DRAWN BY ERIC PAPE.

MARBOTS TROOPS, IN RATISBON, GUIDED TO THE BRIDGE BY A FRIGHTENED

FRENCHWOMAN.

Majesty is well,» wrote Berthier on the 24th, ened Archduke, and destroyed the bridge be« and endures according to his general habit hind him. The forces of Charles and Hiller the exertion of mind and body. Once more met and halted on the slopes of the great his enemy was not annihilated, but this con- hill known as the Bisamberg, which overlooks tentment and high spirits seem natural to Vienna from the north shore, and commands common minds, which recall that in a week the fertile plains through which the great he had evolved order from chaos, and had river rolls past the Austrian capital. stricken a powerful, united foe, cutting his Day after day, with unimportant interrupline in two, and sending one portion to the tions but no real check, the French ranks right-about in utter confusion. No wonder marched down the right bank of the stream. that Napoleon ever regarded the strategic On May 10 they appeared before Vienna. operations culminating at Eckmühl as his Then, as now, it had no efficient fortifications, masterpiece in that particular line. Jomini, his and its garrison consisted of a citizen militia, powerful critic, remained always of the same strengthened by a small detachment which opinion. French history knows this conflict Hiller had sent forward to reinforce and enas the Battle of Five Days; Thann, Abensberg, courage them. The defenders were comLandshut, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon being the manded by the Archduke Maximilian. There places in or near which on each day a skir- was a brave show of resistance; all the submish or combat occurred to mark the succes- urbs were evacuated, and the populace gathsive stages of French victory.

ered behind the old brick walls which had Its results were of the most important been erected two centuries before against the kind. In the first place, Austria's pride and Turks. At first Napoleon thought there would confidence were gone. She had lost 50,000 be a second instance of such embittered and men, and her warfare was no longer offensive, desperate resistance as he had encountered but defensive. Charles called for peace, but at Madrid. But a feint of the French to cut the Emperor would not listen. The Archduke off the communication of the town with John, moreover, was compelled to abandon the river, together with a few cannon-balls, the Tyrol, and when he found himself again quickly brought the unhappy capital to terms; in Italy, he was no longer confronted by Maximilian marched out at midnight on the Eugène alone, that excellent youth but feeble 11th, and on the 12th Napoleon returned to general, whom he had so easily defeated: Mac- the neighboring palace of Schönbrunn, where donald was associated with the viceroy in the he had already established his headquarters. command. In Poland, also, Ferdinand's easy The news which arrived from day to day was successes had carried him too far in pursuit most encouraging. Poniatowski was again in of Poniatowski, and he began to retreat. Le- possession of Warsaw, which the Archduke febvre with the Bavarians was stationed at Ferdinand had evacuated in order to rejoin his Salzburg to prevent an irruption of the Ty- brother Charles. The Archduke John, flying rolean mountaineers toward the north; all the before Macdonald, had passed the Carinthian rest of the Emperor's army was immediately mountains into Hungary, where the liberal ordered to march on the Austrian capital. movement threatened Austrian rule. The

The advance was scarcely contested. Hil- Bavarians, under Lefebvre, had, after desler, commanding Charles's left wing, had perate fighting, driven the Tyrolese rebels checked his retreat, crossed the Inn with his from Innsbruck. It seemed a proper time to 30,000 men, and had successfully attacked complete, if possible, the demoralization of Wrede at Erding. He had probably heard the whole Austrian empire before crossing that Charles was marching to Passau, but the the Danube to annihilate its military force. news was false. Learning the truth, he Francis had sown the wind in his declaration turned again and recrossed the Inn; thence of war: he must reap the whirlwind. he continued to withdraw, stopping an instant From the beginning Napoleon had made at the Traun to avail himself of a strong the most of his enemy's being the aggressor. position and hold the line if Charles were There were no terms too harsh for the « Moniperchance coming thither to join him. At teur » to apply when speaking of the hostile Ebelsberg, on May 3, he made a splendid and court and the resisting populations. The Emmomentarily successful resistance, but was peror's proclamations reveled in abuse of the overwhelmed by superior numbers. Hearing Tyrolese and of Schill, the Prussian partizan of his leader's slow advance, and being him- who, having distinguished himself after Jena, self in despair, on the 7th he led his army at was now striving to use the Austrian war in Mautern across to the left bank of the Danube order to arouse the North Germans. He had in order to effect a junction with the disheart- already gathered a few desperate patriots,

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and in open hostility was defying constituted and secure national independence. The proauthority with the intention of calling his clamation produced some effect, but as a country to arms. The news of Eckmühl had whole the Hungarians stood fast in their destroyed his chances of success, and he was allegiance. soon to end his gallant but ill-starred career Four years earlier Napoleon's proclamation in a final stand at Stralsund, whither he had declaring that the Bourbons of Naples had retreated. He was stigmatized by Napoleon ceased to reign was launched from Schönas a « sort of robber who had covered himself brunn. Now another, to which reference has with crimes in the last Prussian campaign.» already been made, equally famous, was dicIn repeated public utterances the Emperor tated within its walls, though dated May of Austria was characterized as cowardly, 17, from the « Imperial Camp at Vienna. It thankless, and perjured, while the Viennese was a document even abler than that adwere addressed as « good people, abandoned dressed to the Hungarians. Citing the abuses and widowed. The last acts of their flying which had from immemorial times resulted rulers had been murder and arson; « like Me- from the confusion of temporal with spiritual dea, they had with their own hands strangled power in the papacy, it revoked the donation their own children.»

of Charles the Great to Hadrian I. (made a This policy of wooing the people while thousand years before!), declared that Pius abusing their rulers had been successfully VII. had ceased to reign, and that, as an undertaken in Italy, and continued with vary- indemnity for the loss of his secular power, ing results from that day. No more effective he was to receive an annual increase of inrevolutionary engine could have been devised come amounting to 2,000,000 francs. In time for Europe in Napoleon's age. The specious of peace this decree would have produced statements of the Emperor were based on throughout Europe a tremendous stir; but in truth, and while the idea they expressed was the interval between the two acts of a great distorted and reiterated until its exaggera- campaign men were much more occupied

with tion became falsehood, yet France and the speculations about the decision of arms than Napoleonic soldiers appeared to fight and suf- with a change which was, after all, only anfer enthusiastically for what they still con- other phase of a protracted, tiresome struggle sidered a great cause; and even the dull boors, in which the papacy had long since fallen from whose intelligence had been nearly quenched its pinnacle. It was, however, an element of by centuries of oppression, felt stirrings of terrific demoralization in the house of Ausmanhood as they listened to the Emperor's tria, which thus saw the consolidation of Italy fiery words. The middle classes were not de- under the Napoleon family complete, and ceived, but they had no power to refute such their last hope to regain their European language from such a man; and among the influence by enlargement in that peninsula few truly enlightened men of each nation who extinguished. were aware of their country's abasement un- Such was the scenic diversion provided for der dynastic absolutism, a tremendous impres- the great world in the pause of a few days sion was often created, at least temporarily. after the occupation of Vienna. These mo

This fact had been well illustrated already ments were likewise occupied by the greatest in Poland. Austria had another appanage military activity. Morning, noon, and night whose people cared little for the prestige of secretaries wrote and messengers ran; the their foreign kings and much for their own roads of central Europe fairly rang beneath liberties. The Hungarians were a conser- the feet of tramping infantry and the hoofs of vative, capable race; many of them were horses which were dragging provision-trains ardent Protestants, well educated and well or artillery carriages, and bearing despatches informed, successfully combining in their to distant points. institutions the best elements of both civic The Archduke Charles was a fine strategic and patriarchal life. To them Napoleon issued theorist, in his age second only to Napoleon. a proclamation on May 15 which was a mas- After the fatal division of his army before terpiece of its kind. It set forth that the Landshut, he had wonderfully retrieved his Emperor Leopold II. in his short reign had strength in seizing Ratisbon, crossing the acknowledged their rights and confirmed Danube, and standing at Cham 80,000 strong their liberties; that Francis I. had sworn to after his reinforcement by the divison which maintain their laws and constitution, but he called in from the Bohemian Forest. But had never convoked their estates except to again he became the victim of indecision. demand money for his wars; that in view Calling for peace negotiations, he loitered of such treatment, Hungary should now rise long at Budweis, failed to join Hiller so go