A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 66

[229] Correspondance de Napoleon, xxviii. 171, 267, etc.

[230] British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, ii. 275. Castlereagh, ix.

512, Wellington, S.D., ix. 244. Records: Continent, vol. 12, Feb. 26.

[231] Correspondance de Napoleon, xxviii. 111, 127. The order forbidding him to come to Paris is wrongly dated April 19; probably for May 29. The English doc.u.ments relating to Ferdinand's return to Naples, with the originals of many proclamations, etc., are in Records: Sicily, vols. 103, 104. They are interesting chiefly as showing the deep impression made on England by Ferdinand's cruelties in 1799.

[232] Benjamin Constant, Memoire sur les Cent Jours.

[233] Lafayette, Memoires, v. 414.

[234] Miot de Melito, iii. 434.

[235] Napoleon to Ney; Correspondance, xxviii. 334.

[236] "I have got an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff." (Despatches, xii. 358.) So, even after his victory, he writes:--"I really believe that, with the exception of my old Spanish infantry, I have got not only the worst troops but the worst-equipped army, with the worst staff that was ever brought together." (Despatches, xii.

509.)

[237] Therefore he kept his forces more westwards, and further from Blucher, than if he had known Napoleon's actual plan. But the severance of the English from the sea required to be guarded against as much as a defeat of Blucher. The Duke never ceased to regard it as an open question whether Napoleon ought not to have thrown his whole force between Brussels and the sea. (_Vide_ Memoir written in 1842 Wellington, S.D., ix. 530.)

[238] Metternich, i., p. 155.

[239] Wellington Despatches, xii. 649.

[240] Wellington, S.D., xi. 24, 32. Maps of projected frontiers, Records: Cont., vol 23.

[241] Despatches, xii. 596. Seeley's Stein, iii. 332.

[242] B. and F State Papers, 1815-16, iii. 201. The second article is the most characteristic:--"Les trois Princes ... confessant que la nation Chretienne dont eux et leurs peuples font partie n'a reellement d'autre Souverain que celui a qui seul appartient en propriete la puissance ...

c'est-a-dire Dieu notre Divin Sauveur Jesus Christ, le Verbe du Tres Haut, la parole de vie: leurs Majestes recommandent ... a leurs peuples ... de se fortifier chaque jour davantage dans les principes et l'exercice des devoirs que le Divin Sauveur a enseignes aux hommes."

[243] Wellington, S.D., xi. 175. The account which Castlereagh gives of the Czar's longing for universal peace appears to refute the theory that Alexander had some idea of an attack upon Turkey in thus uniting Christendom. According to Castlereagh, Metternich also thought that "it was quite clear that the Czar's mind was affected," but for the singular reason that "peace and goodwill engrossed all his thoughts, and that he had found him of late friendly and reasonable on all points" (_Id_.) There was, however, a strong popular impression at this time that Alexander was on the point of invading Turkey. (Gentz, D.I., i. 197.)