again hurried off on active service, this time to Spain, where Soult had been driven out of Portugal by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and Jourdan and Joseph defeated at Talavera. The Emperor promised the Prince of Essling ninety thousand troops for the invasion of Portugal, and placed under his command Junot and Ney. The Marshal did his best to refuse the post; he knew the difficult character of Ney and the jealousy of Junot, and he pointed out that it would be better to reorganise the army of Portugal under generals appointed by himself. Berthier replied that "the orders of the Emperor were positive, and left no point in dispute. When the Emperor delegated his authority obedience became a duty; however great might be the pride of the Dukes of Elchingen and Abrantès, they had enough justice to understand that their swords were not in the same line as the sword of the conqueror of Zurich." Still, the Prince foresaw the future, and appealed to the Emperor himself, but the Emperor was obdurate. "You are out of humour to-day, my dear Masséna. You see everything black, yourself and your surroundings. To listen to you one would think you were half dead. Your age? A good reason! How much older are you now than at Essling? Your health? Does not imagination play a great part in your weakness? Are you worse than at Wagram? It is rheumatism that is troubling you. The climate of Portugal is as warm and healthy as Italy, and will put you on your legs… Set out then with confidence. Be prudent and firm, and the obstacles you fear will fade away; you have surmounted many worse." Unfortunately for the Marshal, his forebodings were truer than the Emperor's optimism. On arriving at Salamanca his troubles began. Delays were inevitable before he could bring into order his unruly team. Junot and Ney were openly contemptuous, Regnier hung back, and was three weeks late in his arrangements. Meanwhile, all that Masséna saw of the enemy, whom the Emperor had in past years stigmatised as the "slow and clumsy English," confirmed him in his opinion that the campaign was going to prove the most arduous he had ever undertaken.

      In spite of everything, operations opened brilliantly for the French. Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fell without the English commander making any apparent effort to relieve them. On September 16th the invasion of Portugal commenced. But losses, disease, and garrison duty had already reduced his troops to some seventy thousand men, and the French found "an enemy behind every stone"; while, as the Prince of Essling wrote, "We are marching across a desert; women, children, and old men have all fled; in fact, no guide is to be found anywhere." Still the English fell back before him, and he was under the impression that they were going to evacuate Portugal without a blow, although he grasped the fact that it was the immense superiority of the French cavalry which had prevented the "sepoy general" making any effort to relieve the fortresses. But on September 26th Masséna found that the English had stayed their retreat, and were waiting to fight him on the rocky ridge of Busaco. Unfortunately for his reputation, he made no reconnaissance of the position, and, trusting entirely to the reports of Ney, Regnier, and Junot, who asserted the position was much less formidable than it looked, sustained a heavy reverse. After the battle his lieutenants urged him to abandon the invasion of Portugal; but the veteran refused such timorous advice, and, rousing himself, soon showed the energy which had made his name so famous at Zurich and Rivoli. Turning the position, the French swept down on Portugal, while the English hurriedly fell back before them. What caused Masséna most anxiety was the ominous desertion of the countryside. He was well aware of the bitter hatred of the Portuguese, and knew that his soldiers tortured and hung the wretched inhabitants to force them to reveal hidden stores of provisions, but it was not until October 10th, when the French had arrived within a few miles of the lines of Torres Vedras, that he learned of the vast entrenched camp which the English commander had so secretly prepared for his army and the inhabitants of Portugal. Masséna was furious, and covered with accusations the Portuguese officers on his staff. "Que diable," he cried, "Wellington n'a pas construit des montagnes." But there had been no treachery, only so well had the secret been kept that hardly even an officer in the English army knew of the existence of the work, and as Wellington wrote to the minister at Lisbon on October 6th, "I believe that you and the Government do not know where the lines are." For six weeks the indomitable Marshal lay in front of the position, hoping to tempt the English to attack his army, now reduced to sixty thousand men. But Wellington, who had planned this victorious reply to the axiom that war ought to feed war, grimly sat behind his lines, while the English army, well fed from the sea, watched the French writhe in the toils of hunger. Masséna was now roused, and as his opponent wrote, "It is certainly astonishing that the enemy have been able to remain in this country so long… It is an extraordinary instance of what a French army can do." At last even Masséna had to confess himself beaten and fall back on Santarem. The winter passed in a fruitless endeavour on the part of the Emperor and the Marshal to force Soult, d'Erlon, and Regnier to co-operate for an advance on Lisbon by the left bank of the Tagus. Meanwhile, in spite of every effort, the French army dwindled owing to disease, desertion, and unending fatigue. So dangerous was the country that a despatch could not be sent along the lines of communication without an escort of three hundred men. The whole countryside had been so swept bare of provisions that a Portuguese spy wrote to Wellington saying, "Heaven forgive me if I wrong them in believing they have eaten my cat."

      By March, 1811, it became clear that the French could no longer maintain themselves at Santarem; but so skilful were Masséna's dispositions that it was three days before Wellington realised that at last the enemy had commenced their retreat. Never had the genius of the Marshal stood higher than in this difficult retirement from Portugal. With his army decimated by hunger and disease, with the victorious enemy always hanging on his heels, with his subordinates in open revolt, and a Marshal of France refusing to obey orders in the face of the enemy, he lost not a single gun, baggage-wagon or invalid. Still, the morale of his army was greatly shaken; as he himself wrote, "It is sufficient for the enemy to show the heads of a few columns in order to intimidate the officers and make them loudly declare that the whole of Wellington's army is in sight." When the Marshal at last placed his wearied troops behind the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, he found his difficulties by no means at an end. The Emperor, who "judged men only by results," wrote him a letter full of thinly-veiled criticism of his operations, while he found that the country round the fortresses was now included in the command of the northern army under Bessières. Accordingly he had to apply to that Marshal for leave to revictual and equip his troops. Meanwhile Wellington proceeded to besiege Almeida.

      By the end of April, after a vigorous correspondence with Bessières, Masséna had at last reorganised his army and was once again ready to take the field against the English. Reinforced by fifteen hundred cavalry of the Guard under Bessières, at Fuentes d'Onoro he surprised the English forces covering the siege of Almeida; after a careful reconnaissance at dawn on May 5th he attacked and defeated the English right, and had it not been for the action of Bessières, who spoiled his combination by refusing to allow the Guard to charge save by his orders, the English would have been totally defeated. Masséna wished at all hazards to continue the fight on the morrow, but his principal officers were strongly opposed to it. Overborne by their counsels, after lying in front of the position for three days he withdrew to Ciudad Rodrigo. It was through no fault of his that he was beaten at Fuentes d'Onoro; Wellington himself confessed how closely he had been pressed when he wrote: "Lord Liverpool was quite right not to move thanks for the battle of Fuentes, though it was the most difficult I was ever concerned in and against the greatest odds. We had nearly three to one against us engaged: above four to one of cavalry: and moreover our cavalry had not a gallop in them, while some of that of the enemy were quite fresh and in excellent order. If Bony had been there we should have been beaten."

      Soon after the battle Masséna was superseded by Marmont, and retired to Paris. The meeting with the Emperor was stormy. "Well, Prince of Essling," said Napoleon, "are you no longer Masséna?" Explanations followed, and the Emperor at last promised that