Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/49

 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 43 French, who was made a king; while the prin- | cipal Prussian fortresses and seaport towns re- j mained in the. possession of the French till a j more general peace should be concluded. Russia obtained a part of Prussian Poland, and by secret articles was allowed to take Finland from Sweden. Out of the Prussian territory on the left bank of the Elbe, Hesse-Oassel, Hanover, and Brunswick, the new kingdom of Westphalia was formed, and bestowed upon Jerome. Soon after the treaty of Tilsit, Eng- land, conceiving that Napoleon, with the con- nivance of Russia, was about to make arrange- ments with Denmark and Portugal for the conversion of their fleets to his purposes, which would expose her to the assaults of the com- bined navies of Europe, sent a powerful squadron to bombard Copenhagen. Denmark, upon the surrender of that place, threw herself openly into the hands of France. As to Por- tugal, however, which had refused to enforce the Berlin decrees against England, and de- spatched her fleet to Brazil, at the instigation of England, to avoid lending aid to France, Napoleon declared that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign, and sent Junot to occupy Lisbon. On Nov. 27, 1807, the prince regent, the queen, and the court of Portugal embark- ed for a foreign port, and on the 30th the French entered their capital. In December of the same year Napoleon became involved in a serious controversy with the pope, which led to the annexation of the Adriatic provinces to his kingdom of Italy, and to the military occupation of Rome. At the same time Na- poleon found a pretence for interfering in the affairs of Spain. A series of corrupt intrigues, in which the king, Charles IV., his queen, the favorite Godoy, and the pretender to the throne, Ferdinand, son of Charles, were en- gaged, had involved the internal administra- tion of Spain in inextricable confusion. Na- poleon cut the Gordian knot with his sword. Madrid was occupied by Murat, March 23, 1808; Charles and Ferdinand were both in- duced by Napoleon to abdicate at Bayonne, and he made Joseph king of Spain, transfer- ring the kingdom of Naples to Murat. Many of the Spanish nobility acquiesced, but the great body of the people rose in arms against the French. Ferdinand, although a prisoner in France, was declared by them the legiti- mate monarch, while England sent immense supplies to sustain the insurrection, and Na- poleon prepared to enforce his policy. A war which lasted nearly six years was thus begun in the peninsula. At the outset the Spaniards were successful. On June 14 a French squadron was captured by the English fleet in the bay of Cadiz ; on the 28th Marshal Moncey was repulsed in an attack upon Va- lencia ; for two months Palafox made a heroic defence of Saragossa ; on July 20 the new king made his triumphal entry into Madrid ; on the 22d Gen. Dupont, with 18,000 men, surren- dered to the Spaniards at Baylen ; and a week later Joseph, with all his remaining forces, commenced a retreat beyond the Ebro. On Aug. 21 Marshal Junot was defeated at Vimi- eira by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and this battle led to the convention of Cintra, under which Portugal was evacuated by the French forces. Napoleon therefore deemed it necessary to take the field hi person, and in the early part of November appeared in the north of Spain with 1 80, 000 men. The Spaniards were rapidly defeated at Reynosa, Burgos, and Tudela, and on Dec. 4 he entered Madrid. The British troops, hastening to the assistance of the Span- iards, were pursued to and ineffectually at- tacked at Cornnna, but their leader, the gallant Sir John Moore, was fatally wounded. The presence of Napoleon seemed to have redeemed nearly every reverse. But in January, 1809, he was compelled to return to Paris to counter- act the movements of Austria, which, taking advantage of the peninsular war, had sent for- ward large bodies of troops into Tyrol and Italy. On April 17 he assumed the command of his army, and before the close of the 22d he had completely routed the Austrian forces. On that day, at Eckmiihl, he defeated the arch- duke Charles; on May 13 he again entered Vienna; on the 21st and 22d he was worsted at Aspern and Essling, but on July 6 he more than recovered all his losses, gaining a stu- pendous victory at Wagram, which enabled him to dictate once more his own terms of peace. During these troubles the Tyrolese seized the opportunity to raise the standard of insurrec- tion; the British made a descent upon the coast of Holland; Sir Arthur Wellesley was carrying on a most effective war in Spain, and the difficulties with the pope were renewed; yet Napoleon contrived to make face against all these assaults. By a decree of May 17 the Papal States were annexed to the French em- pire, which was followed by a bull of excom- munication against Napoleon, when the pope himself was arrested and conveyed to Paris, where he remained a virtual prisoner till 1814. In the midst of his triumphs an attempt upon Napoleon's life was made, Oct. 13, by a young German named Stapss, from which he had a narrow escape. To crown the events of the year, it was announced in December that Napoleon was about to repudiate his wife Jo- sephine, by whom he had no issue, in order to contract an alliance with some of the dy- nastic families, and thus procure to himself a successor of royal blood. On the 16th of that month an act formally divorcing him was pass- ed by the obedient commissioners of the sen- ate; and on April 2, 1810, he was married to the archduchess Maria Louisa, a daughter of the emperor of Austria. Josephine retired with a broken heart to Malmaison, and the new empress took the place of the affectionate and devoted companion of his early years. From this union there was born a son on March 20,' 1811, who was proclaimed in his cradle king of Rome. The French empire had now reached