Chapter XIV: Part 14

This Saxon city, which is situated in a fertile plain, has suffered in many wars, but by none so much as the campaign of 1813. In that year Napoleon made it the general hospital for the sick and wounded of his army; thus its beautiful environs soon became the sad scene of many important events. In several battles and skirmishes the allies had defeated the French during the months of August and September; but Napoleon, who, with his characteristic obstinacy, adhered to Dresden as the centre of his position, found himself out-manoeuvred, when eighty miles _in his rear_ he heard of Marshal Blucher passing the Black Elster, and that Bernadotte, a prince of his own making, but now in arms against him, had arrived, after a long and circuitous march, near the suburbs of Leipzig, while Schwartzenbourg drew near that city from the south-east.

This was in the month of October.

The French numbered 160,000 bayonets and sabres; the allies 240,000. The outposts were soon engaged on the 16th; the following day was spent in skirmishes and manoeuvres till the three allied armies formed a junction, and the stern conflict of the 18th began with all its terrors over an extent of line that covered seven miles. A little village on the French right, where Napoleon had posted himself, was lost and retaken again and again at the bayonet's point under a storm of round and grape shot. Noon arrived, but the battle was still undecided, when all breathless with speed, an officer, with his uniform torn and bloody, rushed towards the Emperor.

"Sire," he exclaimed, "the left wing has given way; the Saxon cavalry and artillery have gone over to the enemy!"

"Silence!" replied Napoleon, sternly; "silence!"

The intelligence was kept secret from the right and centre, and still the strife went on.

By three p.m. came the still more alarming tidings that the Saxon infantry had deserted _en masse_ to the allies. This also was kept a secret from the French troops, though the Imperial Guard was ordered to take their place; but the power thus attained by the allies was no longer to be withstood, and a precipitate retreat towards the Rhine became the first thought of the vanquished Emperor.

At nightfall he gave the order to fall back, leaving the environs of Leipzig strewed with dead and dying; but his order was tardily executed, as all the French fugitives with their baggage, cannon, and wounded, on horseback, on foot, or in waggons, were compelled to take _one_ road, every other being occupied by the cavalry and horse artillery of the victors; consequently, the sufferings and slaughter of the French, even after the field was lost, became dreadful. Napoleon, before retiring, had ordered that the bridge of the White Elster should be undermined, and directed Macdonald and Prince Joseph Poniatowski, with their divisions, to defend a portion of the suburbs that lay between the advancing enemy and the Borna road; and to leave nothing undone to maintain their post to the last, that the retreat of the army and baggage might be fully covered.

Poniatowski was brave as a lion. He was nephew of Stanislaus Augustus, the last King of Poland, and was animated alike by the purest patriotism and hatred of the Russians; hence he served France against them as the oppressors of his house and native country. He had 2000 Polish infantry and a few horse with him; and seeing the desperation of affairs, as the waggons of wounded, dripping with blood, the heavy artillery with their tumbrils, and the masses of fugitive soldiery exhausted by three days of fighting and excitement, pressed in close ranks across the bridge of the Elster, he drew his sabre and turning to his countrymen--

"Gentlemen," said he, "here we must win or lose our honour!--Forward!" and at the head of a few Polish cuirassiers he made a rush towards the enemy. At that moment the bridge of the Elster was _blown up_, and his retreat cut off for ever!

Macdonald was similarly circumstanced, as his troops had manned and enfiladed the suburbs, where they were firing briskly to keep the foe in check from walls, houses, and hedgerows.

According to the _Moniteur_, it was the intention of Napoleon to have the bridge blown up only at the last moment, and when all his troops had passed the stream. General Dussaussoy had remitted this duty to Colonel Montfort, who, in turn, had remitted it to a corporal and four sappers. On the first appearance of the enemy upon the road, and when the cuirassiers of Poniatowski charged, the startled corporal fired the train, and a dark cloud of dust and stones ascending into the air with a mighty roar, announced the destruction of the bridge; while Macdonald and his whole corps, with eighty pieces of cannon, all their eagles, and several hundred carriages laden with powder, baggage, and wounded men, were on the _wrong_ side of the river. A shout of astonishment and dismay arose from those who had crossed; and many an anxious eye was turned back to Leipzig, where the roar of musketry was yet heard in the rear.

The attention of Napoleon, who had left the city by the road which led by the bridge to Lindenau (the direct route for France) was arrested by the explosion, and one of his aides-de-camp exclaimed,

"Sire--sire--they have blown up the bridge of the Elster, and Macdonald's corps is _yet in Leipzig_!"

"At that time," to quote Bourienne, "Napoleon was accused of having given orders for the destruction of the bridge, immediately _after_ his own passage, to secure his retreat from the active pursuit of the enemy. The English journals were unanimous on this point, and there were few of the inhabitants of Leipzig who doubted the fact."

If this be true, it was a baseness only equalled by the strangulation of Pichegreu, the torture of Captain Wright in the Temple, and the lonely butchery of the hapless Duc d'Enghien.

Finding all lost, and that his retreat was cut off, Macdonald sheathed his sword, and calling on his soldiers to escape as they best could, threw himself into the river, the waters of which were darkening as the night drew on. He swam across, and reached the other side in safety. Poor Poniatowski, though bleeding and severely wounded, imitated his example; but he was pierced by a bullet, from one of the enemy's skirmishers, who had now lined the steep bank of the Elster, and opened a murderous fire upon the mass of unfortunate fugitives, the wreck of Macdonald's corps, who were struggling in the stream. In the dark, the unfortunate prince was swept away with his charger and drowned. Five days after, his corpse was found by a fisherman, and interred on the bank of the stream. A granite sarcophagus, surrounded by acacias and weeping-willows, marks the place where he lies.

Colonel Montfort, the corporal, and the four sappers, were delivered over to a court-martial.

Such was the closing episode of that terrible day at Leipzig, the anniversary of the more glorious events of Ulm and of Jena--a day that cost France nearly forty thousand men.

Napoleon continued his retreat to Mayence, with an army exhausted by toil, crushed by defeat, and savage in spirit, but lacking the stamina to make one more vigorous stand for France, save at Hanau; for French soldiers, more than any other, are the worst to retrieve a disaster.

"The _defensive_ system," to quote the _Memoirs_ of Marshal Ney, "accords ill with the disposition of the French soldier, at least if it is not to be maintained by successive diversions and excursions; in a word, if you are not constantly occupied in that little warfare, inactivity destroys the force of troops who rest continually on the defensive. They are obliged to be constantly on the alert night and day; while, on the other hand, offensive expeditions wisely combined raise the spirit of the soldier, and prevent him from having time to ponder on the real cause of his dangerous situation. It is in the _offensive_ that you find the French soldier inexhaustible in resources. His active disposition and valour in assaults double his power. A general should never hesitate to march with the bayonet against an enemy, if the ground is favourable for the use of that weapon. It is in the _attack_, in fine, that you accustom the French soldier to every species of warfare--alike to brave the enemy's fire, and to leave the field open to the development of his intelligence and courage."

But now the spirit of the French soldiers was almost dead for a time; and so ill was this retreat conducted, that the rear-guard, with 20,000 sick and wounded, fell into the hands of the enemy.

Macdonald was at the battle of Hanau, the last stand made by this discomfited host in Hesse Cassel. There the French were attacked by the Austrians and Bavarians, whom they routed, and then continued retreating, the whole of their cavalry hewing a passage, sword in hand, through the lines of the enemy.

He was now despatched by the Emperor to Cologne, with orders to organize a new army. These instructions he found the impossibility of fulfilling, so he abandoned the Rhine, along the banks of which the bayonets of the allies were glittering everywhere, and falling back into the interior of ancient France, with the war-worn veterans of his shattered column, he formed the left wing of the retreating army; and at its head, during the campaign of 1814, he gave more than one severe repulse to the Prussians, who were pressing towards Paris under Marshal Blucher. These encounters were chiefly on the banks of the Marne, and especially at Nangis, in the north of France, where he fought a severe action with the allies on the 17th of February; but these struggles and all the valour of the French Imperialists were vain, for ere long the capital was taken; then Germany found itself freed from oppression; Holland rang with acclamations on the downfall of Napoleon; and Wellington had halted in his long career of victory, on the banks of the Garonne, and by the hill of Toulouse.

Macdonald adhered to the fallen Emperor--the child of Destiny--and was with him in the old palace of Fontainebleau at the time of his abdication from the most splendid of European thrones. Hope had fled. His army was dispersed and crumbling to pieces; its great officers and leaders had abandoned him; and such is the instability of human affairs, that the people of whose blood he had been so lavish--the people to whom he had been a demi-god--were turning with ardour to another monarch, and welcomed the foemen against whom they had struggled for more than twenty years of war and carnage that were without parallel.

"The wreck of the army assembled at Fontainebleau," says General Bourienne, "the remains of a million of men levied in fifteen months--comprising the corps of Marshals Oudinot, Ney, Macdonald, and General Gerard--did not exceed twenty-five thousand."

Various interviews that took place between Napoleon and the Duke of Tarentum about this time are carefully detailed by this gossiping old soldier, in the supplement to the _Biographie Universelle_, and other memoirs.

Macdonald with his corps had marched in with all speed from Montereau, on receipt of an order from the Emperor, that he meant to march on Paris--a resolution that filled his officers with consternation. On the marshal's arrival at the palace, the generals waited on him in a body, to request that he would place before the Emperor, the rashness and desperation of attempting to recapture Paris from the allies.

"Messieurs," said he, "in the present juncture, such advice might displease his Majesty--leave the matter to me."

As soon as he presented himself before Napoleon--

"Well, marshal," said he, "how do things go?"

"Very ill, sire."

"What! Very ill? How is your division disposed?"

"It is completely discouraged, sire; recent events at Paris have spread consternation through its ranks."

"Think you," asked the Emperor, "it will join with me in a movement upon Paris?"

"Trust not to that, sire," was the desponding answer; "should I give such an order, I should hazard being disobeyed."

"But what are we to do?" said the Emperor, passionately. "I cannot remain as I am! I shall march against Paris; I will punish these inconstant Parisians, and the folly of the senate! Woe to the government they have plastered up waiting the return of their Bourbons. To-morrow I shall place myself at the head of my Old Guard, and to-morrow we shall be in the Tuileries!"

"Sire," urged Macdonald, "are you ignorant that a provisional government has been established?"

"I know it."

"Then, sire, read this--a letter from Marshal Bournonville, announcing the sentence of forfeiture pronounced by the senate, and the resolution of the allied generals not to treat with you."

The countenance of Napoleon became violently contracted. After a pause, he exclaimed, furiously,

"I shall march upon Paris!"

"March upon Paris, sire," reiterated Macdonald; "that design must be renounced, for not a sword will leave its scabbard to follow you."

Finding all indeed over, the bitter subject of his abdication came to be gravely considered, and he handed to the marshal a document, on the 4th April, stating that he was ready to quit the throne of France.

The tender and honourable part acted by Macdonald at this humiliating but memorable time was duly appreciated by the Emperor, who has done him ample justice. With Marshal Ney and the Duke of Vicenza, he was named one of the commissioners sent by Napoleon to the Emperor Alexander.

"Well, Duke of Tarentum," said the former, before the marshal left Fontainebleau, "do you think a regency is the only thing possible?"

"Yes, sire."

"Well," continued Napoleon, who had now recovered his composure; "I charge you with my message to the Emperor Alexander; you will go with Ney instead of Marmont. _I rely on you_, and I hope you have entirely forgotten the circumstances which separated us so long?"

"Oh, sire, I have never once thought of them since 1809."

"I rejoice to hear it," replied Napoleon with emotion; "but marshal--I must now make the acknowledgment--_I was wrong_."

"Sire!" exclaimed Macdonald; the Emperor pressed his hand and faltered out but one word,

"Go."[28]

Macdonald vehemently urged that a regency should be established in France, in the person of Maria Louisa, in favour of her son, the young King of Rome, and violent altercations took place at the conference.

"Speak not to me, sir," said he to Bournonville, who opposed him; "your conduct has made me forget the friendship of thirty years!" "As for _you_, sir," he added, turning to Dupont, "your behaviour towards the Emperor is not generous. I acknowledge that he may have been unjust to you in the affair of Baylen; but how long has it been the fashion to avenge a personal wrong at the expense of the country?"

"Gentlemen," exclaimed the Duke of Vicenza, "do not forget that you are in the presence of the Emperor of Russia."

The energy with which Macdonald urged the cause of Napoleon embarrassed the Emperor of Russia; but neither the eloquence with which he spoke of the military glory of France, and the resolution of himself and his comrades never to abandon the family of one who had led them so often to victory, and with whom they had shared so many perils in war, nor the arguments with which he sought to enforce the regency, were successful; and at midnight on the 6th, he returned in dejection to Fontainebleau, to render, with Ney and Caulaincourt, an account of his mission. Napoleon again exhibited much emotion, and said, with a sigh,

"I know, marshal, all you have done for me--with what warmth you have pleaded the cause of my son. They desire my simple and unconditional abdication? Well--act on my behalf. Go, and again defend my interests and those of my family."

Bourienne and others thus relate their last interview.

"Alas!" said Napoleon, "I am no longer rich enough to recompense your last service, Macdonald; but I can perceive how unwisely I was formerly prejudiced against you. I can also see the designs of those who inspired me with that prejudice."

"Sire," replied the marshal, "I have already had the honour to assure you, that since 1809 I have been yours in life and death!"

"Since I can no longer recompense you as I would wish, I pray you to remember that I shall NEVER forget the faithful service you have rendered me!"

Napoleon then turned to Caulaincourt, saying,

"Duke of Vicenza, bring my sabre."

Caulaincourt brought the weapon, which was one of exquisite workmanship, and placed it in the hands of the Emperor.

"Behold," said he, "a recompence, Macdonald, which, I believe, will give you pleasure. This sabre, which was given to me by Murad Bey, in Egypt, after we had won the battle of Mount Tabor, accept, my friend--a gift which, I believe, will gratify you."

"Sire," replied the marshal, whose voice trembled as he received the sabre from the Emperor; "if ever I have a son, this weapon shall be his noblest heritage; and as such I will guard it with my life."

"Give me your hand, and embrace me!" exclaimed Napoleon; and throwing themselves into each others arms, they parted in tears--parted never to meet again as friends.[29]

In obedience to the commands of the fallen Emperor, the marshal, on the day succeeding this impressive farewell, sent in his adhesion to the new government.

"Now," he wrote, "that I am freed from my allegiance to the Emperor Napoleon, I have the honour to announce to you--the provisional government--that I accord with the national wish which recalls the dynasty of Bourbon to the throne of France."

On the 6th May, he was named member of the Council of War, and Chevalier of St. Louis. This was an order instituted by Louis XIV. in 1693, and, until the revolution, it remained entirely in possession of the French army. The badge was a gold cross of eight points, hung from a broad crimson ribbon. On the 6th June, he was created a peer of the realm by the surviving descendant of the Capet family, Louis XVIII., who seemed now firmly seated on the throne of France. But this monarch, as soon as order was duly established, was sufficiently rash and unwise to raise doubts about the validity of that law by which, during the stormy days of the republic, the property of the emigrant noblesse had been confiscated and sold. This was an unpleasant topic to broach at a time when Napoleon, like a caged lion, in Elba was watching for the moment to break forth; and Macdonald foresaw that misfortunes might ensue from its discussion; thus, on the 3rd December, 1814, he made an oration which succeeded in tranquillizing the fears of those who had made fortunes amid the anarchy of the republic, or with the growth of the late military empire. He had, moreover, the amiable intention of succouring the aged nobles and chevaliers of St. Louis, who were returning home after twenty-two years of exile, and the families of those whose fidelity to the ancient monarchy had involved them in penury, expatriation, and ruin.

His proposition was to raise twelve millions of annual rents, to be divided in proportions according to the rank and necessities of the claimants. His motion was received by all honourable men with favour, and with lively gratitude by those whose cause he had undertaken. He also advocated the hard case of his old comrades, the veteran soldiers of the Empire, who had lost their pay and pensions by the success of the restoration.

Macdonald won the hearts of all by these proposed measures; but they were brought forward too late in the year to have any practical or beneficial result; for now the eyes of all men were turned towards the little isle of Elba, from whence the _Violet_, as his soldiers named Napoleon, was confidently expected to come with the spring.

About this time, learning that Madame Moreau, the widow of his old friend and brother soldier, had secretly applied in his favour to an influential friend at Naples, to the effect that the revenues of the dukedom of Tarentum, which had been long withheld, should be continued to him, he wrote to the French plenipotentiary at the court of Ferdinand, praying that, with all gratitude to Madame Moreau, there might be no interference in the matter.

"Ferdinand of Naples," said he, with noble spirit, "owes me nothing, for having routed his armies, revolutionized his kingdom, and forced him to seek refuge in Sicily."

"Had I not laid it down as a principle," replied Ferdinand, "not to maintain one of the French endowments, I would assuredly have made an exception in favour of Marshal Macdonald."

On the 1st of March, 1815, the Emperor landed from Elba, and again Europe vibrated with war. The followers of the Bourbons were struck with consternation, and the soldiers to whom Louis XVIII. looked for protection and defence, were naturally enough flocking to the standard of their old leader; and he could turn to none, in his desertion and dismay, save a few officers of high rank, whose spirit of honour made them adhere to their oath of allegiance. The first to whom he addressed himself was Marshal Macdonald. He sent that officer to Lyons, where he arrived on the 8th of March, and found the Comte d'Artois in despair at the sullen and mutinous spirit exhibited by the troops he commanded.

Macdonald, of course, could not be surprised at this conduct in the soldiers, while his own heart led him towards the Emperor, and an _oath_ tied him to the throne of the Bourbons; but he ordered a general parade of all the troops, and reviewed them before the prince. Still the same sullenness and the same silence, so unusual in French soldiers during a time of excitement, were apparent in the officers and men. So strong did this feeling become, that the Comte d'Artois (according to the _Voice from St. Helena_) had to withdraw in haste from Lyons, accompanied by _one_ solitary dragoon, while Macdonald marched with a regiment of cavalry and two battalions of infantry of the line towards the bridge of the Rhone, which Napoleon was approaching at the head of a few soldiers of the Old Guard and a force increasing every hour by the regiments which deserted as they were despatched against him.

The marshal seized and barricaded the bridge, his soldiers still obeying in silence, till the brass drums of the Emperor were heard ringing on the highway; again the old tri-colour was seen, and the eagles that had spread their gilded wings over so many fatal fields were glittering in the sun. The marshal ordered his troops to fix bayonets and load with ball-cartridge.

Where was then the memory of that farewell at Fontainebleau? and where the sword of Murad Bey--the souvenir of Mount Tabor? The marshal was deeply moved at that moment, but he remembered the oath he had sworn to Louis XVIII.

The 4th Hussars, who formed the imperial advanced guard, dashed boldly up to the bridge at full speed, and, brandishing their sabres, shouted their old battle-cry, "_Vive l'Empereur!_"

The effect was electric. The soldiers of Macdonald could no longer restrain their long-smothered enthusiasm. They, at least, had sworn no fealty to King Louis. With a shout they responded, and, waving their caps and muskets in welcome, tore aside the barricade, and rushed to meet the Emperor, leaving the marshal on horseback, and by the roadside _alone_.

The 4th Hussars wished to seize and deliver him to the Emperor, but, animated by a high sense of chivalry, his own dragoons, who had come with him from Lyons, would by no means permit this, and drew their ranks across the road until he escaped. He returned immediately to Paris, and was desired by Louis XVIII. to command in the army formed under the Duc de Berri. This army proved, however, but a phantom, as the soldiers composing it almost to a man joined the banner of the Emperor.

Left thus alone, Macdonald repaired to the unfortunate king, and on the night of the 20th of March accompanied him on his retreat to Menin; but he again returned to Paris, where pleading his oath of fidelity, sworn by the Emperor's desire to the Bourbons, he declined to serve the imperial cause or become one of the Chamber of Peers under it--a refusal, doubtless, most painful to one who knew that he owed all his rank and honours to Napoleon. Relinquishing all these, as it were, for a time, the marshal duke enrolled himself as a simple grenadier in the National Guard of Paris, and as such did military duty during the usurpation, as it was named; and in the plain uniform of this corps, divested of medals, crosses, and epaulettes, he appeared as a private sentinel before Louis XVIII. on his return to the Tuileries.

On the capitulation of Paris to the allies the remains of Napoleon's army, then encamped beyond the Loire, were placed under the command of Macdonald, whose instructions were to remodel and re-organize the regiments, a difficult and arduous mission, which he accomplished with equal fidelity and address; but the soldiers, dispirited by the defeat at Waterloo, awed into submission by the flight of their idol Napoleon, and the presence of the overwhelming masses of the allies, obeyed him in silence and dejection. All was over now with the Bonapartists. The army of the Empire was broken and scattered, like the marshal dukes who had led it to those glories and conquests of which there remained but the memory now!

In the words of M. Fleury de Chabulon, "Marshal Ney was the first to give the alarm and despair of the safety of his country. Marshal Soult had abjured his command, Marshal Massena, exhausted by victory, had no longer the strength required by circumstances; Marshal Macdonald, deaf to the war-cry of his old companions, left his sword peacefully in its scabbard; Marshal Jourdan was on the Rhine; Marshal Mortier had the gout at Beaumont; Marshal Suchet evinced repugnance and irresolution; and finally, the Marshals Davoust and Grouchy no longer enjoyed the confidence of the army."

Thus the throne that had been so long propped by bayonets and by the splendid chivalry of the Old Guard and of the whole imperial army, had crumbled into dust at last!

For his talent in organizing the army of the Loire Macdonald received the office of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, succeeding the Abbé de Pradt on the 10th of January, 1816, and on the 3rd of May, in that year, he was appointed Knight Commander of St. Louis.

It is related that, when dining one day at the Tuileries, Charles X. said to him--

"How came it to pass, marshal, that when serving in our Irish regiment of Dillon, which emigrated _with us_ entirely, you still remained in France?"

"Sire," he replied, "because I was in love with Mademoiselle Jacob; and I applaud myself for it, since to that girl's love I owe the honour of being this day at table with your Majesty."

"How so?"

"Because, had I emigrated, I might have lived in penury and died of despair; but now, sire, I am a duke and marshal of France."

This reply was so frank and politic, that the king questioned him no more on that subject. He was one of the four marshals who had command of the Royal Guard; and as one of a commission appointed to inquire into the recruiting of the army, on the 24th of February, 1818, he made an able report upon the oppressive law of conscription, urging upon the French ministry the British system of voluntary enlistment.

Four years after this, by a royal ordinance, he procured the reversion of his rank and titles to the Marquis de Rochedragon, his son-in-law; but this ordinance was useless, as there was no prospect of that noble having any family. Thus, the marshal being anxious to have a male heir--all his children being daughters--he married, in his fifty-eighth year, Mademoiselle de Bourgoing, and from that period led a quiet and retired life. Soon after his marriage he came to Scotland, the land of his forefathers.

Accompanied by his aide-de-camp, Colonel Count Couessin, a nobleman who was descended from an ancient family in Brittany, and was the husband of his niece, Macdonald arrived in Edinburgh about the middle of June, 1825. He remained at an hotel, where he received the cards of all persons of distinction in the vicinity, and was visited by every gentleman in the city who bore his name. He attended mass in the Catholic church of St. Mary, and viewed all the great "sights" of the Scottish metropolis. A Mr. Macdonald Buchanan invited him to a dinner at which Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, and Henry Cockburn, were present, with several gentlemen who claimed the marshal as a clansman and relation. "From what I see of you, gentlemen," said he, when returning thanks after his health had been proposed, "and from what I have remarked of this country, I feel more pride than ever in having Scottish blood in my veins."

With great interest he visited the battle-field of Prestonpans, and viewed the ground from the Thorntree, where Colonel Gardiner was slain by the Highlanders. After being _fêted_ at Hopeton House, he left Edinburgh for the Highlands, with the intention of visiting every part of the country in which his father had accompanied Prince Charles Edward, during their flight and concealment after Culloden.

On his way north, he visited the field of Bannockburn, on the 24th of June, the anniversary of the battle; and, after surveying the ground with a soldier's eye, he praised the dispositions and the valour of Robert Bruce. Everywhere he expressed himself "enraptured with the beauty of the country; and above all, of the metropolis of Scotland." He visited the "fair city" of Perth; and accompanied by Macdonald of Staffa, reached Inverness early in July, and went immediately to the field of Culloden, where his father's sword had been drawn for the last of the Stuarts. There he gazed about him long and thoughtfully, surveying the desert moor, which is yet dotted by the green graves of the loyal and brave men who fell there.

He expressed astonishment that the prince, with his slender army of swordsmen, destitute alike of horse and artillery, should have fought twice the number of regular troops on such ground, instead of retiring into the mountains, and harassing the army of Cumberland by a guerilla warfare.

In the ill-fated _Comet_ (a steamer which was wrecked a short time after, under distressing circumstances) he left the Highland capital for the wild mountain-shore of Arisaig; and to a large dinner-party on board he made an address expressive of his admiration for the Scottish clans, "than whom," said he, "no people, I think, deserve to be more esteemed for their national character and uniform good conduct." Everywhere he was _fêted_ and welcomed with Highland ardour and hospitality, and in many instances by old Highland soldiers and retired officers, who had served against him in Holland, Germany, and Spain.

On his landing under the walls of Armidale Castle in Sleat, on the southern shore of Skye, he was saluted by fifteen pieces of cannon, and was received by a body of his clansmen in full Highland arms and array, under Lord Macdonald.

At the beautiful ruins of Castle Tiorm, in "the country of Clanranald," there was presented to him an aged clansman, named Alaster Macdonald, then in his hundredth year, who had known his father, and remembered the melancholy embarkation of Prince Charles and his fugitive followers, seventy-nine years before. With this old namesake the marshal conversed long, and asked him many questions about the personal appearance, &c., of Prince Charles Edward.

He left the Scottish isles in a government ship, and reached Dublin on the 16th of July; and there he again met Sir Walter Scott, who had arrived in the same city on the previous day.

"Respecting his visit (to Scotland) a singular tradition is preserved in France," says Dr. Memes; "namely, that, on being introduced to Sir Walter Scott, the marshal offered to place at the disposal of the historian authentic and unpublished intelligence on certain important and misrepresented events. Sir Walter declined the proffered aid, with the remark, 'Thank you, marshal; but I prefer taking my materials from popular and current reports.' We relegate this to the class of fables."

After his return to France, he led a life of quiet and retirement, and for nearly twenty-five years his name was rarely heard. He grew rapidly feeble; for his long career of war in almost every country in Europe, and the numerous severe wounds he had received, brought age quickly upon him.

He died in his seventy-fifth year, on the 24th of September, 1840, at his country house near Courcelles. A noble and generous eulogy was pronounced upon him by General Count Philip de Segur, author of a history of Napoleon's Russian expedition, and who in former days had been the aide-de-camp of Macdonald.

The latter was pure in spirit and generous in heart, faithful and benevolent in peace, as he was brave and true in battle. Sarrazen thus describes him:--

"The Duke of Tarentum is of a good size, of a slender make, but robust and pale-faced, with eyes full of fire; his smile is sardonic, his bearing military, and his manners polished. I believe him to be a sincere friend; and although he showed a weakness of character in the council of war which occasioned the loss of the battle of Trebia, we cannot but allow him to have all the firmness necessary to a good general."

It has been already shown that the misfortune on the banks of the Trebia arose from circumstances over which the marshal had no control; but it was a battle that he fought long and gallantly.

He was thrice married; first to Mademoiselle Jacob, one of the most beautiful girls in France, by whom he had two daughters, one of whom married Sylvester Rene, Duke of Massa, in Italy; and the youngest to Alphonse Comte de Perregaux. He married secondly, Madame Joubert, formerly Mademoiselle de Montholon, widow of his comrade the brave General Joubert, who was slain in battle against Suwarrow at Novi, on the 16th of August, 1799. By her the marshal had an only daughter, afterwards the Marchioness de Rochedragon. He married thirdly, Madame de Bourgoing, daughter of the superintendent of the Royal Hospital at St. Denis, and widow of the Ambassador Baron de Bourgoing.[30]

They had two children: to the joy of the old marshal one of these was a son, whom he named Alexander, and who in October, 1824, was held at the baptismal font by his Majesty Charles X. and Madame the Dauphinesse, and who now inherits the dukedom of Tarentum, and the sabre of Mont Tabor.

Such was the career of Stephen Macdonald, the son of an obscure Scottish fugitive from the field of Culloden, who thus became a Marshal Duke of the Empire, and by his worth and bravery shed a glory on his father's name and on the rank he won.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 25: "General Macdonald, who has come forward with so much _éclat_ as commander of a French column, is the descendant of a Mr. Macdonald of Argyleshire. His uncle is Mr. Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart. He preserves his clannish affections, and in the campaign of Pichegreu in Flanders and Holland, having command of a brigade which had to press on a British brigade, where he discovered a _namesake_, he supplied his countryman during the memorable retreat with every comfort which a camp could afford."--_Edinburgh Herald_, 10th January, 1799.]

[Footnote 26: General Sarrazen says _fifteen_ thousand (?)]

[Footnote 27: Bourienne.]

[Footnote 28: _Bourienne._]

[Footnote 29: "The sabre I recognised at once; only since I had last seen it, the following words had been engraved on the blade:--_Sabre worn by the Emperor on the day of the battle of Mount Tabor_."--_Bourienne_, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 30: _Biographie Universelle_, &c.]

THOMAS DALYELL,

OF BINNS, GENERAL OF THE SCOTTISH ARMY, AND FIRST COLONEL OF THE SCOTS GREY DRAGOONS.

In my novel of _The Scottish Cavalier_ I have endeavoured to portray the character of this celebrated cavalier officer, with all that military sternness and ferocity of disposition which has generally been attributed to him, but chiefly by his enemies, for the poor man seems never to have found a single friend among the many historians of the Covenant. Thus, notwithstanding his unwavering loyalty to the House of Stuart in the days of its declension, by his extreme severity when that House was in the zenith of its power, he became so unpopular in Scotland, that his memory is still execrated there. He is stigmatized as a "persecutor," as the _Bloody Dalyell_, whose spirit is yet averred to haunt the fields where he routed or slew the children of the Covenant--who had sold himself to the devil; one who was shot-proof, and

"Whose form no darkening shadow traced Upon the sunny wall;"

one who, when he spat, burned a hole in the earth; one in whose military boots water would boil, and whose spectre, habited in a buff coat and morion, wearing that voluminous white beard for which he was so remarkable, still haunts the house in which he was born and the tomb in which he lies.

Descended from an old baronial family, which was afterwards ennobled by the Earldom of Carnwath, and which acquired its estates about the end of the sixteenth century he was the son of Thomas Dalyell, of the Binns, in West Lothian, and of the Honourable Janet Bruce, a daughter of the first Lord Bruce of Kinloss, the eminent minister of James VI.--a peer whose skill in statecraft, in conjunction with the Earl of Mar, was of great service in securing James's peaceful accession to the English throne in 1603.

Thomas Dalyell, the younger, is said to have been born about the year 1599, during the reign of James VI. in Scotland, at his father's house of Binns, in the parish of Abercorn, Linlithgowshire. The ancient name is Dalyell; but the _z_ has since crept in, by the corruption of the letter _y_ in old Scottish orthography, and hence the pronunciation of it so puzzling to an English tongue.

Dalyell is first heard of as an officer of those auxiliary Scottish troops sent to Ireland by their native Parliament, at the request of Charles I., to protect the Ulster colonists, and assist in repressing the rebellion under Sir Phelim O'Neil and Macguire, when the dreadful massacre of the English took place.

For this service the Parliament of Scotland levied eight battalions of infantry, of whom two thousand five hundred were Highlanders. Arms for three thousand men were offered to the Irish Protestants, and the castles of Craigmore and Carrickfergus, two small strongholds in the north of Ireland, were supplied with all requisite munitions of war from the magazines at Dumbarton.

The colonels of the eight Scottish regiments which mustered in November, 1641, were as follow:--

Archibald, Earl of Argyle, afterwards executed for treason in 1660.

Sir Duncan Campbell, of Auchinbreck, who was afterwards slain at the battle of Inverlochy.

Sir Mungo Campbell, of Lawers. These three had Highland battalions.

Alexander Lord Forbes, who had served the King of Sweden.

William, Earl of Lothian.

Alexander, Earl of Eglinton.

Lord Sinclair.

The Earl of Lindesay.

Major-General Sir David Leslie, of Pitcairly, was to command the whole. Argyle deputed the leading of his regiment to its lieutenant-colonel, James Wallace, of Auchans; Lord Sinclair's was led by his major, Sir James Turner, the celebrated military memorialist, and that of the Lord Lindesay was led by Major Borthwick.

Thomas Dalyell was an officer in these forces, but to which corps he was attached is not clearly known. He was with the first column of those auxiliaries which, under Major-General Munro--an officer who had long served with distinction in Germany, at the head of Lord Reay's Highlanders--embarked on the 2nd of April, 1642, for Ireland. He had with him three thousand infantry, six hundred cavalry, and a train of guns. Landing in the north of Ireland, he took possession of Carrickfergus, and in it placed a garrison under young Dalyell's command.

The second column sailed for Ireland on the 27th of July under Sir David Leslie, the same general who afterwards commanded the Scottish army at the battle of Dunbar, and for his services was raised to the peerage as Lord Newark.

At Carrickfergus Munro shot thirty Irish prisoners who were accused of committing outrages upon the Protestants. Local tradition has swelled this number to _three thousand_, and adds that they were thrown over certain rocks named the Gobbins.

On the 28th and 29th of April Munro was joined at Carrickfergus by Lord Conway and Colonel Chichester, with eighteen hundred English infantry, five troops of horse, and two of dragoons; and in May he succeeded in effecting a junction with Sir Henry Tichbourne of Beaulieu, when their united forces mustered only two thousand horse and twelve thousand infantry. At this time the pay of an English colonel was 3_l._ a week; of a captain, 2_l._; of a private, 3_s._ 6_d._ In 1645 more troops were required in Scotland to oppose the Cavaliers on the one hand, and the Irish on the other; thus, on the 27th of February, the Scottish shires and boroughs mustered a great force, whose pay was 6_s._ Scots per day.

It is not improbable that Dalyell was at the battle of Benburb, a village of Tyrone, where, in the spring of 1646, General Munro was defeated by the Irish, and forced to retire, with the loss of three thousand four hundred and twenty-three slain; Lord Montgomerie, twenty-one other officers, a hundred and fifty privates, the Scottish artillery, twenty stand of colours, and fifteen hundred baggage and cavalry horses taken. "In vain did Lord Blaney take pike in hand, and stand in the ranks. Though exposed to the play of Munro's guns and musketry, the Irish infantry charged up hill without firing a shot. They met a gallant resistance; but Blaney and his men held their ground long, till the superior vivacity and freshness of the Irish clansmen bore him down."

In 1648 we still find Dalyell, then a colonel, in command at Carrickfergus, when that little fortress was surprised by General Monk, who took possession of it in the name of the English Parliament, and made both Munro and Dalyell prisoners of war. The former he sent to London.

Henry Guthry, Bishop of Dunkeld, in his Memoirs, asserts that the castle was surrendered to Monk treacherously, by the Earl of Glencairn's regiment, which formed the garrison.

Dalyell was so deeply imbued by the Cavalier loyalty of the period, that about this time, on the death of Charles I., to testify his grief, he made a vow never to shave his beard until he had avenged him; and he cultivated this appendage to his stern visage until it attained great length and volume, for it covered his whole breast and descended below his girdle, as we may still see by the portraits of him. At this period _vow beards_, as they were named, were not unusual with the more resolute and enthusiastic of the Cavaliers. The comb with which Dalyell was wont to dress his hair is still preserved at Binns, "and it gives a vast idea of the extent of beard and of the majestic character of Dalyell in general, being no less than _twelve_ inches broad, while the teeth are at least six inches deep."

Dalyell was too enterprising and restless a spirit to remain long a prisoner; for he soon achieved his liberty, and, on returning to Scotland, was appointed major-general, and held that rank in the army, which consisted of eleven regiments of horse and twenty battalions of infantry, with fourteen field pieces, and which was led by Charles II. into England in 1651. At the head of his brigade he fought bravely at the fatal field of Worcester, where, on the defeat of the Scots, he had the misfortune to be again taken prisoner, and, with other officers and captives of rank, was marched, under a sure guard, to London, and committed to the Tower.

Sir Walter Scott, in his history of Scotland, mentions (but I know not on what authority) that he had previously served in the wars of Montrose.

For his loyalty and service in England his estates were declared, by the dominant party in Scotland, to be forfeited, and his name was specially excluded from the general Act of Indemnity. But Dalyell was not to be withheld even by the guards or gates of the Tower of London, for he soon after effected his escape again--_how_ is not recorded; but after lurking somewhere on the Continent, he suddenly made his appearance, in March, 1654, off the northern coast of Scotland, in a small vessel, at a time when the Lowlands were overawed by eighteen of Cromwell's garrisons and by ten thousand regular forces maintained by him, by Argyle, and his adherents.

This was in anticipation of the Restoration, and at a time when the cause of royalty in Britain seemed most desperate. Being joined by a Colonel Blackadder and a slender band of loyalists, he took possession of the castle of Skelko, and, wherever he went, boldly proclaimed the king, and denounced Argyle and Cromwell as rebels and regicides. To stimulate his exertions, he received the following characteristic letter from the young king, Charles II.:--

"Tom Dalyell,

"Though I need say nothing to you by this honest bearer, Captain Mewes, who can tell you all I would have said, yet I am willing to give it to you under my own hand, that I am very much pleased to hear how constant you are in your affection to me, and in your endeavours to advance my service. We have all a hard work to do; yet I doubt not God will carry us through it: and you can never fear that I will forget the good part you have acted, which, trust me, shall be rewarded, whenever it shall be in the power of your affectionate friend,

"Charles R."[31]

"Colen, 30th Dec. 1654."

This attempt of Dalyell's had been made in unison with the Earl of Glencairn's rash but gallant expedition to the Highlands, when Glengarry, Lochiel, Struan, and other chiefs, whose swords were never in the scabbard when Scotland or her king required them, met in the wilds of Lochearn, and made an arrangement to rise in arms and attempt a restoration; but all hope of success soon proved desperate, and they dispersed. Dalyell abandoned the castle he had taken, and retired once more to the Continent, where he obtained from the exiled king a letter or certificate, in which his bravery, loyalty, and faith, were warmly extolled and recommended.

Furnished with this, and having nothing else in the world now but his sword and his stout heart, the penniless cavalier resolved to seek his fortune in foreign wars. Proceeding to Russia, which has ever formed so ample a field for Scottish enterprise and valour, he visited the barbarous court of the czar, and applied for military service.

The sovereign then reigning was Alexis Michailowitch, grandson of the patriarch Fedor Romanoff, who in his fifteenth year had succeeded in 1645 to the title of czar; and is chiefly remarkable as being the father of Peter the Great, who raised the Muscovites from the depths of barbarism to a state of comparative civilization.

The letter of Charles II. at once procured for Dalyell the rank of lieutenant-general in the service of Muscovy; but great obscurity involves his career in that country, for even the wars in which he was engaged were little noted by the rest of Europe.

He was now in his fifty-fifth year.

Alexis invited several other Scots to join his army being anxious to introduce a more regular system of discipline into his ranks; but the most eminent of these were General Drummond, Governor of Smolensko, and the two Gordons,[32] who, under Peter the Great, brought to perfection the standing forces of Russia, which however were so few, that in 1687 they amounted to no more than ten thousand men. An old topographical work, published at the Savoy in London, in 1711, mentions that "the Russians endeavoured to bring their soldiers under better discipline; for which end they made use of a great many Scots and German officers, who instruct them in all the warlike exercises that are practised by other European nations."

At that time--the beginning of the last century--their infantry were armed with a musket, sword, and an axe, which were slung behind; their cavalry were clad in steel morions and cuirasses, and were armed with bows, arrows, iron mouls, sabres, targets, and spears; and in the epoch of Dalyell, their army had a great battle-drum, which was fastened to the backs of four horses abreast, and had eight drummers to beat upon it.

His first active service was against the Poles, with whom Alexis Michailowitch had gone to war in 1653, and from whom he captured Smolensko, which he united to Russia, and Kiow, after committing frightful devastations in Lithuania. The Russian armies then invaded Livonia, stormed Dorpt, Kokenhausen, and other places, but were obliged to retire from before Riga with severe loss.

Dalyell was now raised to the rank of full general, and commanded against the Tartars, and the Turkish armies of Mohammed IV.--the son of the debauched Sultan Ibrahim--against whom Alexis declared war about this time (1654-5); and in these contests, waged at the head of barbarous hordes against hordes equally barbarous, the wanderer must have acquired much of that unyielding sternness, if not ferocity, which characterized his future proceedings in his own country. In these campaigns quarter was never asked nor given; prisoners were shot, beheaded, impaled, or put to death by slow fires, and by every species of torture that Muscovite brutality, or the most refined cruelty of the Oriental mind could suggest; and in this terrible arena of foreign service was schooled the future commander-in-chief of the Scottish troops--the scourge of the Covenanters--he to whom was given full power to crush and to destroy the men who struggled for freedom of religious opinion, for liberty of conscience, and who, as they phrased it, "drew the sword for an oppressed Kirk and broken Covenant."

After eleven years of service in these wild and snow-covered regions, Dalyell requested permission, by desire of Charles II., to return to Scotland. The king had now been restored; Cromwell was in his grave; the Parliament and great officers of state had once more taken upon them the _mis_government of Scotland, and a wicked war was maintained there against the Presbyterian Church, which Lauderdale and his ministry were leaving nothing undone to subvert and to suppress. The Laird of Binns now requested from the czar a certificate of his faithful service in Russia, and a missive to that effect was passed under the great seal of the empire.

"Part of this document," says Chambers, "was conceived in the following terms:--

"That he formerly came hither to serve our great Czarian Majesty: whilst he was with us, he stood against our enemies and fought valiantly. The military men that were under his command, he regulated and disciplined, and himself led them to battle: and he did and performed everything faithfully, as a noble commander. And for his trusty services we were pleased to order the said lieutenant-general to be a general. And now having petitioned us to give him leave to return to his own country, _We_, the great Sovereign and Czarian Majesty, were pleased to order, that the said noble General, Thomas, the son of Thomas Dalyell, should have leave to go to his own country.

"And by this patent of our Czarian Majesty, we do testify of him, that he is a man of virtue and honour, and of great experience in military affairs. And in case he should be willing _again_ to serve our Czarian Majesty, he is to let us know of it beforehand, and he shall come into the dominions of our Czarian Majesty, with proper passports. Given at our Court, in the Metropolitan City of Moscow, in the year from the Creation of the World 7173, January 6."[33]

From Russia he was accompanied by his countryman and old fellow-soldier, who had served with him in Ireland, General Drummond, who was also summoned by Charles II. and obeyed the royal behest. In an Act passed by the Scottish Parliament in 1686, granting this officer the lands of Torwoodie, it is stated "that upon a call from his majesty's royal brother, after his restoration, he left a splendid and honourable employment under the Emperor of Russia to give obedience to his native prince, and since his return to this kingdom, he did good and signal service as major-general, in the defeat of the rebels and suppression of the rebellion raised in 1686."

From a passage in Burnet it would seem, that when the nonjuring exiles at Rotterdam and other Covenanters, were preparing to rise in arms in 1665, and when Charles II. found the necessity of raising more troops, he formally summoned Dalyell home.