SELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM.

History of the Expedition to Russia, undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the year 1812. By General Count Philip De Segur. In two volumes 8vo., with a Map and five Engravings. London: Treuttel and Wurtz, &c. 1825.

We took up the volumes of the Count de Segur, and rapidly glanced over their contents; anticipating little beyond a repetition of the horrid details with which we were already familiar, notwithstanding the noise they have made in Paris, throughout France, and indeed all over the Continent.* Our presentiments have, to a certain extent, been realized; in this work we found much with which we were already familiar, but we found more that is perfectly new to us, and we believe to all, except the gallant and unfortunate men who escaped destruction amidst the snows and steppes of Russia; and in perusing the narrative, we were perfectly fascinated and spell-bound by the irresistible charm of the composition, and by the painful and overpowering interest infused into it. The wildest fictions of imagination sink into nothing, compared with the dreadful realities of this ever memorable expedition: and never were these realities brought so forcibly before us, or the terrible picture of misery, desolation, and death, alternating with the most frightful atrocities, the most sublime courage, and the most heroic devotion so vividly pourtrayed. When we add that these volumes exhibit information of the highest importance to the statesman, the warrior, the philosopher, and the moralist, as well as to the mere reader for the gratification of curiosity, is it possible to say more in their praise?

Segur supplies a vast mass of the most curious, interesting, and valuable details, with respect to the Ex-Emperor of France. Napoleon-his thoughts-his opinions-his discussions with his generals-his occupations-his policy-his resolutions-his operations -his violent agitations of mind-his misgivings-his daring and overwhelming boldness-his bodily infirmities-his mental agony -his failings-his errors-and his mighty, heroic, and unique deeds, are all brought successively under review; and the volumes before us, being a record of the achievements of Napoleon in 1812, and of his dreadful reverses, will become familiar, as household words, to every child in France, and will doubtless be handed down to posterity as a faithful history of some of the most astonishing and most important events in the annals of the world.

Buonaparte was unquestionably-all things considered-the most extraordinary man that ever existed. When we think of the events of his life, from the moment that he drew breath in an island of

The first edition of Segur's work, said to have been a large one, was sold off within ten days after publication; the second edition, consisting of 6,000 or 7,000 copies, was disposed of in an equally short period; and a third edition is said to be now in the press.

VOL. VI. No. 36.-Museum.

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the Mediterranean, till he expired, an exile on a rock in the African Ocean, our positive assured knowledge can hardly secure us against a suspicion that the whole is a splendid vision-a romance of the wildest and most startling extravagance. Though we know all the events to have taken place within the period of our existence, some of them seem almost to transcend the limits of belief. What, for example, will posterity say of the escape from Elba, the second expulsion of the Bourbons, and the re-establishment of the imperial dynasty, without firing a shot, or shedding a drop of blood? The career of this man raises our enthusiasm, engages our minds, and excites our curiosity. We begin to study his life, and we are impelled on, from volume to volume, with additional ardour; and though some of his actions may disgust us as criminal, and others lessen him as capricious or absurd, yet we like to become familiar with the whole.

We have read much of Napoleon, but it is in Segur's work that we have a transcript of the dreadful mental distress-the overwhelming agony of soul-of the ambitious, haughty, and daring leader of the French. In it, as in a mirror, we remark that this mighty genius and conqueror gained some of his laurels with a bursting heart. Indeed, in 1812, not a few of them seem to have been the result of that courage which flows from despair-of that courage which makes even the feeble strong. Yet the emperor had almost always the power of concealing his mental emotions and his misgivings, from his most immediate attendants, his counsellors, and his generals; but especially from his army. Even when disappointed, his bulletins generally pourtrayed victory, and the prospect of the conquest of Russia. Thus the wily warrior seems to have blindfolded his troops, officers, and soldiers, the French nation, Europe, nay, the world. But defeats, and time, the revealer of secrets, and the loss of his magnificent army, at length reluctantly unveiled the melancholy truth, that Buonaparte was defeated.

The painful accounts which we are about to extract from Segur's work depict the mind of one of the greatest of men under different aspects-in public and in private-in health and in sickness-in the face of his troops and in the interior of his tent-in the zenith of his glory, and after his star had been eclipsed-in the hour of victory, and in that of defeat-in triumph and in despair; and they also show how dearly this ambitious hero paid for some of the distinctions which will immortalize his name, when his failings, his errors, and his crimes, are forgotten--if indeed any thing connected with such a man can ever be forgotten. But it is time to come to the work before us.

Segur's volumes are divided into books and chapters, and the work is illustrated by a map of the countries between Paris and Moscow, showing the route of the French army in the disastrous campaign of 1812-by a view of the passage of the Niemen-and by tolerable portraits of Napoleon, Alexander, Murat, and Ney.

Count Paul Philip de Segur is son of the distinguished Count Louis Philip de Segur, and is himself a well known and celebrated character. He is one of the chevaliers of the order of St. Lewis, and is commander of the order of the Legion of Honour, &c. He has long been in the service of his country, and has oftener than once bled in her cause. For some time he was a prisoner of war in the neighbourhood of Moscow, but was exchanged at the peace of Tilsit. He afterwards participated in the war in Spain, and in 1812, after having been promoted to the rank of a General of Brigade, he made the Russian campaign in this capacity, and seems to have enjoyed advantageous opportunities of observing all the motions, and knowing all the resolutions of his imperial master. He also shared in the subsequent affairs of the French army, acquired fresh laurels, and was named one of the Maréchaux-deCamp de l'etat-Major-Général de l'Armée.* The dedication of the work to the "Veterans of the Grand Army" is written with great feeling and spirit, and in a masterly style.

We cannot find room for the opinions of Napoleon's best friends and ministers, respecting the invasion of Russia, while he himself was yet at Paris, though his armies were moving forwards to their destination. Their dissuasions had no effect. Even Poniatowski, to whom the expedition appeared to hold out the prospect of a throne, generously united his exertions with the Emperor's ministers, in the attempt to demonstrate its danger. The hardy and determined sovereign overcame or eluded their objections, and at length silenced them all by this extraordinary conclusion:

"Do you dread the war, as endangering my life? It was thus that, in the times of conspiracy, attempts were made to frighten me about Georges; he was every where to be found upon my track: that wretched being was to fire at me. Well! suppose he had! He would at the utmost have killed my aide-de-camp! but to kill me was impossible! Had I at that time accomplished the decrees of fate? I feel myself impelled towards a goal of which I am ignorant. As soon as I shall have reached it, so soon shall I no longer be of service,-an atom will then suffice to put me down; but till then, all human efforts can avail nothing against me. Whether I am in Paris, or with the army, is, therefore, quite indifferent. When my hour is come, a fever, or a fall from my horse in hunting, will kill me as effectually as a bullet: our days are registered.”

Segur says that Napoleon was indeed prepared to meet every objection.

His skilful hand was able to comprehend and turn to his purpose every disposi tion; and, in fact, when he wanted to persuade, there was a kind of charm in his deportment which it was impossible to resist. One felt overpowered by his superior strength, and compelled, as it were, to submit to his influence. It was, if it may be so explained, a kind of magnetic influence: for his ardent and variable genius infused itself entirely into all his desires, the least as well as the greatest: whatever he willed, all his energies and all his faculties united to effect: they ap peared at his beck: they hastened forward; and, obedient to his dictation, simultaneously assumed the forms which he desired.

It was thus that the greater part of those whom he wished to gain over found themselves, as it were, fascinated by him in spite of themselves. It was flattering to your vanity to see the master of Europe appearing to have no other ambition,

Dictionaire Historique et Biographique des Généraux Français, par M. le Chevalier de Courcelles, Vol. IX. p. 147.

no other desire than that of convincing you; to behold those features, so formida ble to multitudes, expressing towards you no other feeling but a mild and affecting benevolence; to hear that mysterious man, whose every word was historical, yielding, as if for your sake alone, to the irresistible impulse of the most frank and confiding disclosure; and that voice, so caressing while it addressed you, was it not the same, whose lowest whisper rang throughout all Europe, announced wars, decided battles, settled the fate of empires, ruined or destroyed reputations? What vanity could resist a charm of so great potency? Any defensive position was forced on all points; his eloquence was so much more convincing, as he himself appeared to be convinced.

On this occasion, there was no variety of tints with which his brilliant and fertile imagination did not adorn his project, in order to convince and persuade. The same text supplied him with a thousand different commentaries with which the character and position of each of his interlocutors inspired him; he enlisted each in his undertaking, by presenting it to him under the form and colour, and point of view, most likely to gratify him.

He told the military man, who was astonished by the hazard of the expedition, but likely to be easily seduced by the grandeur of ambitious ideas, that peace was to be conquered at Constantinople; that is to say, at the extremity of Europe; the individual was thus free to anticipate, that it was not merely to the staff of a marshal, but to the sceptre of a monarch, that he might elevate his pretensions.

To a minister of high rank under the ancient régime, whom the idea of shedding so much blood, to gratify ambition, filled with dismay, he declared "that it was a war of policy exclusively; that it was the English alone whom he meant to attack through Russia; that the campaign would be short; that afterwards France would be at rest; that it was the fifth act of the drama-the dénouement."

To others, he pleaded the ambition of Russia, and the force of circumstances, which dragged him into the war in spite of himself. With superficial and inexperienced individuals, to whom he neither wished to explain nor dissemble, he cut matters short, by saying, “You understand nothing of all this; you are ignorant of its antecedents and its consequents."

But to the princes of his family he had long revealed the state of his thoughts; he complained that they did not sufficiently appreciate his position. “Can you not see," said he to them, "that, as I was not born upon a throne, I must support myself on it, as I ascended it, by my renown? that it is necessary for it to go on increasing; that a private individual, become a sovereign like myself, can no longer stop; that he must be continually ascending, and that to be stationary is to

be lost?"

The subsequent remarks are highly interesting:

Granting even that Napoleon's soul was not exempt from a tendency to superstition, his intellect was both too strong and too enlightened to permit such vast events to depend upon a weakness. One great inquietude possessed him; it was the idea of that same death which he appeared so much to brave. His spirit misgave him at the reflection; and he dreaded that when he should be no more, the French empire, that sublime trophy of so many labours and victories, would fall a prey to dismemberment.

"The Russian emperor," he said, "was the only sovereign who pressed upon the summit of that colossal edifice. Replete with youth and animation, the strength of his rival was constantly augmenting, while his was already declining." It seemed to him, that Alexander, on the banks of the Niemen, only waited the intelligence of his death, to seize the sceptre of Europe, and snatch it from the hands of his feeble successor. "While all Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Prussia, and all Germany, were marching under his banners, why should he delay to anticipate the danger, and consolidate the fabric of the great empire, by driving back Alexander and the Russian dominion, enfeebled as they would be by the loss of Poland, beyond the Boristhenes?"

Such were his sentiments, pronounced in secret confidence; they, doubtless, comprised the true motives of that terrible war. As to his precipitation in commencing it, it would seem that he was hurried on by the instinct of his approaching death. An acrid humour diffused through his blood, and, to which he im puted his irascibility, ("but without which," added he, "battles are not to be gained,") devoured his constitution.

A profound knowledge of the organization and mysteries of the human frame would probably enable us to decide whether this concealed malady was not one of the causes of that restless activity which hurried on the march of events, and in which originated both his elevation and his fall.

This internal enemy testified its presence, more and more, by an internal pain, and by the violent spasms of the stomach which it inflicted. Even in 1806, at Warsaw, during one of its agonizing crisis, Napoleon was heard to exclaim, "that he carried about with him the germ of premature dissolution, and that he should die of the same malady as his father."

Already, short rides in hunting, the most gentle gallop of his horse, fatigued him how then was he to support the long journeys, and the rapid and violent movements preparatory to battles? Thus it was, that while the greater part of those who surrounded him concluded him to be impelled into Russia by his vast ambition, by his restless spirit and his love of war, he in solitude, and almost unobserved, was poising the fearful responsibilities of the enterprise, and urged by necessity, he only made up his mind after a course of painful hesitation.

The anxiety of mind experienced by Buonaparte before his departure from the French capital, seems to have been excessive; he hesitated whether the proper moment had arrived, or whether he should delay the invasion of Russia.

He was about to attack Russia, without having subjected Spain; forgetting the maxim of which he himself so often supplied both precept and example, "never to strike at two places at the same time; but on one only, and always in mass.' Wherefore, in fact, did he abandon a brilliant, though uncertain position, in order to throw himself into so critical a situation, when the slightest check might ruin every thing, and where every reverse would be decisive?

At that epoch, no necessity of position, no sentiment of self-love, could prompt Napoleon to combat his own arguments, and prevent him from listening to himself. Hence he became thoughtful and agitated. He collected accounts of the actual condition of the different powers of Europe; he ordered an exact and complete summary of them to be made; and buried himself in the perusal : his anxiety increased; to him all irresolution was a punishment.

Frequently was he discovered half reclined on a sofa, where he remained for several hours, plunged in profound meditation; sometimes he started up convulsively, and with an ejaculation. Fancying he heard his name, he would exclaim, "Who calls me?" Then rising, and walking about with hurried steps, he at length added, “No! beyond a doubt nothing is yet sufficiently matured round me, even in my own family, to admit of so distant a war. It must be delayed for three years!" And instantly he dictated, with precipitation, the project of a de. tailed note, by which the emperor of Austria, his father-in-law, was to act as a mediator between Russia, England, and France.

We are further told, that it is wrong to impute to the counsels of Napoleon a large portion of the misfortunes of the French.

Napoleon was not a man to be influenced. As soon as his object was marked out, and he had made advances towards its acquisition, he admitted of no contradiction. He then appeared as if he would hear nothing but what flattered his determination; he repelled with ill-humour, and even with apparent incredulity, all disagreeable intelligence, as if he feared to be shaken by it. This mode of acting changed its name according to his fortune; when fortunate, it was called force of character; when unfortunate, it was designated as infatuation.

The knowledge of such a disposition induced some subalterns to make false reports to him. Even a minister thought himself occasionally compelled to maintain a dangerous silence. The former inflated his hopes of success, in order to imitate the haughty confidence of their chief, and in order, by their countenance, to stamp upon his mind the impression of a happy omen; the second sometimes declined communicating bad news, in order, as he said, to avoid the harsh rebuffs which he had then to encounter.

But this fear, which did not restrain Caulaincourt and several others, had no influence upon Duroc, Daru, Lobau, Rapp, Lauriston, and sometimes even Berthier.