Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/235

Rh the full discretionary powers of Napoleon's envoy; placed, in fact, under the control of a mere general of brigade, invested by his sovereign with an unlimited confidence, which looked forward to every eventuality. Certainly, the commander-in-chief continued to speak and act in his own name; but the liberty of action which he appeared to preserve was only deceptive, for his power of taking the initiative disappeared at the moment of action. Only when a thing was once accomplished he was compulsorily saddled with the responsibility, since General Castelnau was only the secret prime-mover, whilst he was the visible agent. Well! we do not hesitate to say that, from the day when the policy of the French government showed itself to be ambiguous, when the official instructions came into collision with the semi-official, when policy became only a system of mental reservations; when, in short, the full confidence of the Emperor of the French was transferred from the commander-in-chief to the imperial aide-de-camp, Marshal Bazaine was led into a great and continuous error for which he pays the penalty; for he made himself responsible, before the tribunal of France and Europe, for acts which he did not originate, but to which, by his military obedience, he made himself a party. In our opinion, as regards the commander-in-chief, who was naturally loath to overturn the throne which for four years he had been helping to raise, the day had now come for him to sheathe his sword.

A protest like this would have been a great lesson: we can, however, well understand, that at this crisis a feeling of duty got the upper hand in the commander-in-chief's mind. The French army was still scattered far and wide. A retreat to be carried out over eighteen hundred leagues of territory, every stage of which he