Aspern. Essling, where Massena commanded, held firm, and under the protection of that village and numerous batcries erected near it, Napoleon succeeded in withdrawing his whole force during the night.

The loss of both armies was dreadful, and computed to exceed twenty thousand men on each side, killed and wounded. General St. Hilaire, one of the best French generals, was killed in the field, and Lasnes, whose behavior had been the subject of admiration during the whole day, had both his legs shattered to pieces by a cannon ball, and was brought back to the island. He was much lamented by Buonaparte, who considered him as his own work. "I found him” he said, “¿ mere swordsman, I brought him up to the highest point of talent. I found him a dwarf, I raised him up into a giant." The death of this general, whom, for his romantic valor, the French soldiers delighted to call the Roland of their camp, had something in it inexpressibly shocking. With both his legs shot to pieces, he refused to die, and insisted that the surgeons should be hanged who were unable to cure a Marshal and Duke de Montebello. While he thus clung to life, he called on the Emperor, with the instinctive hope that Napoleon at least could defer the dreaded hour, and repeated his name to the last, with the wild interest with which an Indian prays to the object of his superstition. Buonaparte showed much and creditable emotion at beholding his faithful follower in such a condition.

On either side a great victory was claimed; and with equal injustice. But the situation of the French Emperor was imminently hazardous, he was separated from Davoust and his reserve; and had the enemy either attacked him in the islands, or passed the river higher up, and so overwhelmed Davoust and relieved Vienna, the results might have been fatal. But the Arch-duke's loss in these two days had been great; and, in place of risking any offensive movement, he contented himself with strengthening the position of Aspern and Essling, and awaiting quietly the moment when his enemy should choose to attempt once more the passage to the left bank, and the re-occupation of these hardly contested villages.

Napoleon availed himself of this pause with his usual skill. That he had been checked was true, and that the news would be heard with enthusiasin throughout Germany he well knew It was necessary to revive the tarnished magic of his name by another decisive battle; and he made every exertion to prepare for it. With unexampled activity he assembled ma

terials, and accomplished the re-establishment of his communications with the right bank, by the morning of the secona day after the battle. With equal speed, incessant labor converted the Isle of Lobau into an immense camp, protected by battering cannon, and secured either from surprise or storm from the Austrian side of the river. The smaller islands were fortified in the like manner; and on the 1st of July, Buonaparte pitched his head-quarters in the Isle of Lobau, the name of which was changed to Napoleon Island, as in an immense citadel, from which he had provided the means of sallying at pleasure upon the enemy. Boats, small craft, and means to construct, on a better plan than formerly, three floating bridges, were prepared and put in order in an incredibly short space

of time.

On the 5th of July, at 10 o'clock at night, the French began to cross from the islands in the Danube to the left-hand bank. Gun-boats prepared for the purpose, silenced some of the Austrian batteries; others were avoided, by passing the river out of reach of their fire, which the French were enabled to do by the new and additional bridges they had secretly prepared.

The

At day-light on the next morning, the Arch-duke had the unpleasant surprise to find the whole French army on the left bank of the Danube, after having turned all the fortifications which he had formed for the purpose of opposing their passage, and which were thus rendered totally useless. villages of Essling and Entzersdorf had been carried, and the French line of battle was formed upon the extremity of the Arch-duke's left wing, menacing him, of course, both in flank and rear. The Arch-duke Charles endeavored to remedy the consequences of this surprise by outflanking the French right, while the French made a push to break the centre of the Austrian line, the key of which position was the village of Wagram. Wagram was taken and retaken, and only one house remained, which was occupied by the Archduke Charles, when night closed the battle, which had been bloody and indecisive. Courier after courier were dispatched to the Arch-duke John, to hasten his advance.

On the next day, being the 7th of July, was fought the dreadful battle of Wagram, in which, it is said, that the Arch-duke Charies committed the great military error of extending his lines, and weakening his centre. His enemy was too alert not to turn such an error to profit. Lauriston with a hundred pieces of cannon, and Macdonald, at the head of a

chosen division, charged the Austrians in the centre, and broke through it. Napoleon showed all his courage and talents, and was ever in the hottest of the action, though the appearance of his retinue drew on him showers of grape by which he was repeatedly endangered.

At length the Austrian army fell into disorder.

Their cen

tre was driven back two or three miles out of the line; cries of alarm were heard, the right wing gave way, and the left followed the example. The French took twenty thousand prisoners; and so complete was the discomfiture, that, though the Arch-duke John came up with a part of his army before the battle was quite over, so little chance was there of redeeming the day, that he was glad to retire from the field unnoticed by the enemy. A dreadful circumstance took place after the close of the battle. Between 3000 and 4000 men, Austrians, were reposing in a field of rye, which took fire, and most of them, unable to move from their wounds and from fatigue, were miserably burnt to death. All hope of further resistance was now abandoned by the Austrian princes and government and they concluded an armistice with Buonaparte at Znaim, by which they agreed to evacuate the Tyrol, and put the citadels of Brunn and Gratz into the hands of Napoleon, as pledges for their sincerity in desiring a peace. Napoleon returned to Schoenbrunn and continued occupied with the negotiation until October.

Progress of the war in the Peninsula. Battle of Talavera. Battle of Ocana. Attempt to assassinate Napoleon. Treaty of Schoenbrunn.— Napoleon divorces Josephine. Marries the Arch-duchess Maria Louisa. Deposes Louis Buonaparte and annexes Holland and the whole coast of Germany to France. Bernadotte elected Crown Prince of Sweden. Birth of the King of Rome.

THE war, meanwhile, had been pursued with mixed fortune in the peninsula. Zaragossa, after sustaining another siege with fortitude not unworthy of the first, was at length compelled to surrender in the month of February. Sir Arthur

Wellesley, being restored to the command of the British army in Portugal, landed at Lisbon on the 22d of April, and immediately marched upon Oporto, which Soult had occupied early in the year. Soult was defeated under the walls of the town, and forthwith began his retreat towards Galicia. Sir Arthur was prevented from urging the pursuit of Soult by the intelligence that Marshal Victor was laying Andalusia waste, being opposed only by Cuesta, a bigotted old general, and an army which had lost heart from repeated disasters. The English leader perceived that if he marched into Galicia, Victor must possess the means of instantly occupying Portugal; and resolved in place of following Soult, to advance towards this more formidable enemy. He effected a junction with Cuesta at Oropesa, on the 20th of July, and marched along the Tagus towards the position of Victor, who assumed the offensive, and attacked the allies, on the 28th, at Talavera de la Reyna. The battle ended in the repulsion of Victor; but Wellesley found it impossible to advance further into Spain, because Ney, Soult and Mortier were assembling their divisions, with the view of coming between him and Portugal, The English retired, therefore, to Badajos, and thence to the Portuguese frontier. On the eastern side of the peninsula, Blake, advancing with the view of recovering Żaragossa, was met, on the 19th of June, by Marshal Suchet, duke of Albufera, and totally routed. The central Spanish army, under Ariezaga, attempted with equal ill-fortune, to relieve Madrid. King Joseph, accompanied by Soult, Victor and Mortier, met them at Ocana on the 19th of November, and broke them utterly. In December, Girona surrendered to Augereau; and left Joseph in possession of far the greater part of Spain.

Napoleon a few days after he returned from Moravia to Schoenbrunn, escaped narrowly the dagger of a young man, who rushed upon him in the midst of all his staff, at a grand review of the imperial guard. Berthier and Rapp threw themselves upon him, and disarmed him at the moment when his knife was about to enter the Emperor's body. Napoleon demanded what motive had actuated the assassin. "What injury," said he, "have I done to you?" ally, none," answered the youth, "but you are the oppressor of my country, the tyrant of the world; and to have put you to death would have been the highest glory of a man of honor." This enthusiastic youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergyman of Erfurt, was justly condemned to death, and he

"To me, person

Buonaparte led at Schoenbrunn nearly the same course of life to which he was accustomed at the Tuilleries; seldom appearing in public; occupied incessantly with his ministers and generals. The treaty was at last signed on the 14th of October, 1809. Austria gave up, in all, territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, and a population of nearly 4,000,000. When compared with the signal triumphs of the campaign, the terms on which Napoleon signed the peace were universally looked upon as remarkable for moderation. On his return to Paris he opened the sitting of the legislative body by an imperial speech, in which the events of the year and the state of France formed the principal topics.He also alluded to the situation of the imperial family. "I and my house," said Napoleon, "will ever be found ready to sacrifice every thing, even our own dearest ties and feelings to the welfare of the French people." This was the first public intimation of a measure which had for a considerable time occupied his thoughts. On the 15th of December he summoned his council, and announced to them, that, at the expense of all his personal feelings, he, devoted wholly to the welfare of the state, had resolved to separate himself from his consort. Josephine then appeared among them, and, not without tears, expressed her acquiescence in the decree. The council accepted and ratified the disolution of the marriage. The title of empress was to continue with Josephine for life, and a pension of two millions of francs (to which Napoleon afterward added a third million from his privy purse,) was allotted her. She retired from the Tuilleries, residing thenceforth mostly at the villa of Malmaison; and in the course of a few weeks it was signified that Napoleon had demanded the hand of the archduchess Maria Louisa, daughter to the emperor Francis, the same youthful princess who has been mentioned as remaining in Vienna, on account of illness, during the second occupation of that capital.

Having given her hand, at Vienna, to Berthier, who had the honor to represent the person of his master, the young archduchess came into France in March, 1810. On the 28th, as her carriage was proceeding towards Soissons, Napoleon rode up to it, in a plain dress, altogether unattended: and at once breaking through the etiquette of such occasions, introduced himself to his bride. She had never seen his person till then, and it is said that her first exclamation was, "Your majesty's pictures have not done you justice." Buonaparte was at this time forty years of age; his countenance bad ac