Louis de Bourrienne
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
CHAPTER IX
1806
The Continental system—General indignation excited by it—Sale of licences by the French Government—Custom-house system at Hamburg— My letter to the Emperor—Cause of the rupture with Russia— Bernadotte's visit to me—Trial by court-martial for the purchase of a sugar-loaf—Davoust and the captain "rapporteur"—Influence of the Continental system on Napoleon's fall.
I have a few remarks to make on the famous Continental system, which was a subject of such engrossing interest. I had, perhaps, better opportunities than any other person of observing the fraud and estimating the fatal consequences of this system. It took its rise during the war in 1806, and was brought into existence by a decree; dated from Berlin. The project was conceived by weak counsellors, who; perceiving the Emperor's just indignation at the duplicity of England, her repugnance to enter, into negotiations with him, and her constant endeavours to raise enemies against France, prevailed upon him to issue the decree, which I could only regard as an act of madness and tyranny. It was not a decree, but fleets, that were wanting. Without a navy it was ridiculous to declare the British Isles in a state of blockade, whilst the English fleets were in fact blockading all the French ports. This declaration was, however, made in the Berlin Decree. This is what was called the Continental system! which, in plain terms, was nothing but a system of fraud and pillage.
One can now scarcely conceive how Europe could for a single day endure that fiscal tyranny which extorted exorbitant prices for articles which the habits of three centuries had rendered indispensable to the poor as well as to the rich. So little of truth is there in the pretence that this system had for its sole and exclusive object to prevent the sale of English goods, that licences for their disposal were procured at a high price by whoever was rich enough to pay for them. The number and quality of the articles exported from France were extravagantly exaggerated. It was, indeed, necessary to take out some of the articles is compliance with the Emperor's wishes, but they were only thrown into the sea. And yet no one had the honesty to tell the Emperor that England sold on the continent but bought scarcely anything. The speculation in licences was carried to a scandalous extent only to enrich a few, and to satisfy the short-sighted views of the contrivers of the system.
This system proves what is written in the annals of the human heart and mind, that the cupidity of the one is insatiable, and the errors of the other incorrigible. Of this I will cite an example, though it refers to a period posterior to the origin of the Continental system. In Hamburg, in 1811, under Davoust's government, a poor man had well-nigh been shot for having introduced into the department of the Elbe a small loaf of sugar for the use of his family, while at the same moment Napoleon was perhaps signing a licence for the importation of a million of sugar-loaves.
—[In this same year (1811) Murat, as King of Naples, not only winked at the infringement of the Continental system, but almost openly broke the law himself. His troops in Calabria and all round his immense line sea coast, carried on an active trade with Sicilian and English smugglers. This was so much the case that an officer never set out from Naples to join, without, being, requested by his wife, his relations or friends, to bring them some English muslins, some sugar and coffee, together with a few needles, pen-knives, and razors. Some of the Neapolitan officers embarked in really large commercial operations, going shares with the custom house people who were there to enforce the law, and making their soldiers load and unload the contraband vessels. The Comte de ——-, a French officer on Murat's staff, was very noble, but very poor, and excessively extravagant. After making several vain efforts to set him up in the world, the King told him one day he would give him the command of the troops round the Gulf of Salerno; adding that the devil was in it if he could not make a fortune in such a capital smuggling district, in a couple of years.—The Count took the hint, and did make a fortune.—Editor 1836 edition.]—
Smuggling on a small scale was punished with death, whilst the Government themselves carried it on extensively. The same cause filled the Treasury with money, and the prisons with victims:
The custom-house laws of this period, which waged open war against rhubarb, and armed the coasts of the Continent against the introduction of senna, did not save the Continental system from destruction. Ridicule attended the installation of the odious prevotal courts. The president of the Prevotal Court at Hamburg, who was a Frenchman, delivered an address, in which he endeavoured to prove that in the time of the Ptolemies there had existed extraordinary fiscal tribunals, and that it was to those Egypt owed her prosperity. Terror was thus introduced by the most absurd folly. The ordinary customhouse officers, formerly so much abhorred in Hamburg, declared with reason that they would soon be regretted, and than the difference between them and the prevotal courts would soon be felt. Bonaparte's counsellors led him to commit the folly of requiring that a ship which had obtained a licence should export merchandise equivalent to that of the colonial produce to be imported under the authority of the licence. What was the consequence? The speculators bought at a low price old stores of silk-which change of fashion had made completely unsaleable, and as those articles were prohibited in England they were thrown into the sea without their loss being felt. The profits of the speculation made ample amends for the sacrifice. The Continental system was worthy only of the ages of ignorance and barbarism, and had it been admissible in theory, was impracticable in application.
—[Sydney Smith was struck with the, ridiculous side of the war of tariffs: "We are told that the Continent is to be reconquered by the want of rhubarb and plums." (Essays of Sydney Smith, p. 533, edition of 1861).]—
It cannot be sufficiently stigmatised. They were not the friends of the Emperor who recommended a system calculated to rouse the indignation of Europe, and which could not fail to create reaction. To tyrannize over the human species, and to exact uniform admiration and submission, is to require an impossibility. It would seem that fate, which had still some splendid triumphs in store for Bonaparte, intended to prepare beforehand the causes which were to deprive him of all his triumphs at once, and plunge him into reverses even greater than the good fortune which had favoured his elevation.
The prohibition of trade, the habitual severity in the execution of this odious system, made it operate like a Continental impost. I will give a proof of this, and I state nothing but what came under my own observation. The fiscal regulations were very rigidly enforced at Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. M. Eudel, the director of that department, performed his duty with zeal and disinterestedness. I feel gratified in rendering him this tribute. Enormous quantities of English merchandise and colonial produce were accumulated at Holstein, where they almost all arrived by way of Kiel and Hudsum, and were smuggled over the line at the expense of a premium of 33 and 40 per cent. Convinced of this fact by a thousand proofs, and weary of the vexations of the preventive system, I took upon myself to lay my opinions on the subject before the Emperor. He had given me permission to write to him personally, without any intermediate agency, upon everything that I might consider essential to his service. I sent an extraordinary courier to Fontainebleau, where he then was, and in my despatch I informed him that, notwithstanding his preventive guard, every prohibited article was smuggled in because the profits on the sale in Germany, Poland, Italy, and even France, into which the contrabrand goods found their way, were too considerable not to induce persons to incur all risks to obtain them. I advised him, at the very time he was about to unite the Hanse Towns to the French Empire, to permit merchandise to be imported subject to a duty of 33 per cent., which was about equal to the amount of the premium for insurance. The Emperor adopted my advice without hesitation, and in 1811 the regulation produced a revenue of upwards of 60,000,000 francs in Hamburg alone.
This system, however, embroiled us with Sweden and Russia, who could not endure that Napoleon should enact a strict blockade from them, whilst he was himself distributing licences in abundance. Bernadotte, on his way to Sweden, passed through Hamburg in October 1810. He stayed with me three days, during which time he scarcely saw any person but myself. He asked my opinion as to what he should do in regard to the Continental system. I did not hesitate to declare to him, not as a French Minister, but as a private individual to his friend, that in his place, at the head of a poor nation, which could only subsist by the exchange of its territorial productions with England, I would open my ports, and give the Swedes gratuitously that general licence which Bonaparte sold in detail to intrigue and cupidity.
The Berlin decree could not fail to cause a reaction against the Emperor's fortune by raising up whole nations against him. The hurling of twenty kings from their thrones would have excited less hatred than this contempt for the wants of nations. This profound ignorance of the maxims of political economy caused general privation and misery, which in their turn occasioned general hostility. The system could only succeed in the impossible event of all the powers of Europe honestly endeavouring to carry it into effect. A single free port would have destroyed it. In order to ensure its complete success it was necessary to conquer and occupy all countries, and never to evacuate them. As a means of ruining England it was contemptible. It was necessary that all Europe should be compelled by force of arms to join this absurd coalition, and that the same force should be constantly employed to maintain it. Was this possible? The captain "rapporteur" of a court-martial allowed a poor peasant to escape the punishment due to the offence of having bought a loaf of sugar beyond the custom-house barrier. This officer was some time afterwards at a dinner given by Marshal Davoust; the latter said to him, "You have a very scrupulous conscience, sir; go to headquarters and you will find an order there for you." This order sent him eighty leagues from Hamburg. It is necessary to have witnessed, as I have, the numberless vexations and miseries occasioned by the unfortunate Continental system to understand the mischief its authors did in Europe, and how much that mischief contributed to Napoleon's fall.
—[The so-called Continental system was framed by Napoleon in revenge for the English very extended system of blockades, after Trafalgar had put it out of his power to attempt to keep the seas. By these decrees all ports occupied by the French were closed to the English, and all English goods were to be destroyed wherever found in any country occupied by the French. All States under French influence had to adopt this system. It must be remembered that Napoleon eventually held or enforced his system on all the coastlines of Europe, except that of Spain and Turkey; but as Bourrienne shows the plan of giving licences to break his own system was too lucrative to be resisted by him, or, still more, by his officers. For the working of the system in the occupied lands, Laffite the banker told Savary it was a grand idea, but impracticable (Savary, tome v. p. 110). The Emperor Alexander is reported to have said, after visiting England in 1814, that he believed the system would have reduced England if it had lasted another year. The English, who claimed the right of blockading any coast with but little regard to the effectiveness of the blockade, retaliated by orders in Council, the chief of which are dated 7th January 1807, and 11th November 1807, by which no ships of any power were allowed to trade between any French ports, or the ports of any country closed to England. Whatever the real merits of the system, and although it was the cause of war between the United States and England, its execution did most to damage France and Napoleon, and to band all Europe against it. It is curious that even in 1831 a treaty had to be made to settle the claims of the United States on France for unjust seizures under these decrees.]—
CHAPTER X
1806-1807.
New system of war—Winter quarters—The Emperor's Proclamation— Necessity of marching to meet the Russians—Distress in the Hanse Towns—Order for 50,000 cloaks—Seizure of Russian corn and timber— Murat's entrance into Warsaw—Re-establishment of Poland—Duroc's accident—M. de Talleyrand's carriage stopped by the mud—Napoleon's power of rousing the spirit of his troops—His mode of dictating— The Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin—His visits to Hamburg—The Duke of Weimar—His letter and present—Journey of the Hereditary Prince of Denmark to Paris—Batter, the English spy—Traveling clerks—Louis Bonaparte and the Berlin decree—Creation of the Kingdom of Saxony— Veneration of Germany for the King of Saxony—The Emperor's uncertainty respecting Poland—Fetes and reviews at Warsaw—The French Government at the Emperor's head quarters—Ministerial portfolios sent to Warsaw.—Military preparations during the month of January—Difference of our situation daring the campaigns of Vienna and Prussia—News received and sent—Conduct of the Cabinet of Austria similar to that of the Cabinet of Berlin—Battle of Eylau—Unjust accusation against Bernadotte—Death of General d'Hautpoult—Te Deum chanted by the Russians—Gardanne's mission to Persia
Bonaparte was not only beyond all comparison the greatest captain of modern times, but he may be said to have wrought a complete change in the art of war. Before his time the most able generals regulated the fighting season by the almanac. It was customary in Europe to brave the cannon's mouth only from the first fine days of spring to the last fine days of autumn; and the months of rain, snow, and frost were passed in what were called winter quarters. Pichegru, in Holland, had set the example of indifference to temperature. At Austerlitz, too, Bonaparte had braved the severity of winter; this answered his purpose well, and he adopted the same course in 1806. His military genius and activity seemed to increase, and, proud of his troops, he determined to commence a winter campaign in a climate more rigorous than any in which he had yet fought. The men, chained to his destiny, were now required to brave the northern blast, as they had formerly braved the vertical sun of Egypt. Napoleon, who, above all generals, was remarkable for the choice of his fields of battle, did not wish to wait tranquilly until the Russian army, which was advancing towards Germany, should come to measure its strength with him in the plains of conquered Prussia; he resolved to march to meet it, and to reach it before it should arose the Vistula; but before he left Berlin to explore and conqueror, Poland and the confines of Russia; he addressed a proclamation to his troops, in which he stated all that had hitherto been achieved by the French army, and at the same time announced his future intentions. It was especially advisable that he should march forward, for, had he waited until the Russians had passed the Vistula, there could probably have been no winter campaign, and he would have been obliged either to take up miserable winter quarters between the Vistula and the Oder, or to recross the Oder to combat the enemy in Prussia. Napoleon's military genius and indefatigable activity served him admirably on this occasion, and the proclamation just alluded to, which was dated from Berlin before his departure from Charlottenburg; proves that he did not act fortuitously, as he frequently did, but that his calculations were well-made.
—[Before leaving the capital of Prussia Bonaparte stole from the monument, of Frederick the Great his sword and military orders. He also plundered the galleries of Berlin and Potsdam of their best pictures and statues, thus continuing the system he had began is Italy. All those things he sent to Paris as trophies of victory and glory.—Editor of as 1836 edition.]
A rapid and immense impulse given to great masses of men by the will of a single individual may produce transient lustre and dazzle the eyes of the multitude; but when, at a distance from the theatre of glory, we flee only the melancholy results which have been produced. The genius of conquest can only be regarded as the genius of destruction. What a sad picture was often presented to my eyes! I was continually doomed to hear complaints of the general distress, and to execute orders which augmented the immense sacrifices already made by the city of Hamburg. Thus, for example, the Emperor desired me to furnish him with 50,000 cloaks which I immediately did. I felt the importance of such an order with the approach of winter, and in a climate—the rigour of which our troops had not yet encountered. I also received orders to seize at Lübeck (Which town, as I have already stated, had been alternately taken and retaken try Blücher and Bernadotte) 400,000 lasts of corn,—[A last weighs 2000 kilogrammes]—and to send them to Magdeburg. This corn belonged to Russia. Marshal Mortier, too, had seized some timber for building, which also belonged to Russia; and which was estimated at 1,400,000 francs.
Meanwhile our troops continued to advance with such rapidity that before the end of November Murat arrived at Warsaw, at the head of the advanced guard of the Grand Army, of which, he had the command. The Emperor's headquarters, were then at Posen, and, he received deputations from all parts soliciting the re-establishment and independence of the Kingdom of Poland.
Rapp informed me that after receiving the deputation from Warsaw the Emperor said to him, "I love the Poles; their enthusiastic character pleases me; I should like to make them independent, but that is a difficult matter. Austria, Russia, and Prussia have all had a slice of the cake; when the match is once kindled who knows where, the conflagration may stop? My first duty, is towards France, which I must not sacrifice to Poland; we must refer this matter to the sovereign of all things—Time, he will presently show us what we must do." Had Sulkowsky lived Napoleon might have recollected what he had said to him in Egypt, and, in all probability he would have raised up a power, the dismemberment of which; towards the close of the last century, began to overturn the political equilibrium which had subsisted in Europe since the peace of Westphalia in 1648.
It was at the headquarters at Posen that Duroc rejoined the Emperor after his mission to the King of Prussia. His carriage overturned on the way, and he had the misfortune to break his collar-bone. All the letters I received were nothing but a succession of complaints on the bad state of the roads. Our troops were absolutely fighting in mud, and it was with extreme difficulty that the artillery and caissons of the army could be moved along. M. de Talleyrand had been summoned to headquarters by the Emperor, in the expectation of treating for peace, and I was informed that his carriage stuck in the mud and he was detained on his journey for twelve hours. A soldier having asked one of the persons in M. de Talleyrand's suite who the traveller was, was informed that he was the Minister for Foreign Affairs. "Ah! bah!" said the soldier, "why does he come with his diplomacy to such a devil of a country as this?"
The Emperor entered Warsaw on the 1st of January 1807. Most of the reports which he had received previous to his entrance had concurred in describing the dissatisfaction of the troops, who for some time had had to contend with bad roads, bad weather, and all aorta of privations.' Bonaparte said to the generals who informed him that the enthusiasm of his troops had been succeeded by dejection and discontent, "Does their spirit fail them when they come in sight of the enemy?"—"No, Sire."— "I knew it; my troops are always the same." Then turning to Rapp he said, "I must rouse them;" and he dictated the following proclamation:
SOLDIERS—It is a year this very hour since you were on the field of Austerlitz, where the Russian battalions fled in disorder, or surrendered up their arms to their conquerors. Next day proposals, of peace were talked of; but they were deceptive. No sooner had the Russians escaped, by perhaps, blamable generosity from the disasters of the third coalition than they contrived a fourth. But the ally on whose tactics they founded their principal hope was no more. His capital, his fortresses; his magazines; his arsenals, 280 flags, and 700 field-pieces have fallen into our power. The Oder, the Wartha, the deserts of Poland, and the inclemency of the season have not for a moment retarded your progress. You have braved all; surmounted all; every obstacle has fled at your approach. The Russians have in vain endeavoured to defend the capital of ancient and illustrious Poland. The French eagle hovers over the Vistula. The brave and unfortunate Poles, on beholding you, fancied they saw the legions of Sobieski, returning from their memorable expedition.
Soldiers, we will not lay down our arms until a general peace has secured the power of our allies and restored to us our colonies and our freedom of trade. We have gained on the Elbe and the Oder, Pondicherry, our Indian establishments, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spanish colonies. Why should the Russians have the right of opposing destiny and thwarting our just designs? They and we are still the soldiers who fought at Austerlitz.
Rapp thus describes the entrance of the French into Warsaw, and adds a few anecdotes connected with that event:
"At length we entered the Polish capital. The King of Naples had preceded us, and had driven the Russians from the city. Napoleon was received with enthusiasm. The Poles thought that the moment of their regeneration had arrived, and that their wishes were fulfilled. It would be difficult to describe the joy thus evinced, and the respect with which they treated us. The French troops, however, were not quite so well pleased; they manifested the greatest repugnance to crossing the Vistula. The idea of want and bad weather had inspired them with the greatest aversion to Poland, and they were inexhaustible, in their jokes on the country."
When Bonaparte dictated his proclamations—and how many have I not written from his dictation!—he was for the moment inspired, and he evinced all the excitement which distinguishes the Italian improvisatori. To follow him it was necessary to write with inconceivable rapidity. When I have read over to him what he has dictated I have often known him to smile triumphantly at the effect which he expected any particular phrase would produce. In general his proclamations turned on three distinct points—(1) Praising his soldiers for what they had done; (2) pointing out to them what they had yet to do; and (3) abusing his enemies. The proclamation to which I have just now alluded was circulated profusely through Germany, and it is impossible to conceive the effect it produced. on the whole army. The corps stationed in the rear burned too pass, by forced marches, the space which still separated them from headquarters; and those who were nearer the Emperor forgot their fatigues and privations and were only anxious to encounter the enemy. They frequently could not understand what Napoleon said in these proclamations; but no matter for that, they would have followed him cheerfully barefooted and without provisions. Such was the enthusiasm, or rather the fanaticism, which Napoleon could inspire among his troops when he thought proper to rouse them, as he termed it.
When, on a former occasion, I spoke of the Duke of, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and his family, I forgot a circumstance respecting my intercourse with him which now occurs to my memory. When, on his expulsion from his States, after the battle of Jena, he took refuge in Altona, he requested, through the medium of his Minister at Hamburg, Count von Plessen, that I would give him permission occasionally to visit that city. This permission I granted without hesitation; but the Duke observed no precaution in his visits, and I made some friendly observations to him on the subject. I knew the object of his visits. It was a secret connection in Hamburg; but in consequence of my observations he removed the lady to Altona, and assured me that he adopted that determination to avoid committing me. He afterwards came very seldom to Hamburg; but as we were on the best understanding with Denmark I frequently saw his daughter, and son-in-law, who used to visit me at a house I had in Holstein, near Altona.
There I likewise saw, almost every day, the Duke of Weimar, an excellent old man. I had the advantage of being on such terms of intimacy with him that my house was in some measure his. He also had lost his States. I was so happy as to contribute to their restitution, for my situation enabled me to exercise some influence on the political indulgences or severities of the Government. I entertained a sincere regard for the Duke of Weimar, and I greatly regretted his departure. No sooner had he arrived in Berlin than he wrote me a letter of, thanks, to which he added the present of a diamond, in token of his grateful remembrance of me. The Duke of Mecklenburg was not so fortunate as the Duke of Weimar, in spite of his alliance with the reigning family of Denmark. He was obliged to remain at Altona until the July following, for his States were restored only by the Treaty of Tilsit. As soon as it was known that the Emperor had returns to Paris the Duke's son, the Hereditary Prince, visited me in Hamburg, and asked me whether I thought he could present himself to the Emperor, for the purpose of expressing his own and his father's gratitude. He was a very well-educated young man. He set out, accompanied by M. Oertzen and Baron von Brandstaten. Some time afterwards I saw his name in the Moniteur, in one of the lists of presentations to Napoleon, the collection of which, during the Empire, might be regarded as a general register of the nobility of Europe.
It is commonly said that we may accustom ourselves to anything, but to me this remark is subject to an exception; for, in spite of the necessity to which I was reduced of employing spies, I never could surmount the disgust I felt at them, especially when I saw men destined to fill a respectable rank in society degrade themselves to that infamous profession. It is impossible to conceive the artifices to which these men resort to gain the confidence of those whom they wish to betray. Of this the following example just now occurs to my mind.
One of those wretches who are employed in certain circumstances, and by all parties, came to offer his services to me. His name was Butler, and he had been sent from England to the Continent as a spy upon the French Government. He immediately came to me, complaining of pretended enemies and unjust treatment. He told me he had the greatest wish to serve the Emperor, and that he would make any sacrifice to prove his fidelity. The real motive of his change of party was, as it is with all such men, merely the hope of a higher reward. Most extraordinary were the schemes he adopted to prevent his old employers from suspecting that he was serving new ones. To me he continually repeated how happy he was to be revenged on his enemies in London. He asked me to allow him to go to Paris to be examined by the Minister of Police. The better to keep up the deception he requested that on his arrival in Paris he might be confined in the Temple, and that there might be inserted in the French journals an announcement in the following terms:
"John Butler, commonly called Count Butler, has just been arrested and sent to Paris under a good escort by the French Minister at Hamburg."
At the expiration of a few weeks Butler, having received his instruction's, set out for London, but by way of precaution he said it would be well to publish in the journals another announcement; which was as follows:
"John Butler, who has been arrested in Hamburg as an English agent, and conveyed to Paris, is ordered to quit France and the territories occupied by the French armies and their allies, and not to appear there again until the general peace."
In England Butler enjoyed the honours of French prosecution. He was regarded as a victim who deserved all the confidence of the enemies of France. He furnished Fouché with a considerable amount of information, and he was fortunate enough to escape being hanged.
Notwithstanding the pretended necessity of employing secret agents, Bonaparte was unwilling that, even under that pretext, too many communications should be established between France and England: Fouché, nevertheless, actively directed the evolutions of his secret army. Ever ready to seize on anything that could give importance to the police and encourage the suspicions of the Emperor, Fouché wrote to me that the government had received certain—information that many Frenchmen traveling for commercial houses in France were at Manchester purchasing articles of English manufacture. This was true; but how was it to be prevented? These traveling clerks passed through Holland, where they easily procured a passage to England.
