This etext was produced by David Widger
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, at the end of several of thefiles for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before makingan entire meal of them. D.W.]
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER XIX. to CHAPTER XXVII. 1809-1812
1809.
The castle of Diernstein—Richard Coeur de Lion and Marshal Lannes, —The Emperor at the gates of Vienna—The Archduchess Maria Louisa— Facility of correspondence with England—Smuggling in Hamburg—Brown sugar and sand—Hearses filled with sugar and coffee—Embargo on the publication of news—Supervision of the 'Hamburg Correspondant'— Festival of Saint Napoleon—Ecclesiastical adulation—The King of Westphalia's journey through his States—Attempt to raise a loan— Jerome's present to me—The present returned—Bonaparte's unfounded suspicions.
Rapp, who during the campaign of Vienna had resumed his duties as aide decamp, related to me one of those observations of Napoleon which, when hiswords are compared with the events that followed them, seem to indicate aforesight into his future destiny. When within some days' march ofVienna the Emperor procured a guide to explain to him every village andruin which he observed on the road. The guide pointed to an eminence onwhich were a few decayed vestiges of an old fortified castle. "Those,"said the guide, "are the ruins of the castle of Diernstein." Napoleonsuddenly stopped, and stood for some time silently contemplating theruins, then turning to Lannes, who was with him, he raid, "See! yonderis the prison of Richard Coeur de Lion. He, like us, went to Syria andPalestine. But, my brave Lannes, the Coeur de Lion was not braver thanyou. He was more fortunate than I at St. Jean d'Acre. A Duke of Austriasold him to an Emperor of Germany, who imprisoned him in that castle.Those were the days of barbarism. How different from the civilisation ofmodern times! Europe has seen how I treated the Emperor of Austria, whomI might have made prisoner—and I would treat him so again. I claim nocredit for this. In the present age crowned heads must be respected. Aconqueror imprisoned!"
A few days after the Emperor was at the gates of Vienna, but on thisoccasion his access to the Austrian capital was not so easy as it hadbeen rendered in 1805 by the ingenuity and courage of Lannes and Murat.The Archduke Maximilian, who was shut up in the capital, wished to defendit, although the French army already occupied the principal suburbs. Invain were flags of truce sent one after the other to the Archduke. Theywere not only dismissed unheard, but were even ill-treated, and one ofthem was almost killed by the populace. The city was then bombarded, andwould speedily have been destroyed but that the Emperor, being informedthat one of the Archduchesses remained in Vienna on account of ill-health, ordered the firing to cease. By a singular caprice of Napoleon'sdestiny this Archduchess was no other than Maria Louisa. Vienna atlength opened her gates to Napoleon, who for some days took up hisresidence at Schoenbrunn.
The Emperor was engaged in so many projects at once that they could notall succeed. Thus, while he was triumphant in the Hereditary States hisContinental system wa