The Press. — London, England, 1855-11-17 00:00:00

NOVEMBER ~17, 1855. Sittraturt. Histoire du Consulat et de r Empire. Vol. XII. By M. Thiers. Paris : Paulin. [Second Notice.) M. Timm, in the introduction to the twelfth volume of his history (reviewed in THE PRESS of the 3d inst.) assured his readers, it will be re membered, that he takes immense pains to aster tarn the real truth about every event narrated by him : but we were obliged to hint, from what we personally knew of his manner of collecting his facts, that this was only true with respect to French sources of information, seeing that he rarely, if ever, has recourse to those which England and Germany present. A careful perusal of this volume will convince the reader that our hint was fully called for; for it will show that an exclusively French view is taken of all the great events recorded—that an exclusively French judgment is passed on them—and that exclusively French measure is meted out to the distinguished mon en gaged in them. Thus, the impracticable continental blockade which Napoleon estab lished, in the vain hope of ruining England, is gravely asserted to have been justified (p. 39) by the conduct of the English themselves ; the violence and oppression with which Na poleon enforced the blockade fine, im prisonment, death, the seizure and destruc tion of private property, the capture of neutral ships, the confiscation of neutral territories, the tyrannising over neutral States—are repre sented (p. 43) to have been excusable; and the blockade is throughout treated as a great political combination, infallibly destined, if persisted in, to cause the ruin of Great Britain, though all the world knows by this time that, even if it could have been rigorously executed—which was impossible, inasmuch as English ships commanded every shore —it weighed far more oppressively on France than on us, and, as she was less rich than we, and had wars everywhere to maintain, it would have re duced her to utter beggary long before it could have ruined us. As to the French prejudice with which M. Thiers passes judgment, it will be sufficient to say that he represents the deNas tation of Portuguese towns and fields by the English—to prevent them from affording sup plies to the French—in the most odious light possible, and yet speaks very tenderly indeed of much more atrocious things done by the French in Spain and Portugal; he sees " harshness" and "cold selfishness " in the refusal of Wellington to incur the risk of having the English army destroyed by going to the rescue of Ciudad Rodrigo, besieged by the French, when the retention of the place was of no advantage to the carrying out of his plans, and yet, when General Suehet, in the siege of Lerida, showered shot and shell on the civil population—men, women, and child ren cooped up in the citadel—all that the soft hearted M. Thiers can say was, that " it was a " terrible scene, but impossible to avoid." With regard to the manner in which he appre ciates the merits of persons, it is so peculiarly French that, whilst he sees all kinds of excel lence in every French general employed any where, it is only in a few of their adversaries that he can discover any at all; and, though obliged to speak respectfully of the transcen dent qualities of Wellington, he takes care to dwell maliciously on any mistake or oversight of which he may have been guilty, and, by artfully exaggerating the difficulties with which Ma ssena, the French commander, had to contend, and being nearly altogether silent on those which beset Wellington, he contrives to create the impression that the palm of military superiority belongs to the former, and even cast a shade over the most glorious exploits of the latter. In a word, he has misnamed his book—instead of calling it "A. History," he should call it a " French History of the Consulate and the Empire." Nor is his inveterate Frenchism the sole ground of complaint we have against M. Thiers: in many places he uses a tone of flip pancy which is unbecoming the gravity of the historian. Thus (p. 105) lie says of Mr. Perceval that "he was obstinately bent on " pursuing the war with the blind fury of a " Tory"—au expression which is singularly THE PRESS. undignified, and which is besides inexact as regards Mr. Perceval, and libellous as regards the Tories. Thus, also (p. 240), after deserib ing the victory of the French over the Spaniards at Ocana, he cries, "The only thing wanting to " this triumph was that it should have been " gained over the English !"—an exclamation called for, unjustifiable, and impertinent. Again, in places innumerable, he not only describes matters with a strong French bias, but has the bad taste to prate constantly of " defeat. ing the English," "driving the English into the sea," and doing this, that, and the other to the English—a style of language unsuitable for history, and absolutely ludicrous when it is remembered that it was the English who defeated the invincible French over and over again. Nor does he hold the balance fair even between the different French personages of hi 3 history : showing, for example, a marked de sire to exalt or excuse Massena, and an equally strong one to disparage Soult; and why he disparages Soult, be it said en passant, no one who is acquainted with the politics of Louis Philippe's reign requires to be told. Lastly, we find more errors than are excusable in a book which it has taken fifteen years to write. Mr. Perceval. for instance, is constantly called M. de Perceval ; the English people are described (p. 20) as "having accustomed " themselves no longer to regard (ne plus re " garden Hanover as English "—as if they ever had so considered it ; the Anglo-Portuguese forces in the lines of Torres Vedras are some times set down at 80,000, sometimes at 70,000, and the English alone sometimes at 30,000 and at others at 20,000; and there is equal loose ness of assertion as regards the forces of Mas sena acting against them. But, in spite of all its faults, the " History of M. Thiers is a wonderful production, and perhaps no man now living could send forth one like it. The most complicated inatters—as, for instance, the continental blockade—are ex plained with the greatest clearness; the most arid, as those of finance, with charming sim plicity and grace, united apparently to the strictest exactness of figures. The descrip tions of battles and sieges are astonishing in every respect—technical, yet perfectly compre hensible to the non-military reader—brief iu space, yet full of detail—vivid, but not exag gerated : the plans of the generals, the acci dents of the ground, the commencement and progress of the affair, the main incidents in it, the fierce final struggle, the grand result, the exultation of the victors, the rage of the van quished—all are recorded with extraordinary fidelity and power. The other and even worse horrors of war—towns and villages slicked, vine yards destroyed, corn-fields ravaged, the most charming districts of the earth turned into howling wildernesses, and thousands of God's creatures, men, women, and children, sent forth to hunger and to die—these horrible spectacles are evoked in all their horrible reality, but without any straining after effect, or any de scent into bombast. The veil that hung over much of the policy of the Imperial soldier who is the hero of the book is stripped away, and full light is thrown on many circumstances which ha% e heretofore been more or less a mystery or au enigma. The blind and fatal ambition of Napoleon—his absolute tyranny — his many faults both of policy and conduct — his violent character—the fear with which he was regarded, even by those who approached him nearest and were dearest to him—all these are exposed with as much severity as could be expected from a historian who worships him as a demigod. The qualities and defects of his brothers, his generals and Ministers, and creatures—the distrust which his later policy excited in the wisest of his followers—the intrigues with which, in spite of his immense and awful power, he was surrounded, and at times even thwarted—and the various events which began to prepare the way for, or to fore shadow, his downfal—all these are touched on, indicated, and developed with a master hind. The style in which M. Thiers writes is too well known to need description : with the greatest apparent simplicity, it displays the greatest literary art—it is at once clear, unaffected, sparkling , and eloquent. In such a book the. reader will readily be lieve that we have scored very many passages for translation. Our space, however, forbids us 1099 from doing more than taking two brief ones. The first is about Wellington, in the early part of 1810 : Sir Arthur Wellesley had acquired over the British Government, and even over the British public, great credit by his recent operations. Since the retreat, au hasty, and which might have been so disastrous, of General Moore, the English trembled inoessantly at the idea of seeing their soldiers precipitated into the sea, and it was not without fear that they left them in Portugal. However, on seeing their new general, Arthur Wellesley, so far from being expelled from the Peninsula, expel on the contrary Marshal Soult from Portugal, then dare to go by the Tagus to Talavera to give battle at the gatea of Madrid, and retire afterwards quietly into listratuadurs before the Freucharmies united, they began to regain con fidence, and to accumulate on Arthur Wellesley the un exampled honours which have as much honoured that general as the nation which showed him so much grati tude. They had just awarded him the title of Lord Wellington, with large pecuniary recompenses, and, in order to render everything easier for him, had sent his brother Henry to the Central Junta of Seville as Ambassa dor of Great Britain. His other brother, the Marquis Wellesley, was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. No one then could be more highly esteemed or more strongly supported than he was in England. Nevertheless, the services already rendered to his country, and the great reputation which lie had begun to acquire, did not preserve him from the attacks of the Opposition, which wished for peace, nor from the objections of the Government, which was iu constant dread of a disaster. The British Govern ment accordingly kept at the mouth of the Tagus, at great expense, an immense fleet of transports, iu order to be always ready to receive the army if it were beaten. The peace between France and Austria increased its apprehen sions, thinking it possible for Napoleon soon to send his best army and his best general, that is to say himself, into the Peninsula ; and at this idea all England trembled with dismay for Lord Wellington and his army. In the increased alarm produced by the peace with Austria the people tormented the Cabinet, and the Cabinet tormented Lord Wellington by the expression of continual terror. It supplicated him to be prudent, bat far from supplying means in proportion to the danger, it accorded them with a certain degree of parsimony, from the fear of encouraging his► to remain in the Peninsula. Lord Wellington felt keenly these vexations, for men with hearts capable of surmounting great perils have frequently only the appearance of want of feeling—they dominate themselves without feeling less than others the agony of difficult situations. The unhelped general suffered, but was not yet sufficiently powerful to dare to make known what he felt either to the British Cabinet or Parliament. He endured his vexations, and replied with modesty to his chiefs when he was otteu tempted to do ctherwiae. With rare penetration he had judged the march of events in the Peuinsula better than Napoleon himself, not that he had an intellect equal to his—far from it—but because he was on tle spot, and be was not misled by any of the illusions which Napoleon, engaged in a bad path, took pleasure in melting for him self. He had appreciated the force of resistance which national hatreds, climate, and distance opposed to the French, the exhausted state of their forces on arriving at the bottom of the Peninsula, the negligent character of their operations under the direction of divided generals, the improbability of the arrival of Napoleon on such a distant theatre of war, and, lastly, the disagreement of Napoleon and Joseph—a disagreement which proved that the excessive exactions of Napoleon began to exceed even the zeal of his own brothers : and lie entertained the convic tion, which nothing had been able to shake, that the vast scaffolding of grandeur was undermined in all parts ; that no doubt Napoleon might possess himself of the greatest part of the Peninsula, but that he could not conquer certain extreme points, such as Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Lisbon, which were protected by distance and the sea ; that if England from these extreme points continued to excite and support the hatred of the Portuguese and Spaniards, the conflict would incessantly continue, and so exhaust the forces of the empire ; that Europe sooner or later would revolt against the yoke of Napoleon ; and that the latter would then only be able to oppose him by armies half destroyed by an interminable and horrid war. This opinion, which honours in the highest degree the military and political judgment of Lord Wellington, had become with him a fixed idea, and he had persevered therein with a correctness of judgment and a firmness of character worthy of being admired. The second extract we make is a pleasing one:— Massena spent himself several days in reconnoitring the formidable position of the English at Torres Vedrss. One day, the 16th October, he was under one of the enemy's batteries, and proceeded to examine it by means of a py glass placed on the low wall of a garden. The English officers perceived the illustrious Marshal very distinctly, and felt for him a sentiment worthy of civilised notions when they are reduced to the misfortune of making war on each other. They might by tiring from all their pieces have killed the Staff of the Marshal, and probably him also. They, however, only fired one shot to warn him of his peril, and they aimed it so well that it knocked down the wall on which his glass rested. Massena understood the courteous warning, saluted the battery, and, getting on tohis horse, went out of the range of the English guns. The description which M. Thiers gives of the famous lines of Torres Vedras is a very remarkable one, and is calculated, in our opinion, to enhance immensely the military renown of Wellington , es peeinlly on the Con tinent. But we must retain it for a future %.1w 1 9 1