But the strange sight of the Head of the Catholic Church travelling under a guard of gendarmes, with the secrecy and the vigilance used in transporting a state criminal, began to interest the people in the south of France. Crowds assembled to beseech the Holy Father's benediction, perhaps with more sincerity than when, as the guest of Buonaparte, he was received there with all the splendour the Imperial orders could command.

At the end of ten days, Grenoble no longer seemed a fitting place for his Holiness's residence, probably because he excited too much interest, and he was again transported to the Italian side of the Alps, and quartered at Savona. Here, it is said, he was treated with considerable harshness, and for a time at least confined to his apartment. The prefect of Savoy, M. de Chabrol, presented his Holiness with a letter from Napoleon, upbraiding him in strong terms for his wilful obstinacy, and threatening to convoke at Paris a Council of Bishops, with a view to his deposition. "I will lay his threats," said Pius VII., with the firmness which sustained him through his sufferings, "at the foot of the crucifix, and I leave with God the care of avenging my cause, since it has become his own."

The feelings of the Catholics were doubtless enhanced on this extraordinary occasion, by their belief in the sacred, and, it may be said, divine character, indissolubly united with the Head of the Church. But the world, Papist and Protestant, were alike sensible to the outrageous indecency with which an old man, a priest and a sovereign, so lately the friend and guest of Buonaparte, was treated, for no other reason that could be alleged, than to compel him to despoil himself of the territories of the Church, which he had sworn to transmit inviolate to his successors. Upon reflection, Napoleon seems to have become ashamed of the transaction, which he endeavoured to shift from his own shoulders, while in the same breath he apologized for it, as the act of the politician, not the individual.¹³

Regarded politically, never was any measure devised to which the interest of France and the Emperor was more diametrically opposed. Napoleon nominally gained the city of Rome, which, without this step, it was in his power to occupy at any time; but he lost the support, and incurred the mortal hatred of the Catholic clergy, and of all whom they could influence. He unravelled his own web, and destroyed, by this unjust and rash usurpation, all the merit which he had obtained by the re-establishment of the Gallican Church. Before this period he had said of the French clergy, and certainly had some right to use the language, "I have re-established them, I maintain them – they will surely continue attached to me." But in innovating upon their religious creed, in despoiling the Church, and maltreating its visible Head, he had cut the sinews of the league which he had formed betwixt the Church and his own government. It is easy to see the mistaken grounds on which he reckoned. Himself an egotist, Napoleon supposed, that when he had ascertained and secured to any man, or body of men, their own direct advantage in the system which he desired should be adopted, the parties interested were debarred from objecting to any innovations which he might afterwards introduce into that system, providing their own interest was not affected. The priests and sincere Catholics of France, on the other hand, thought, and in conscience could not think otherwise, that the Concordat engaged the Emperor to the preservation of the Catholic Church, as, on the other hand, it engaged them to fealty towards Napoleon. When, therefore, by his unprovoked aggression against the Head of the Church, he had incurred the spiritual censure of excommunication, they held, by consequence, that all their engagements to him were dissolved by his own act.

PIUS THE SEVENTH

The natural feelings of mankind acted also against the Emperor. The Pope, residing at Rome in the possession of temporal power and worldly splendour, was a far less interesting object to a devout imagination, than an old man hurried a prisoner from his capital, transported from place to place like a criminal, and at length detained in an obscure Italian town, under the control of the French police, and their instruments.¹⁴

The consequences of this false step were almost as injurious as those which resulted from the unprincipled invasion of Spain. To place that kingdom under his more immediate control, Napoleon converted a whole nation of docile allies into irreconcilable enemies; and, for the vanity of adding to the empire of France the ancient capital of the world, he created a revolt in the opinion of the Catholics, which was in the long-run of the utmost prejudice to his authority. The bulls of the Pope, in spite of the attention of the police, and of the numerous arrests and severe punishments inflicted on those who dispersed them, obtained a general circulation; and, by affording a religious motive, enhanced and extended the disaffection to Napoleon, which, unavowed and obscure, began generally to arise against his person and government even in France, from the repeated draughts upon the conscription, the annihilation of commerce, and the other distressing consequences arising out of the measures of a government, which seemed only to exist in war.

While Buonaparte, at Schoenbrun, was thus disposing of Rome and its territories, and weighing in his bosom the alternative of dismembering Austria, or converting her into a friend, his life was exposed to one of those chances, to which despotic princes are peculiarly liable. It had often been predicted, that the dagger of some political or religious enthusiast, who might be willing to deposit his own life in gage for the success of his undertaking, was likely to put a period to Napoleon's extended plans of ambition. Fortunately, men like Felton¹⁵ or Sandt¹⁶ are rarely met with, for the powerful instinct of self-preservation is, in the common case, possessed of influence even over positive lunatics, as well as men of that melancholy and atrabilious temperament, whose dark determination partakes of insanity. Individuals, however, occur from time to time, who are willing to sacrifice their own existence, to accomplish the death of a private or public enemy.

The life of Buonaparte at Schoenbrun was retired and obscure. He scarcely ever visited the city of Vienna;¹⁷ and spent his time as if in the Tuileries, amid his generals, and a part of his ministers, who were obliged to attend him during his military expeditions. His most frequent appearance in public was when reviewing his troops. On one of these occasions [23d Sept.] while a body of the French guard was passing in review, a young man, well dressed, and of the middle rank, rushed suddenly forward, and attempted to plunge a long sharp knife, or poniard, in Napoleon's bosom. Berthier threw himself betwixt his master and the assassin, and Rapp made the latter prisoner. On his examination, the youth evinced the coolness of a fanatic. He was a native of Erfurt, son of a Lutheran clergyman, well educated, and of a decent condition in life. He avowed his purpose to have killed Napoleon, as called to the task by God, for the liberation of his country. No intrigue or correspondence with any party appeared to have prompted his unjustifiable purpose, nor did his behaviour or pulse testify any sign of insanity or mental alienation. He told Buonaparte, that he had so much respect for his talents, that if he could have obtained an audience of him, he would have commenced the conference by an exhortation to him to make peace; but if he could not succeed, he was determined to take his life. "What evil have I done you?" asked Napoleon. "To me personally, none; but you are the oppressor of my country, the oppressor of the world, and to have put you to death would have been the most glorious act a man of honour could do."

Stapps, for that was his name, was justly condemned to die; for no cause can justify assassination.¹⁸ His death was marked by the same fanatical firmness which had accompanied his crime; and the adventure remained a warning, though a fruitless one, to Buonaparte, that any man who is indifferent to his own life, may endanger that of the most absolute sovereign upon earth, even when at the head of his military force.¹⁹

The negotiations for peace with Austria continued, notwithstanding the feeble state of the latter power, to be unusually protracted. The reason, at that time secret, became soon after publicly known.

THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES

Buonaparte's first intentions had been to dismember the empire, which he had found so obstinate and irreconcilable in its enmity, and, separating from the dominions of Austria either the kingdom of Hungary, or that of Bohemia, or both, to reduce the House of Hapsburg to the rank of a second-rate power in Europe. Napoleon himself affirmed, when in Saint Helena, that he was encouraged by one of the royal family (the Archduke Charles is indicated) to persist in his purpose, as the only means of avoiding future wars with Austria; and that the same prince was willing to have worn one of the crowns, thus to be torn from the brows of his brother Francis.²⁰ We can only say, that the avowals of Napoleon when in exile, like his bulletins when in power, seem so generally dictated by that which he wished to be believed, rather than by a frank adherence to truth, that we cannot hold his unsupported and inexplicit testimony as sufficient to impose the least stain on the noble, devoted, and patriotic character of the archduke, whose sword and talents had so often served his brother's cause, and whose life exhibits no indication of that meanness which would be implied in a wish to share the spoils of his country, or accept at the hands of the conqueror a tributary kingdom, reft from the dominions of his king and brother. Buonaparte himself paid the courage and devotion of the Austrian prince a flattering compliment, when, in sending to him a decoration of the Legion of Honour, he chose that which was worn by the common soldier, as better suited to the determination and frankness of his character, than one of those richly ornamented, which were assigned to men of rank, who had perhaps never known, or only seen at some distance, the toils and dangers of battle.

The crisis, however, approached, which was to determine the fate of Austria. Buonaparte's favourite minister, Champagny, Duke of Cadore, had been for some time at Presburg, arranging with Metternich the extent of cession of territory by which Austria was to pay for her unfortunate assumption of hostilities. The definitive treaty of peace, when at length published, was found to contain the following articles: – I. Austria ceded, in favour of the Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, Saltsburg, Berchtolsgaden, and a part of Upper Austria. II. To France directly, she ceded her only seaport of Trieste, the districts of Carniola, Friuli, the circle of Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. These dominions tended to strengthen and enlarge the French province of Illyria, and to exclude Austria from the Adriatic, and the possibility of communication with Great Britain. A small lordship, called Razons, lying within the territories of the Grison League, was also relinquished. III. To the King of Saxony, in that character, Austria ceded some small part of Bohemia, and in the capacity of Duke of Warsaw, she gave up to him the city of Cracow, and the whole of Western Galicia. IV. Russia had a share, though a moderate one, in the spoils of Austria. She was to receive, in reward of her aid, though tardily and unwillingly tendered, a portion of Eastern Galicia, containing a population of four hundred thousand souls. But from this cession the town of Brody, a commercial place of consequence, was specially excepted; and it has been said that this exception made an unfavourable impression on the Emperor Alexander, which was not overbalanced by the satisfaction he received from the portion of spoil transferred to him.²¹

In his correspondence with the Russian Court, Napoleon expressed himself as having, from deference to Alexander's wishes, given Austria a more favourable peace than she had any reason to expect.²² Indeed, Europe in general was surprised at the moderation of the terms; for though Austria, by her cessions at different points, yielded up a surface of 45,000 square miles, and a population of between three and four millions, yet the extremity in which she was placed seemed to render this a cheap ransom, as she still retained 180,000 square miles, and upwards, of territory, which, with a population of twenty-one millions, rendered her, after France and Russia, even yet the most formidable power on the continent. But her good angel had not slept. The House of Rodolph of Hapsburg had arisen, from small beginnings, to its immense power and magnitude, chiefly by matrimonial alliances,²³ and it was determined that, by another intermarriage of that Imperial House, with the most successful conqueror whom the world had ever seen, she should escape with comparative ease from the greatest extremity in which she had ever been placed. There is no doubt, also, that by secret articles of treaty, Napoleon, according to his maxim of making the conquered party sustain the expense of the war, exacted for that purpose heavy contributions from the Austrian Government.

He left Schoenbrun on the 16th October, the day after the definitive treaty of peace, which takes its name from that palace, had been signed there; and it is remarkable that no military caution was relaxed in the evacuation of the Austrian dominions by the French troops. They retreated by echelon, so as to be always in a position of mutual support, as if they had still been manœuvring in an enemy's country.

On the 14th November, Napoleon received at Paris the gratulations of the Senate, who too fondly complimented him on having acquired, by his triumphs, the palm of peace. That emblem, they said, should be placed high above his other laurels, upon a monument which should be dedicated by the gratitude of the French people. "To the Greatest of Heroes who never achieved victory but for the happiness of the world."