Chapter VIII: Part 8

"Take him in every respect," says the historian of Gustavus, "he was one of the bravest officers in the Emperor's service; but as the Imperialists envied this gallant foreigner, care was taken to place him in _the weakest part_ of the fortification; or, to speak more to the purpose, in a part that scarcely deserved to be called a fortification." In no way either daunted or disheartened, Butler resolved to make the best of it, and ordered his Irishmen to dig a trench and form a breastwork in rear of it; and thus, after incredible labour, they formed a solid rampart in one day; but that evening he went to Count Schomberg, and represented "that the post assigned to him was almost incapable of being defended, and that unless a sally was made that very night, to prevent the Swedes and Scots from coming nearer his indifferent parapet, the place would be taken."

But Schomberg heard him without interest or attention.

"Give me but five troops of cuirassiers, Count Hannibal," said he, "and five of dragoons, and at the peril of life and reputation, I will undertake to make the Swedes raise the siege."

Envious of the honour already won by the stranger, the Imperialist declined alike the offer and advice, though secretly he dispatched, on the very service coveted by Walter Butler, a certain German commander, whose cuirassiers failed to perform the duty required, for they were driven in by the Scottish Highlanders of Gustavus, and their leader was shot, while Major Sinclair, of Sir John Hepburn's Scots musketeers, followed them almost into the town.

Covered by the Rhinegrave's cuirassiers, under Colonel Hume, of Carrolsidebrae, Hepburn's brigade of Scots intrenched themselves before the great gate of the town; the yellow brigade occupied the Custrin road; and the white brigade of Swedes was spread throughout the suburbs. After a smart cannonade, on Palm Sunday, the 3rd of April, the King of Sweden ordered a general assault.

"The Swedish soldiers wanting ladders for the scaling of the walls, runne to certaines Boores' houses hard bye, whence they bring away the racks in the stables, and those others without, upon which the Boores used to lay their cowes' meat. With these and some store of hatchets they had gotten, to a mightie strong palisadoe of the enemies' neere the walls they goe, which they fell to hewing downe. The enemies labouring to defend the stocket or palisadoe, to it on both sides they fall; the bullets darkening the very aire with a showre of lead. The Imperialists being at length, by main force, beaten off, retire through a sally-port into the towne. Being entered within the outer port, there stay they and shoote amaine. The King calling Sir John Hebron and Colonel Lumsden unto him--'_Now, my brave Scotts_' (saies he), '_remember your countrymen slain at New Brandenburg!_'"[14]

The Scottish infantry advanced with their pikes in the front rank and their musketeers firing over their heads; thus a terrible slaughter was soon made of the Imperialists. "One Scottish man," continues the quaint record of the Swedish war, "killed eighteen men with his own hand. Here did Lumsden take eighteen colours; yea, such testimony showed he of his valour, that the king after the battle bade him aske what he wolde, and he wolde give it to him." This brave officer was Colonel Sir James Lumsden, of Invergellie, in Fifeshire, afterwards made Governor of Newcastle by the Scottish Parliament, and a major-general in the army which invaded England in 1640.

Meanwhile Gustavus was pressing with his own brigade upon the quarter occupied by Butler and his Irish musketeers, who defended themselves with incredible resolution; so much so, that when one of them was dragged over the rampart, he was asked by the Swedish king, "what soldiers these were who fought so valiantly?" "Colonel Butler's Irish regiment," replied the prisoner. This was at half-past one in the day, and Gustavus, on hearing it (according to Harte), drew off his brigade, and in despair of forcing a passage through the Irish, assailed the strong Gueben gate, and about four in the afternoon broke into the town through the Germans.

The Governor, Schomberg, Campmaster-General Tieffenbach, the Count de Montecuculi, Colonels Behem and Herbertstein, with most of the Imperialists, fled out of the city with great baseness, leaving the faithful Butler to fight single-handed against the tides of Swedes and Scots who surrounded his almost indefensible post. Already three Irish lieutenant-colonels, O'Neil, Patrick, and Macarthy were slain, with Captain-Lieutenants Grace and Brown, and Ensign Butler, all Irish, and many of their men. At last Walter Butler was pierced by a bullet, and had his sword-arm broken by a musket-ball, and when he fell the remnant of his gallant soldiers surrendered, and resistance was at an end.

Meanwhile the fugitive generals fled towards Silesia, and everywhere gave out that Butler and the Irish had betrayed Frankfort, by permitting the enemy to enter by _their_ quarter, as it was the weakest; and had it not been for a providential accident, adds an historian, Butler might have been beheaded and degraded, in spite of all his gallant services; but next day, says one of the stormers, the Scottish Colonel Munro, in his history, "It was to be seen where _the best service was done_; and truly had all the rest (of the Imperialists) stood to it as well as the _Irish did_, we had returned with great loss, and without victory." He adds, there were taken fifty standards, one colonel, five lieutenant-colonels, "and one Irish cavalier, Butler, who behaved himself honourably and well." Hundreds of Imperialists were drowned in the Oder, and a vast quantity of plunder was taken. That night the King of Sweden gave a banquet to his principal officers and colonels, Sir John Hepburn, Munro, Lumsden, Sir John Banier, and others; and when they were assembling, "Cavaliers," said he, "I will not eat a morsel until I have seen this brave Irishman of whom we hear so much; and yet," he added, to Colonel Hume, "I have that to say to him which he may not be pleased to hear."

Butler's wounds rendered him incapable of exertion; but on a litter of pikes being formed, he was conveyed into the presence of Gustavus, who gazed at him sternly, and asked with anger--

"Sir, art thou the elder or the younger Butler?"

"May it please your Majesty," replied the wounded man, "I am but the younger."

"God be praised!" said Gustavus Adolphus. "Thou art a brave fellow. Hadst thou been the elder, I meant to have run my sword through thy body; but now my own physicians shall attend thee, and nothing shall be omitted that may procure thee happiness and ease."

The action by which James Butler had kindled so much indignation in the breast of the usually placid Gustavus is now unknown; but it must have been something very remarkable to excite such angry bitterness. Had Walter Butler been a Protestant, the king would, no doubt, have endeavoured to lure him into the Swedish service; but the wounded Imperialist was as famous for his strict adherence to the duties of the Roman Catholic church as for his gallantry in the field.

While lying thus helplessly at Frankfort, he was deeply stung and mortified by the rumour so wickedly and so industriously spread by the Imperial generals, that he had occasioned the loss of the town; and he cast his honour under the protection of the generous Gustavus.

"Sir," said the latter, "it is in my power to do your character ample justice, and in such a manner that it can never be controverted. I will bear full testimony to your faith and valour under my own hand and royal seal."

Assuming a pen, he drew up a certificate, which set forth the heroism displayed by Butler in the strongest terms, and added, "that if the Imperial generals, instead of acting like poltroons, had performed but a fifth part of what this gallant Irishman had done, he (Gustavus) should never have been master of Frankfort, but after an obstinate siege alone."

"This, sir," said the king, "is no more than is due to a brave and injured man; so every general in the room will take a pride in signing this paper with me." This was accordingly done by Sir John Banier, the Scottish colonels, and others.

James Butler, who was then at the court of Ferdinand II., at Vienna, was stung to the soul by the tidings that his brother had betrayed a post, and he wrote to Walter a letter full of the bitterest reproaches. "You have tarnished the lustre of the Imperial arms, as well as the name of Butler," he wrote; "and Cæsar's court-martial will make your name a bye-word of reproach."

Walter Butler was grieved by this insolence and unkindness, and hastened to show the letter to the King of Sweden.

"Heed it not, Colonel Butler," said he; "send our testimonial to the Emperor, and trouble yourself no more about it."

Thirty thousand pounds' worth of plunder, and ten baggage waggons, with all the plate of the fugitives, were taken, and all their munitions of war; however, they had buried in the earth a great quantity of arms. In 1850, a labourer, when digging a trench in a field near the outworks of old Frankfort, came upon a depôt of old weapons, decaying, and covered with rust. Among them were 2000 matchlocks, being part of the munition concealed by the garrison of Count Schomberg. As soon as his wounds permitted him to travel, Walter Butler left Frankfort, for Gustavus was too generous to detain as a prisoner one whose gallant spirit was writhing under unmerited reproaches. He travelled towards Silesia, and sought out a Colonel Behem, who had commanded a regiment of German infantry at the defence of Frankfort, and to whom he was fortunate enough in tracing the first of the slanderous reports, and challenged him to single combat on horse or foot, with sword and pistol; but, awed by the justice of Butler's cause, his known skill and courage, and by the formidable testimonial of Gustavus Adolphus, he signed a full retractation and apology.

Butler then went into Poland, and at his own expense raised a fine regiment of cavalry, all clad in buff coats, with back and breast pieces, and triple-barred helmets. While recruiting there he daily ran the risk of being murdered by the Polish peasantry, who were averse to the Imperial service; but he marched as soon as his new levy was completed, and on his return to the Emperor's army took possession of Prague, the capital of Bohemia. This made him more than ever a favourite of the great Wallenstein.

Soon after this exploit he married the Countess of Fondowna.

He was at Prague when the ambitious Wallenstein became false to the interests of the Empire, and fell into the deadly snare prepared for him at Egra by Colonel James Butler and others, on whose unscrupulous fidelity the Imperial court could rely. Had Walter not been a rigidly honourable man, he might have realized a large fortune by the death of his leader, who, being always fond of foreign troops, wished him to return to Ireland for the purpose of raising a body of infantry to cope with the Scottish brigades of Gustavus. For this purpose he offered him money to the amount of 32,000_l._ sterling by bills of exchange at Hamburg, and ready cash, which was lying useless at his palace of Sagan, on the bank of the Bober, in Prussian Silesia. But he declined the service with these remarkable words--"Poor old Ireland has been drained too much of her men already." This anecdote, says Walter Harte in his history, I learned at Vienna.

The wild schemes and daring ambition of Wallenstein now made him indulge in the hope of dismembering the great conquests of the Empire, and seating himself upon a new throne, to be erected by the sword in northern Europe. This hope was crushed in 1634, when the great duke was spending the holidays of Christmas in the old castle of Egra in Bohemia. The garrison in this fortress was commanded by John Gordon, a Presbyterian, a native of Aberdeenshire, who was colonel of Tzertzski's regiment, and had once been a private soldier. Wallenstein's personal escort consisted of 250 men of James Butler's Irish regiment, commanded by that officer in person.

James Butler (without communicating the matter to his brother Walter), John Gordon, and Major Walter Lesley, son of the Laird of Balquhan in the Garioch, on receiving private instructions from Vienna, resolved, without scruple or remorse, on removing the ambitious general from the path of the emperor for ever. Butler prepared a grand banquet, to which he invited the generalissimo's attendants. Previous to the latter, Butler, who, felt some distrust of Lesley and Gordon, who were both Scots and Presbyterians, while he was a Catholic, made some remarks expressive of admiration for the duke.

"You may do as you please, gentlemen, in the matter at issue," said Gordon; "but death itself shall never alienate me from the duty and affection I bear his majesty the emperor."

Thus encouraged, Butler produced a letter from Mathias Count Galas (who, after the siege of Mantua, obtained the supreme command of the Imperial army), wherein Ferdinand II. authorized them and all his officers to withdraw "their allegiance" from Wallenstein, for all the troops had taken an oath of obedience to _him_ by the emperor's express order. Fully empowered by this document to do what they pleased, the three mercenaries resolved on his immediate destruction. One proposed to poison him; another suggested that he should be sent a prisoner to Vienna; a third, that he should be slain after _disposing_ of his friends at the _banquet_. The last was at once adopted, and several were invited, among whom were Wallenstein's brother-in-law, Colonel Tzertzski; Colonels Illo, William Kinski, and the secretary, Colonel Niemann. The castle was filled with soldiers on whom Gordon and Butler could rely. As the fatal evening drew on, Captain Walter Devereaux, Watchmaster Robert Geraldine, and fifteen other Irishmen, entered the keep, and took possession of a postern; while to Captain Edmund Bourke, with one hundred more, was assigned the duty of keeping the streets quiet; for Tzertzski's dragoons occupied the town, which is the capital of its circle, and was then surrounded by a triple rampart, washed on one side by the Egra.

The banquet was protracted so long that at half-past ten the dessert was still on the table, when Colonel Gordon filled up a goblet of wine, and proposed the health of the shy and cunning John George, Elector of Saxony, the enemy of the emperor.

Butler affected astonishment, and said "he would drink to no man's prosperity who was the enemy of _Cæsar_."

Pretended high words ensued, and while the unsuspecting friends of Wallenstein gazed about them in wonder and perplexity, the doors were flung open, and Geraldine and Devereaux, with their soldiers armed with drawn swords or partizans, rushed in.

"Long live Ferdinand the Second!" cried Devereaux.

"God prosper the house of Austria," added Geraldine; while Butler, Gordon, and Lesley, snatched up the candles, held them aloft, and drew their swords. Wallenstein's friends saw that they were betrayed; they sprang to their weapons, all flushed with wine and with fury at this treachery; the tables were dashed over, and a deadly combat began. Colonel Illo was rushing to his sword, which was hanging on the wall, when an Irishman ran him through the heart. Tzertzski placed himself in a corner, and slew three; for the assailants, believing him to be proof to mortal weapons, were afraid of him.

"Leave me, leave me for a moment," he continued to cry, while fighting with all the energy of despair; "leave me to deal with Lesley and Gordon--I will fight them both hand to hand--after that you may kill me; but, O, Gordon, what a supper is this for your friends."

At that instant he pierced the young Duke de Lerida by a mortal wound, but was almost immediately overpowered by ten strokes, and, with Kinski and Tzertzski, nearly hewn to pieces. Unglutted yet with blood, Captain Devereaux, finding his rapier broken, snatched up a partizan, and, followed by thirty soldiers, rushed to the apartments of Wallenstein; who, having heard the uproar in the hall, had double-bolted his door within; and they assailed it with noise and great fury, while Butler stood, with his sword drawn, on the staircase below. Even the bold heart of Wallenstein was appalled by the unusual uproar--he leaped from his bed, and threw on a dressing-gown. He raised the window of the room; but the wall of the tower was too high for escape, and he cried aloud--

"Will none here assist me? Alas! is no one here my friend?"

Upon this Devereaux knocked again, and commanded his soldiers to burst open the door. Five times their united strength failed before it, till he applied his own shoulder to it; and, being a man of great power, he broke it to fragments, and then they beheld before them the formidable Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland and Prince of the Vandal Isles, standing near a table, in his shirt, pale and composed, but defenceless--for he had neither sword nor pistols; for Schiller asserts that he was disturbed in the study of astrology.

"Art thou not the betrayer of Ferdinand and the Empire?" cried Captain Devereaux, as he charged his partizan; "if so, now thou must die."

Wallenstein made no reply, but opened his arms, as if still more to expose his naked breast, into which the Irish captain thrust his weapon, and he expired without a groan, while all the soldiers shrunk back, as if appalled by the act; yet his naked body, and the bodies of the Colonels Niemann, Tzertzski, Illo, and Kinski were carried in a cart through the streets of Egra, and tossed into a ditch. So perished the magnificent Wallenstein, the dictator of Germany!

James Butler and Devereaux hastened to Vienna, where the Emperor Ferdinand II. fastened round the neck of the former a valuable chain, giving, at the same time, his Imperial benison and a gold medal, saying, "Wear this, Colonel Butler, in memory of an emperor you have saved from ruin." He then created him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and gave him the gold key of the bedchamber, with extensive estates in the kingdom of Bohemia; and, to crown all, by an act of abominable hypocrisy, he ordered three thousand masses to be said for repose of the murdered general's soul. Devereaux also received a gold chain with the gold key and a colonelcy; but he left the Imperial service, and returned home to Ireland in 1638.

Colonel Gordon was created a marquis of the Empire, Colonel-General of the Imperial army, and High Chamberlain of Austria. Major Walter Lesley, who was then a captain of the Body Guard, was created Count Lesley, and Lord of Newstadt, an estate worth two hundred thousand florins. He died Field-Marshal, Governor of Sclavonia, and Knight of the Golden Fleece.

James Butler enjoyed his countship only one year; for he died at Wirtemberg in the early part of the year 1634, leaving a very ample fortune, and money to found a college of Irish Franciscans, which still exists in the Bohemian capital. To Laurmayne, confessor to the emperor, he left a memorial worth twenty pounds by his will. To the Scottish and Irish colleges at Prague he bequeathed 3300_l._; to the Irish students at Prague, 500_l._ among them equally; to his sister, 1000_l._; to Walter Devereaux whose partizan slew Wallenstein, 150_l._ His widow, whom he left in easy circumstances, conveyed his body into Bohemia, escorted by a troop of lancers and cuirassiers, and there she interred him near his own estates, with great pomp and splendour. In 1638, Thomas Carve, an Irish priest, chaplain of Butler's regiment, and author of a minute account of these affairs,[15] obtained a commission as chaplain-general "to all the Scottish and Irish forces in the Imperial service."

During the development and _denouement_ of this daring conspiracy against the great Imperialist, his friend, Walter Butler, was in command at Prague, about seventy miles distant from the castle of Egra; and he was filled with horror and dismay at the part played by his brother in the dark and terrible tragedy. It was, moreover, an unfortunate event for _him_, as he never obtained any place at court, any military order, or rose one rank higher in the army from thenceforward--for, as a favourite of Wallenstein, he was an object of distrust to the emperor.

In the same year his brother died. Walter served with distinguished bravery at Nordlingen in Swabia, where, on the 26th of August, 1634, a general engagement was the result of Field-Marshal Gustaf Horne's attempt to relieve the town, then besieged by the Imperialists, who obtained a complete victory; for the Swedish army was defeated with great loss, and had 4000 baggage-waggons, 80 pieces of cannon, and 300 stand of colours taken. The Scottish brigades suffered severely. In particular the Highland regiment of Colonel Robert Munro, which by the slaughter of that fatal day was reduced to _one_ company.

By his valour and example Walter Butler, at the head of his regiment, "decided the victory in favour of the Imperialists." To quote Harte--"He stood firm, without losing one inch of ground, for three-and-twenty hours, during a continual fire, and though 16,000 soldiers were killed in that engagement."

Soon after this great battle he died of a severe illness. The descendants of his brother distinguished themselves repeatedly in the future wars of the grasping House of Austria, particularly in those waged against Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; and there is now living in Bohemia an old nobleman named Baron Bütler, who boasts of being the fourth in descent from James Butler of Ormond, one of the slayers of the great Duke of Friedland.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: _Swedish Intelligencer, 1632._]

[Footnote 15: Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis), _Itinerarium_, 12mo. 1639-1641.]

MARSHAL CLARKE,

GOVERNOR OF VIENNA AND BERLIN.

Henry James William Clarke, Duc de Feltre, Minister of War under the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and afterwards under the Bourbons, was born on the 17th October, 1765, at Landrecies, a town of France, situate on the Sambre, westward of Maubeuge, and about one hundred miles from Paris.

His father belonged to one of the many exiled Irish families who followed to France the abdicated James VII. of Scotland, and II. of England; and after serving King Louis as a subaltern officer, died at an early age on obtaining the rank of colonel, leaving his son, the future general, an orphan, to the care of his uncle, Colonel Shee, who was then "Sécretaire des Commandement du Duc d'Orléans," and afterwards Prefect of Strasbourg, and a peer of France. It is strange how well fortune favoured all these Irish exiles in the various lands of their adoption.

By Colonel Shee, Henry Clarke was well and carefully reared, as he intended him for the service of Louis XVI. Thus, on the 17th of September, 1781, he entered the Military School at Paris as a cadet; and after going through a brief curriculum, left it on the 11th of November, 1782, to join the regiment of the Duc de Berwick as a sub-lieutenant. Wishing to join the cavalry, on the 5th of September, 1784, he was appointed cornet of hussars, with the rank of captain in the regiment of the colonel-general of this branch of the service.

On the 11th of July, 1790, he obtained a captaincy of dragoons, and in the same year received leave of absence to visit Great Britain, as a gentleman in the suite of the ambassador.

It was to the friendship and patronage of the Duke of Orleans that Clarke owed these favours, and generally, his rapid advancement in the army; and it was to this prince that the hussar regiment of the colonel-general belonged, according to a custom of the old _régime_.

On his return to France, Clarke applied immediately for active service, and on the 5th of February, 1792, was appointed a captain of the first class, and soon after he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel of cavalry.

He remained in command of his regiment during all the horrors of the Revolution; and, at its head, served in the two campaigns which followed the attack on the Tuileries, the deposition of the king, and the murders of 1792. In September he assisted very materially at the capture of Spire, the _ci-devant_ capital of a bishopric in the palatinate of the Rhine, along the upper circle of which Custine had spread his brilliant conquests.

The French attacked the Austrians, who were in order of battle in front of the city. They were outflanked, and driven back; the gates were cut down by axes, or blown to pieces by cannon, and the republicans stormed the place, taking 3000 prisoners, with a vast train of cannon and mortars. Clarke bore a conspicuous part as an active cavalry officer in all the subsequent operations of the French army, including the capture of Worms, with all its stores, and of Mentz, before which the army arrived on the 19th of October, after forced marches, performed amid torrents of rain; and the taking of Frankfort, which was ransomed from destruction and pillage on the payment of 500,000 florins.

On the 17th of March, after the rout of Bingen, he defended the passage of the Nahe, a German stream, which falls into the Rhine near the former place, and there he was of signal service to the retreating troops. He was present at the affair of Horcheim, which was afterwards annexed to France, and the capture of Landau, on the 17th of May. His distinguished bravery on these occasions obtained him the rank of General of Brigade, provisionally, the commission of which he received on the field of battle. He then received the command of three regiments of dragoons, which formed the advanced guard of the army of the Rhine.

Soon afterwards we find him exercising in this army the functions of _Chef d'Etat-Major Général_; but on the 12th of October, 1793, the Commissioners of the National Convention, in virtue of a most unjust decree of that tyrannical assembly, deprived him of his rank, as he happened to be at that time on their secret list of the _suspected_.

He received intelligence of this on the very evening before the Austrians stormed the French lines at Weissembourg, on the Lower Rhine, and he retired at once to Alsace, where he was confined on a species of parole; nor did he recover his military rank and position until after the downfall and death of the cruel and infamous Robespierre.

Under the protection of M. Carnot, who was then Minister of Public Safety, Clarke was placed at the head of a committee of military topography; and in this service he exhibited the greatest talent as a director and instructor, and spared no pains to fulfil the duties imposed upon him. The restless and suspicious Directory, in thus maintaining M. Carnot at the head of their affairs as minister, caused also the retention of Clarke, whose importance seemed to increase with that of his patron.

He was confirmed a General of Brigade in March, 1795; and on his appointment to the rank of General of Division, on the 17th of September, in the same year, our Irish exile could scarcely believe that fate had higher or more brilliant destinies in store for him; but now his talents as a diplomatist were about to be put in requisition. This was when the astonishing successes of Napoleon in Italy had alarmed the Directory, who dispatched Clarke to Vienna, entrusting to him the difficult mission of preparing the terms of the projected peace between Republican France and the Imperial Court; but, as he was adverse to the wishes of the Directory, and inimical to the task, his arrangements proved unfortunately disadvantageous to the French.

After this he visited the army of Italy, the General-in-Chief of which, being influenced by the Directory, placed him in a subordinate position, alike repugnant to his love of freedom and authority. As simple plenipotentiary, Clarke, after traversing Germany, showed himself at Vienna to be the political confidant of the powerful Directory, and, above all, of M. Carnot.

In the minute instructions given to General Clarke by the French Government we are enabled to trace him in his route, which lay through Piedmont, Milan, Medina, Bologna, and Venice; and by the Directory he--more than all their other diplomatic agents--was specially recommended to observe narrowly the secret purposes of the different great personages who held important positions at the court of Vienna.

"Your journey, M. Clarke," said the minister De la Croix, in a letter written on the 17th November, 1796, "will be sufficiently useful when you have no longer anything to know or to discover for the profit of the Republic or the cause of humanity." But it was generally believed--nay, it was openly asserted in Paris--that the mission of Clarke to Vienna was all a _ruse_, and was meant merely to conceal some artful plot woven by the Directory against Napoleon Bonaparte, before whose power and popularity they were beginning to tremble.

However, the Directory really wished a peace, and provisionally demanded an armistice; but Bonaparte, who had no desire to see a general peace in Europe, and, least of all, one formed by any person save himself, by his formidable interference and potent influence, caused the negotiations entirely to fail. We are enabled to perceive how the Directory, in their overtures for peace, above everything else counted on those territories which they could offer in exchange for Luxembourg and other provinces which they had annexed to France. This system of compensation admitted of alterations, which their envoy could vary at his pleasure, on perceiving the effect produced by each offer on the various members of the Austrian cabinet.

In the armistice extended to the two armies they wished the terms to be similar to those given by their general, Napoleon Bonaparte, when besieging Mantua, viz.:--That they should be supplied daily with ammunition and provisions, according to their numerical strength. But Bonaparte declared these terms absurd; and explained to them that the suspension of arms alone gave to France the prospect of greater advantages than could accrue from terms based on those framed at Mantua. But the commands of the Directory were imperative; and the cabinet of Vienna, on receiving their overtures, had already sent the Baron Vincent to Vicenza, to confer with General Clarke, who repelled with all his energy the advice and interference of Bonaparte; but the latter, on being supported by Barras against him, as one trusted by Carnot, said plainly to Clarke, "Si vous êtes venu ici pour faire ma volonté, je vous verrai avec plaisir; si c'est le contraire vous pouvez retourner d'où vous êtes venu."

By this language he made Clarke feel that his patron, Carnot, was not secure in office, and that he must prepare other supporters for himself. Indeed, some rumour of this nature had reached him before. The result of these disagreements between Clarke and Napoleon caused the former to omit all praise of the latter in public communications to the government at Paris; but, in the first report of Clarke to the minister De la Croix, dated 7th December, 1796, we find him exculpating Bonaparte of all blame for the awful ravages and atrocities committed by his troops in Italy.

Bonaparte succeeded in postponing the conferences at Vicenza until the 3rd January, 1797; and so many despatches passed to and fro between the Directory, Carnot, and Clarke, that the Baron Vincent lost patience, and declared, that if France had any further communications to make, they must in future be addressed, not to him, but to Gherardini, the Austrian minister at Turin. Bonaparte took care that this resolution of the baron should be effectual. Clarke was several times at Turin and Lombardy, negotiating; and after happily completing a friendly arrangement with his general, was left without other duties to fulfil, than to complete, with the Piedmontese court, those amicable treaties which were terminated by an alliance with France on the 5th April, 1797.

After this, he brought before the Directory a series of complaints against certain generals and commissaries of the French army in Italy. With the substance of the charges against these officers he had been furnished by Bonaparte; and the result was, that many of them were displaced and recalled to France.

The complaints or charges furnished to Clarke were sometimes far from correct; but Bonaparte, by means of the envoy, wished to rid his army of those devastators and peculators, without drawing upon himself their lasting and personal hostility. To the honour of Clarke, it must be confessed that his dislike for those who had been guilty of mal-demeanour in Italy was at least sincere; and in this he proved himself worthy to be the friend of Carnot.

He found himself again at Turin during the discussion which ensued concerning the preliminaries of Leoben. Bonaparte, who had neither desire nor authority to conclude anything that resembled a peace, affected to wish much for the presence of Clarke as a plenipotentiary, while he secretly contrived such means to delay his journey, that it was impossible he could arrive in time. Thus ten days passed, and on the 17th of April Clarke had not appeared, so Bonaparte signed the articles _alone_; and on the 6th of the following month, the Directory invested them both with full power to sign the final treaty.

Two negotiators, the Marquis di Gallo and Meerfeldt, had been appointed by Austria to meet them; but at the very commencement of their proceedings the proud and haughty spirits of Bonaparte and Gallo domineered over their colleagues so completely, that they became as mere machines in their hands. Clarke had, nevertheless, occasionally sole charge of the negotiations at Udina, a town in Friuli, where they had many meetings concerning the entangled affairs of France and Austria; but this was only when the tergiversations of the latter, who wished to recommence the war, were embarrassing the conferences, which, according to the caustic expression of Bonaparte, "were nothing more than a series of pleasantries."

In the midst of these incertitudes and delays, a new revolution took place at Paris, on the 4th September, 1797, when the legislative was entirely absorbed by the executive power, and when the famous pamphlet of Bailleul, which provoked such a violent debate in the Council of Five Hundred, was the tocsin of alarm. On this day--the 18th _Fructidor_--Clarke was declared a "creature of Carnot;" and, as such, was deprived of all power. Thus Bonaparte was left sole plenipotentiary of the Republic, and had the honour of signing alone the famous treaty of Campo Formio, which secured a peace between France and the Emperor Francis II., and which took its name from the place of meeting--a castle of maritime Austria, situated on a hill in the province of Friuli. It was signed on the 17th October, and was undoubtedly more glorious for France than the treaty which General Clarke had prepared for the same purpose in November, 1796. But Bonaparte behaved with great generosity towards his fallen colleague: he defended him against the virulence of the Parisian pamphleteers and journalists, protected him while in Italy, and employed him about his staff and person in many ways. "Could he do less to the star which he had so completely made his satellite?" exclaims a French writer.

The brilliant reception which awaited Bonaparte on his triumphant return to France, and still more, the high enthusiasm kindled by his departure for Egypt, threw Clarke completely into the shade; and he was almost forgotten by the volatile Parisians during two years that he lived in retirement.

M. Xavier Audoin, son-in-law of Pache, succeeded Clarke as chief of the Bureau Topographique et Militaire at the Directory. The Parisian journals accused the general of having enjoyed the confidence of Carnot too much, and to be too deeply attached to the House of Orleans, to which he and his family were indebted for much of their good fortune in France.

The _Dublin Journal_ of the 7th October, 1797, contains a paragraph to the effect that it was known that Clarke had been "for forty hours, during the last week," in that city, "that he had held conferences with the leaders of the United Irishmen, and having obtained his information and given his directions, had embarked in a fishing smack from Killinbay, on Sunday morning last. That he could have no other purpose than the arrangement of a French invasion we have no doubt," adds the editor, "and when our readers have learned that there is strong ground to believe that he has been for some time past in the north of Ireland, they will naturally join in our opinion. Our readers will recollect that this General Clarke was announced in the French papers to have left the Italian army some time since on his way to Vienna to negotiate with the emperor--there has been _no_ negotiation at Vienna--the treaty is under discussion at Udina--so that this journey has obviously been fabricated to _conceal_ his real destination."

But, notwithstanding all these details, there is no solid proof for believing that General Clarke ever visited the land of his forefathers on this secret duty.

He ought, perhaps, to have followed Napoleon, even as a volunteer, to the banks of the Nile; but being of a proud and jealous spirit, he was unfortunately without this feeling of devotion to his new protector. Bonaparte appeared to feel this; for on his return from his distant and dangerous expedition, and finding himself master of the government, by the 18th _Brumaire_ (9th November, 1799), he seemed to look coldly on the general at times.

Clarke now neglected nothing that might serve to reinstate him in the good graces of the First Consul, who, in September, 1800, intrusted him finally with the charge of the negotiations at Luneville, and soon after with the military command of that large city, which lies in the departement of the Meurthe. But Clarke felt that these two posts were alike insignificant and unworthy one of his talent and enterprise; for the recent victories in Germany and Italy had greatly simplified his duties as a negotiator, and the little that remained Bonaparte directed in Paris. When the arrangements were completed, to the infinite annoyance of Clarke, he sent his brother Joseph to sign them.

Clarke had meanwhile been preparing for the departure of a body of Russian officers who were prisoners of war at Lisle; and the kindness with which he did so, caused the Emperor Paul I. to present him with a magnificent sword, and other marks of his approbation.

Such is the weakness of the human heart, that these honours inflated Clarke so much, that for a time he appeared to feel himself equal to the First Consul, and indeed he was rash enough, and unwise enough, to say so.

Coming early one evening to the opera, he entered the box usually appropriated to Napoleon, and assumed that august person's place in the front seat. When the First Consul came, Clarke had the bad taste to sit still during the performance, and leave to his master the second place!

These mistakes of temper, united to his punctilious spirit, in affairs of state, and love of diplomatic work, caused the French government to give him the office of minister of France at Florence, that he might be away from Paris and near the young Duke of Parma, who wished to be named King of all Italy; but this post, say the _Memoirs of St. Helena_, proved exceedingly distasteful to him.

Clarke's talent--a most useful, if not brilliant one--consisted in an amazing facility for keeping on the best possible terms with all the parties among whom he was cast. The secret of his influence with Bonaparte appears to have been, a sentiment of profound gratitude in the latter for the high praise bestowed by Clarke in his "Secret Report" to the Directory on the conduct of the young general in Italy. This document afterwards fell into the hands of the First Consul, who never forgot its contents.

Clarke, tired of his residence in Florence, wrote letter after letter, demanding his recal to Paris, terming his embassy a species of exile; and Bonaparte, believing that his punishment was sufficiently severe, at last gave him leave to return; but desired him to travel by the way of Lisle (a fortified city in the departement of the north), to the camp at Boulogne. In Belgium he gave him the title of Councillor of State, and created for him two places in the cabinet--one as secretary for the marine, and the other for the war.

Arrived at the camp of Boulogne, one of the earliest matters entrusted to the general was the proposed establishment of Irish brigades, to co-operate in the projected invasion of Britain; and these corps Clarke believed might be recruited among the Irishmen who were prisoners of war in France. While this project was on the _tapis_, he had many interviews with the famous Theobald Wolfe Tone, who had been appointed by the Directory chef-de-brigade, and afterwards adjutant-general; and with Lazarus Hoche, a frank, resolute, and zealous republican, who, from being a stable-boy and private of the French guards, raised himself to one of the highest positions in the army of France. In 1792, he was a corporal; in 1793, he was a _general_, commanding the army of the Moselle; and in the two subsequent years he subdued La Vendée.

Tone was introduced to Hoche by Clarke, and in his _Memoirs_ he details the questions they asked him concerning the state of Ireland; where a landing might be effected; where provisions might be relied on, particularly bread; whether French auxiliaries might count on being able to form an Irish Provisional Government, either of the Catholic Committee, or of the chiefs of the Irish patriots? On these subjects Tone had many a long and anxious conference with his countryman Clarke, and with Hoche.

After a long interview with Hoche, in the cabinet of Fleury one day, Wolfe Tone was asked, what form of government the Irish would adopt, in the event of their successfully encountering the British troops?

"I was going to answer him with great earnestness," says Tone, in his interesting _Memoirs_, "when General Clarke entered, to request that we would come to dinner with Citizen Carnot. We accordingly adjourned the conversation to the apartment of the President, where we found Carnot, and one or two more. Hoche, after some time, took me aside, and repeated his question. I replied, '_Most decidedly a republic._' He asked again, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'As sure as I can be of anything. I know nobody in Ireland who thinks of any other system----.' Carnot joined us here, with a pocket-map of Ireland, and the conversation between Clarke, Hoche, and him became pretty general, every one else having left the room. I said scarcely anything, as I wished to listen. Hoche related to Carnot the substance of what passed between him and me. When he mentioned his anxiety as to bread, Carnot laughed and said, 'There is plenty of beef in Ireland--if you cannot get bread, you must eat beef.' I told him I hoped they would find both; adding, that within twenty years Ireland had become a great corn country, so that at present it made a considerable article in her exports."--Vol. ii. pp. 14-18.

The patience of Wolfe Tone was sorely tried by many and unnecessary delays; and, after all, the hopes of the Irish exiles ended only in mustering a regiment of their countrymen, which, instead of embarking for Ireland, marched to the invasion of Spain, under the unfortunate Colonel Lewis Lacy, the son of a race of hereditary Irish soldiers, as related elsewhere.

In the year following his double appointment as minister for the war and marine, Clarke made the German campaign on the staff of Bonaparte, and was present at the capture of the free city of Ulm, in the Swabian circle, on the 17th October, 1805, and at other operations, which drove the army of the Archduke Ferdinand across the Danube; and, on the capture of Vienna by the corps of the brave Murat and Lannes, he was named governor of the city and also of Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia, Styria, Friuli, Trieste, &c. His moderation and justice in this high command elevated him among the victors, and won him the love and esteem of the vanquished. He also received the cordon of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, and soon after was ordered to define the line of demarcation between Brisgau, in the kingdom of Wirtemberg, and the Grand Duchy of Baden.

Two months were spent by him in conferences and diplomacy. From the 9th to the 20th of July, 1806, he was engaged with the Russian plenipotentiary, and their interviews were terminated by the wonderful treaty which opened and ceded to France, Cattaro, a Venetian territory in Dalmatia, with its capital, harbour, and citadel; and which maintained Gustavus IV. in possession of the ancient Duchy of Pomerania, and left to be achieved, at an early period, the junction of Sicily to the kingdom of Murat--the whole being arranged by them, without condescending to ask the advice of Great Britain, which was then the faithful ally of Prussia. This treaty was never ratified by the Emperor Alexander. The other conferences took place between Clarke and Lord Yarmouth, to whom Charles Fox added the Scottish Earl of Lauderdale; while, to assist Clarke, the French government added Jean Baptiste Champagny, the Duc de Cadore, who was only a spectator of the negotiations, which were without result, and are of no consequence to the reader; but Clarke, who had displayed his usual acuteness, tact, and skill in all his meetings with the Lords Yarmouth and Lauderdale, was not a little proud of having prevailed upon M. D'Oubril to sign certain clauses he submitted to him.

Russia, however, was in no haste to evacuate Cattaro, and the Emperor Alexander began to augment his army; so from September, 1806, it became evident that if France declared war against Prussia, she would have to encounter Russia also. In the first meeting concerning these affairs Clarke said, "that the convention recently concluded with Russia was for France equivalent to a victory; and that henceforward his master, the Emperor Napoleon, had the right of proposing articles more advantageous than those he had lately made." He qualified the terms of the treaty which he wished them to adopt, and in particular _l'uti possedetis_; of vague conversations on the politics of Rome, he said that Bonaparte had never adopted this _uti possedetis_ for a basis, without which Moravia, Styria, and Carniola would have remained still in his hands.

Similar language, encumbered by diplomatic technicalities, was applied to the two envoys of Fox, but failed to succeed with them, as they were resolved not to depart in a single instance from the basis of the position taken before by the envoy of Prince Talleyrand. The death of Charles Fox put an end to all the hopes of peace, although Lauderdale and Champagny did not despair of procuring it until the 6th of October; but by this time Clarke had set out for Germany, having accompanied Napoleon to the Prussian campaign. After the two battles of the 14th October, he was named Governor of Erfurt, a fortified city on the Gera, and capital of the Elector of Mentz. It was then crowded with Prussian prisoners, and with sick and wounded Frenchmen.

For having been more in the palaces than in the camps of Bonaparte, and being, moreover, of foreign blood, Clarke was reproached with being more of a diplomatist than a soldier by those who were envious of the favour shown him by the Emperor. While at Erfurt he caused the Saxon grenadiers of Hündt to take arms, and supplied them with ammunition, colours, and several pieces of cannon.

On the 27th Napoleon summoned him to Berlin, and appointed him governor, saying:--

"I wish that in the _same year_ you should have under your orders the capitals of two monarchies we have conquered--Prussia and Austria."

"Thus Clarke, the inevitable Clarke, was appointed Governor of Berlin," says De Bourienne, "and under his administration the wretched inhabitants, who could not flee, were overwhelmed by every species of impost and oppression. As in the execution of every measure there operated the most servile compliance with the orders of Napoleon, so the name of Clarke is held in detestation throughout Prussia."

The measures of Clarke, as Governor of Berlin, were doubtless mortifying, ruinous, and often sanguinary; but then it must be remembered that he was compelled to enforce the iron will, and obey the stern orders, of his inflexible master; though it must be acknowledged that it would have been more noble in him to have softened them to the vanquished Prussians. The military contributions were rigorously levied, and those were not the least of the severities exercised upon the people of Berlin. Offences were uselessly created, and then barbarously judged of by a military commission.

The punishment of the unfortunate Burgomaster of Ciritz is forgotten amid the many barbarous executions of which Prussia became the theatre, and against which her people dared not protest. When the king, Frederick William, found himself seated with Clarke at the table of Louis XVIII. in 1815, he could not refrain from bitterly reproaching Clarke with what he termed "the useless murder of the father of a family."

"Sire," responded Clarke, "it was an unfortunate error."

"An error, monsieur?" reiterated the king, striking his hand upon the table; "an error--it was a crime!"

Withal, it must be acknowledged that Clarke, in the high place he occupied, fulfilled, in every way, the trust reposed in him by Napoleon; and that during his command at Berlin, which occupied a year, he gave ample proof of his inflexible probity; and we may perhaps believe, that many of the accusations made against him were the echoes of those complaints which are naturally raised by the vanquished against the troops of the victor. Doubtless he would have received greater praise had he striven to please others more, and his master less. By the official collections of Schoell, we are informed that Vendomme one day wished to appropriate to himself the magnificent furniture in the palace of Potsdam, where he resided; but that Clarke, by his determined intervention, forced him to relinquish the idea.

Clarke was again named minister of war, _vice_ Marshal Berthier, Duke of Neufchatel and Prince of Wagram. He acquitted himself with great credit during his administration, which was prolonged without interruption for several years; but it was marked by two remarkable episodes--the descent upon Walcheren in 1809, and the conspiracy of Mallet in 1812. But we ought previously to have mentioned that in 1808 Clarke had been ennobled by the title of Count Hunebourg, and in 1809 he was created Duc de Feltre, from a town in Venetian Lombardy.

The descent of the British upon Walcheren took Clarke by surprise; but seconded by Bernadotte and Fouche he collected, in less than five weeks, an army of 100,000 men, near the mouths of the Scheldt, to watch their operations; but the swamps of South Beveland, and the Walcheren fever, proved more deadly to the British troops than the bayonets of France.

When Napoleon was absent on his disastrous Russian campaign, the unfortunate disturbance, or rather wild enterprise of the republican General Mallet, with his compatriots Guidal and Lahoire, placed Paris for some hours in the hands of an armed mob. The coolness and presence of mind exhibited by Clarke during this momentous crisis is above all common praise. Mallet forged an account of Bonaparte's death; and on obtaining twelve hundred men from the 10th cohort of the National Guard, made prisoners M. Pasquer and Savary, the Duke of Rovigo, and assailing General Hullin, Commandant of Paris, in his quarters, shot him through the head by a pistol-ball. Mallet led his party to seize Clarke as minister of war; but the plot was soon discovered, and Mallet was captured and disarmed. This finished his proposed reassertion of the Republic, and fourteen of his followers were put to death, while Clarke ordered the arrest of many others upon very slight suspicions. He then dispatched to Bonaparte a report, which displayed his own vigilance and acuteness in escaping the snare into which General Hullin, Colonel Soulier, Savary, and Pasquer had fallen so easily.

The excessive zeal of Clarke began to relax about the end of 1813, although his language always continued the same; thus, when Napoleon, acting under the pressure of his disasters in Russia, proposed to make a peace, and yield up some of his conquests, the Duc de Feltre, knowing how to touch one of the sensitive chords in his breast, said, "that he would consider the Emperor dishonoured if he consented to abandon the smallest village which had been united to the Empire by a senatorial decree!"

"What a fine thing it is to talk!" added old Bourienne.