scheme. It was, however, by admitting Alexander to a share in the pecuniary advantages of the licensesystem, that he seems to have thought the commercial part of his dispute with Russia might be accommodated.

And, indeed, had there been no cause of quarrel between these powers, except what appeared on the face of their negotiations, it is hardly to be doubted that an accommodation might have been effected. The simple truth was, that the czar, from the hour of Maria Louisa's marriage, felt a perfect conviction that the diminution of the Russian power in the north of Europe would form the next great object of Napoleon's ambition. His subsequent proceedings, in regard to Holland, Oldenburg, and other territories, and the distribution of his troops in Pomerania and Poland, could not fail to strengthen Alexander in this view of the case; and, if war must come, there could be no question as to the policy of bringing it on ere Austria had entirely recovered from the effects of the campaign of Wagram, and, above all, while the peninsula continued to occupy 200,000 of Buonaparte's troops.

Before we return to the war in Portugal (the details of which belong to the history of Wellington, rather than of Napoleon), we may here notice very briefly one or two circumstances connected with the exiled family of Spain. It affords a melancholy picture of the degradation of the old king and queen, that these personages voluntarily travelled to Paris for the purpose of mingling in the crowd of courtiers congratulating their deceiver and spoiler on the birth of the king of Rome. Their daughter, the queen of Etruria, appears to have been the least degenerate of the race; and she accordingly met with the cruellest treatment from the hand which her parents were thus mean enough to kiss. She had been deprived of her kingdom at the period of the shameful scenes of Bayonne in 1807, on pretext

that that kingdom would afford the most suitable indemnification for her brother Ferdinand on his cession to Buonaparte of his rights in Spain, and with the promise of being provided for elsewhere. This promise to the sister was no more thought of afterward than the original scheme for the indemnification of the brother. Tuscany became a French department. Ferdinand was sent a prisoner to the castle of Valençay-a seat of Talleyrand-and she, after remaining for some time with her parents, took up her residence, as a private person, under surveillance, at Nice. Alarmed by the severity with which the police watched her, the queen at length made an attempt to escape to England. Her agents were discovered; tried by a military commission, and shot; and the unfortunate lady herself confined in a Roman monastery. A plan for the liberation of Ferdinand was about the same time detected by the emissaries of the French police: the real agent being arrested, a pretender, assuming his name and credentials, made his way into Valençay, but Ferdinand was either too cunning, or too timid, to incur this danger; revealing to his jailers the proposals of the stranger, he escaped the snare laid for him, and thus cheated Napoleon of a pretext for removing him also to some Italian cell.

During four months after lord Wellington's famous retreat terminated in his occupation of the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena lay encamped before that position, in vain practising every artifice which consummate skill could suggest for the purpose of drawing the British army back into the field. He attempted to turn first the one flank of the position, and then the other; but at either point he found his antagonist's preparations perfect. Meantime, his communication with Spain was becoming every day more and more difficult, and the enmity of the peasantry was so inveterate that his troops began to suffer much from want of provisions. Massena at

length found himself compelled to retreat; and if he executed the military movement with masterly ability, he for ever disgraced his name by the horrible license which he permitted to his soldiery. Every crime of which man is capable-every brutality which can dishonour rational beings-must be recorded in the narrative of that fearful march. Age, rank, sex, character, were alike contemned; it seemed as if, maddened with a devilish rage, these ferocious bands were resolved to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population which they could neither conciliate nor subdue.

Lord Wellington followed hard on their footsteps until they were beyond the Portuguese frontier; within it they had left only one garrison-at Almeida, and of this town the siege was immediately formed; while Wellington himself invested the strong Spanish city and fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. But Massena, on regaining communication with the French armies in Castile, swelled his numbers so much that he ventured to resume the offensive. Lord Wellington could not maintain the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in the face of such an army as Massena had now assembled; but when the marshal indicated his wishes to bring on battle, he disdained to decline the invitation. The armies met at Fuentes d'Onor, on the 5th May, 1811, and the French were once more defeated. The garrison of Almeida contrived to escape across the frontier, ere the siege, which had been interrupted, could be renewed. Portugal remained in a miserable state of exhaustion indeed, but altogether delivered of her invaders; and Napoleon, as if resolved that each of his marshals in succession should have the opportunity of measuring himself against lord Wellington, now sent Marmont to displace Massena.

Soult, meanwhile, had advanced on the southern frontier of Portugal from Estremadura, and obtained

possession of Badajos, under circumstances which ford Wellington considered as highly disgraceful to the Spanish garrison of that important place, and the armies which ought to have been ready to cover it. On the other hand, an English corps, under general Graham, sallied out of Cadiz, and were victorious in a brilliant affair on the heights of Barossa, in front of that besieged city.

As concerned the Spanish armies, the superiority of the French had been abundantly maintained during this campaign; and it might still be said that king Joseph was in military possession of all but some fragments of his kingdom. But the influence of the English victories was by no means limited to the Portuguese, whose territory they had delivered. They breathed new ardour into the Spanish people; the guerilla warfare, trampled down in one spot only to start up in fifty others, raged more and more widely, as well as fiercely, over the surface of the country: the French troops lost more lives in this incessant struggle, wherein no glory could be achieved, than in any similar period spent in a regular campaign: and Joseph Buonaparte, while the question of peace or war with Russia was yet undecided, became so weary of his situation, that he earnestly entreated Napoleon to place the crown of Spain on some other head.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo-and of Badajos-Battle of Salamanca -State of Napoleon's Foreign Relations-His Military Resources -Napoleon at Dresden-Rupture with Russia-Napoleon's conduct to the Poles-Distribution of the Armies-Passage of the NiemenNapoleon at Wilna.

LORD Wellington had now complete possession of Portugal; and lay on the frontiers of that kingdom, ready to act on the offensive within Spain, whenever the distribution of the French armies should seem to offer a fit opportunity. Learning that Marmont had sent considerable reinforcements to Suchet, in Valencia, he instantly resolved to advance and once more besiege Ciudad Rodrigo. He re-appeared before that strong fortress on the 8th of January, 1812, and carried it by storm on the 19th, four days before Marmont could collect a force adequate for its relief. He instantly repaired the fortifications, intrusted the place to a Spanish garrison, and repaired in person to the southern part of the Portuguese frontier, which required his attention in consequence of that miserable misconduct of the Spaniards which had enabled the French to make themselves masters of Badajos in the preceding year. He appeared before that city on the 16th March, and in twenty days took it also. The loss of life on both sides, in these rapid sieges, was very great; but they were gained by a general at the head of at most 50,000 men, in despite of an enemy mustering at least 80,000; and the results were of the first importance to the English cause. Marmont, on hearing of the fall of the second fortress, immediately retreated from the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo, which he had made a vain attempt to