The Emperor Francis did not attempt to defend[506] his capitalthat capital which had twice repelled all the efforts of the Turksbut fled into Moravia, to join his Russian ally, the Czar Alexander, who was there at the head of his army. On the 7th of November Francis took his departure, and on the 13th of November Napoleon entered Vienna without any opposition. Whilst Napoleon remained there he continued to receive the most cheering accounts of the success of his arms in Italy against the Austrians. There, Massena, on hearing of the capitulation of Ulm, made a general attack on the army of the Archduke Charles, near Caldiero. The French were victorious, and were soon joined by General St. Cyr, from Naples, with twenty-five thousand men. At the moment of this defeat, the Archduke received the news of the fall of Ulm, and the march of the French on Vienna. He determined, therefore, to leave Italy to its fate. He commenced his retreat in the night of November 1st, and resolved to make for Hungary.At Vereiva, where Buonaparte halted on the 27th of October, Mortier arrived from Moscow, having blown up the Kremlin with gunpowder, and with it a crowd of Russians who had rushed in at the moment of his evacuation. Mortier on his march had also surprised and captured General Winzengerode. From this place Buonaparte issued a bulletin, announcing that not only Moscow but the Kremlin was destroyed; that the two hundred thousand inhabitants of Moscow were wandering in the woods existing on roots; and that the French army was advancing towards St. Petersburg with every means of success. Such was the audacity of lying by which he hoped to conceal the truth from Paris. At this moment he was exasperated almost to frenzy by his prospects, and since the defeat of Maloi-Jaroslavitz he had been gloomy and unapproachable from the violence of his temper. On the march the army passed with horror the field of Borodino. "The ground," says Segur, "was covered with fragments of helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms, and standards steeped in blood. On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half devoured corpses. A number of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the whole. It seemed as if here death had fixed his empire. The cry, 'It is the field of the great battle!' found a long and doleful murmur. Napoleon passed quickly; no one stopped; cold, hunger, and the enemy urged us on. We merely turned our faces as we proceeded to take a last melancholy look at our late companions in arms."The Irish delegates described the condition of Ireland as most deplorable. They said that the Government interest, through the landed aristocracy, was omnipotent; that the manufacturers were unemployed; that an infamous coalition had taken place between the Irish Opposition and Ministry; that the Catholics had been bought up so that all parties might combine to crush Reform; that the United Irishmen were everywhere persecuted, and that one of them had only just escaped from a six months' imprisonment.
FRANKFORT. (From a Photograph by Frith & Co., Reigate.)Next morning Mr. Denman spoke nearly two hours for the queen, strongly maintaining her right of recrimination against the king, who, when seeking for a divorce, should come into court with clean hands. He commented on the several clauses of the Bill as he went along. He said the person who framed it had worked himself up into an ebullition of moral zeal, and used expressions for the full support of which the bribes and schemes of the prosecutors would produce witnesses. Referring to a former investigation, he called the attention of the House to the letter of Mrs. Lisle, in 1806, when flirting and familiarity were the worst things alleged against her Royal Highness. On the subject of familiarity he referred to a note addressed by a waiter to the Prince of Wales"Sam, of the Cocoanut Coffeehouse, presents his compliments to his Royal Highness, and begs" so and so. That illustrious person remarked, "This is very well to us, but it won't do for him to speak so to Norfolk and Arundel." He concluded by apologising to the queen for putting even the hypothesis of her guilt, which he never could believe would be established; and whatever might be enacted by means of suborned perjury or foul conspiracy, he never would pay to any one who might usurp her situation the respect to which the laws of God and man entitled her alone.The king now thought of placing Fox at the head of a new administration; but when Fox asked Pitt to join, he refused, and the king was obliged to send for Pitt, much as he hated him. Pitt replied that he was laid up with the gouta complaint which troubled him, but which he frequently found it convenient to assume. George then prevailed upon the Duke of Devonshire, a man of no commanding ability, and averse from office, but of the highest integrity of character, to accept the post of First Lord of the Treasury, and to form a Cabinet. Though the friend of Fox, he felt that statesman to be too unpopular for a colleague, and offered Pitt the seals of Secretary of State, which he accepted; Legge was re-appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; Pitt's brother-in-law, Lord Temple, First Lord of the Admiralty; Temple's brother, George Grenville, Treasurer of the Navy; another brother, James Grenville, again was seated at the Treasury Board; Lord Holderness was the second Secretary of State, to oblige the king; Willes, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; the Duke of Bedford was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, it was said by Fox's suggestion, as a thorn in the flesh to Pitt, and, as Horace Walpole sarcastically remarked, Pitt had not Grenville cousins enough to fill the whole Administration; Charles Townshend was made Treasurer of the Chamber, though his talents and eloquence, in which he excited Pitt's jealousy, deserved a much higher office.Meanwhile these disturbances elsewhere were having a disastrous effect upon the fortunes of the war in Lombardy. At first, indeed, everything pointed to the success of the Italian cause. In May Peschiera fell, and Radetzky, venturing beyond the Quadrilateral, was defeated by Charles Albert at Goito. Already the Italians had rejected the help which Lamartine offered them from France, and Austria in despair appealed to Lord Palmerston for the mediation of Britain. Well would it have been for the Italians if terms could have been arranged. Lord Palmerston, indeed, who had already sent off a private note to the British Minister at Vienna, advising the Austrians to give up their Italian possessions at once, now consented to propose an armistice, while asserting that "things had gone too far to admit of any future connection between Austria and the Italians." But nothing came of the proposal; the Sardinians declined to consent to the armistice, which would only be for the benefit of Radetzky, who was at this moment somewhat hardly pressed; and the maximum of the concessions offered by the Austrian envoy, Baron Hummelauer, was that Lombardy should be freed from its connection with Austria while Venice should be retained. Palmerston considered the surrender insufficient, and the war went on.The new Ministry consisted of Addington, son of Chatham's old physician, Dr. Addington, as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer: the Duke of Portland, President of the Council; Lord Eldon, Chancellor; Earl St. Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty; the Earl of Chatham, Master-General of the Ordnance; Lord Pelham, Secretary of the Home Department; Lord Hawkesbury, the eldest son of the Earl of Liverpool, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Lord Hobart, Secretary for the Colonies. Several of Pitt's Ministers remained, but the important members, Grenville, Dundas, Woodham and Spencer retired with him. It was soon seen, however, that though Pitt was out of office his principles dominated in it, and that there was no chance of a change of system. The Cabinet was one of mediocrities, and was probably regarded by Pitt as a convenient makeshift until he could return to power.[480]
