At the signing of the treaty of Tilsit Napoleon had attained an eminence which, had his career ended at that time, would have left him a name revered by all the world—except, perhaps, it be by those enemies whom he had defeated on the field of battle. His star of destiny, however, was soon to be dimmed by acts which he ever afterwards regretted, and which, as he himself more than once declared, were the means to the end which finally caused his decline and fall.

Napoleon now turned his attention to Spain, where scenes shocking to morality were being enacted under the protection of Charles IV., the old and imbecile Bourbon king, in order, as he then believed, to insure the success of his "continental system." Ferdinand, the crown prince, had formed a party against his father and was attempting to dethrone him, while murderous courtiers filled the halls of the royal palace of Madrid, and dictated laws to the crumbling monarchy.

The vast extent to which the prohibited articles and colonial manufactures of England found their way into the Spanish peninsula, and especially into Portugal, and thence through the hands of whole legions of audacious smugglers into France itself, had fixed the attention of Napoleon, who was exasperated at the violation of his "Berlin decrees" against the continental traffic with England. In truth, a proclamation issued at Madrid shortly before the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the intelligence of that great victory, had prepared the Emperor to regard with keen suspicion the conduct of the Spanish court, and to trace every violation of his system to its deliberate and hostile connivance. Napoleon knew that the Spanish cabinet, like that of Austria, was ready to declare itself the ally of Russia, Prussia and England, when the battle of Jena came to deceive the hopes of the coalition. The last hour of the ancient regime was at hand beyond the Pyrenees; Napoleon felt himself called upon to give the signal to sound the fearful knell of its interment.

A treaty was ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th of October 1807 between France and Spain, providing for the immediate invasion of Portugal by a force of 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and of 27,000 Spaniards; while a reserve of 40,000 French troops were to be assembled at Bayonne ready to take the field by the end of November, in case England should lend an army for the defense of Portugal, or the people of that country meet Junot by a national insurrection. Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French soldiery were everywhere received with coldness and suspicion, but nowhere by any hostile movement of the people. He arrived in Portugal, on a peremptory order from Napoleon, late in November. The contingent of Spaniards arrived there also, and placed themselves under Junot's command.

On November 29th, and but a few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates of Lisbon, the prince-regent fled precipitately and sailed for the Brazils. The disgust of the Portugese at this cowardly act was eminently useful to the invaders, and with the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the conqueror took down the Portugese arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent tranquility. "The House of the Braganza (Bourbon's), had ceased to reign," as announced in the "Moniteur" at Paris.

Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp; but he had all along considered it as a place of minor importance, and availing himself of the treaty of Fontainebleau,—although there had been no insurrection of the Portugese, he ordered his army of 40,000 men, named in the treaty, to proceed slowly but steadily into the heart of Spain and, without opposition. The royal family quietly acquiesced in this movement for some months, being apparently much more interested in its own petty conspiracies and domestic broils. A sudden panic at length seized the king and his minister, who prepared for flight. On the 18th of March, 1808, the house of Godoy, the court favorite, was sacked by the populace, Godoy himself assaulted, and his life saved with extreme difficulty by the royal guards, who placed him under arrest. At this Charles IV. abdicated his throne in terror, and on the 20th of March Ferdinand his son was proclaimed king at Madrid amid a tumult of popular applause.

Murat had, ere this, assumed command of all the French troops in Spain, and hearing of the extremities to which the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded the capital with 30,000 troops and on the 23rd of March took possession of it in person at the head of 10,000 more. Charles IV., meanwhile, dispatched messengers both to Napoleon and to Murat asserting that his abdication had been involuntary, and invoking their assistance against his son.

Ferdinand entered Madrid on the 24th, found the French general in command of the capital, and in vain claimed his recognition as king. Napoleon heard with regret of the action of Murat, who had risked arousing the pride and anger of the Spaniards. He therefore sent Savary, in whose practiced skill he hoped to find a remedy for the military rashness of Murat, and who was to assume the chief direction of affairs at Madrid.

Ferdinand was at length persuaded by Savary that his best chance of securing the aid and protection of Napoleon lay in meeting him on his way to the Spanish capital and strive to gain his ear before the emissaries of Godoy should be able to make an impression concerning Charles' rights. Ferdinand, therefore, took his departure, and passing the frontier, arrived at Bayonne on the 20th of April where he was received by Napoleon with courtesy. In the evening he was informed by Savary, who had accompanied him, that his doom was sealed,—"that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Spain," and that his personal safety must depend on the readiness with which he should resign all his pretensions into the hands of Napoleon.

Murat was now directed to employ means to have the old king and queen repair also to Bayonne, which they did, arriving there on May 4th. Following a bitter family quarrel, Charles IV. resigned the crown of Spain for himself and his heirs, accepting in return from the hands of Napoleon a safe retreat in Italy and a splendid mansion. At the first interview Charles IV. and his son were irrevocably judged. "When I beheld them at my feet," Napoleon said later, "and could judge of all their incapacity, I took pity on the fate of a great nation; I seized the only opportunity which fortune presented me with, for regenerating Spain, separating her from England and closely uniting her with our system." A few days afterward Ferdinand VII. followed the example of his father and executed a similar act of resignation.

A suspicion that France meditated the destruction of the national independence in Spain now began to spread, and on the 2nd of May when Don Antonio, president of the Council of Regency at Madrid, and uncle of Ferdinand, began preparations for departing from the capital, the inhabitants became much enraged. A crowd collected around the carriage intended, as they concluded, to convey the last of the royal family out of Spain; the traces were cut and imprecations heaped upon the French. Colonel La Grange, Murat's aide-de-camp, happening to appear on the spot, was cruelly maltreated, and in a moment the whole capital was in an uproar. The French soldiery were assaulted everywhere, about seven hundred being slain. The French cavalry, hearing the tumult, entered the city and a bloody massacre ensued. Many hundreds were made prisoners. The troops then charged through the streets from end to end, released their comrades, and ere nightfall had apparently restored tranquility. Murat ordered all the prisoners to be tried by a military commission, which doomed them to instant death.

The reports of the insurrection spread rapidly throughout the peninsula, and in almost every town in Spain depredations were committed against the French citizens, many of the acts being fomented by agents of England, whose navies hung along the coast inflaming the passions of the multitude.

Napoleon received this intelligence with alarm, but he had already gone too far to retreat. He proceeded, therefore, to act precisely as if no insurrection had occurred. Tranquility being re-established in Madrid the Council of Castile was convoked and Napoleon's brother Joseph was chosen by an imperial decree as their ruler. Ninety-five notables met him in Bayonne and swore fealty to him and a new constitution. Joseph on entering Spain was met by many demonstrations of disapproval and hatred, but the main road being occupied with Napoleon's troops, he reached Madrid in safety.

England now became anxious to afford the Spaniards every assistance possible. On the 4th of July the king addressed the English parliament on the subject, declaring that Spain could no longer be considered the enemy of Great Britain, but was recognized by him as a natural friend and ally. Supplies of arms and money were liberally transmitted thither, and Portugal, catching the flame, and bursting into general insurrection, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive was soon concluded between England and the two kingdoms of the peninsula.

It was impossible for Napoleon to concentrate the whole of his gigantic strength of 500,000 men on the soil of Spain, as his relations with those powers on the Continent whom he had not entirely subdued, were of the most unstable character. His troops, moreover, being drawn from a multitude of different countries and tongues, could not be united in heart or discipline like the soldiers of a purely national army. On the other hand the military genius at his command had never been surpassed in any age or country. His officers were accustomed to victory, and his own reputation exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes.

At the moment when the insurrection occurred, 20,000 Spanish troops were in Portugal under the orders of Junot; 15,000 more under the Marquis de Roma were serving Napoleon in Holstein. There remained 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss and 30,000 militia to combat 80,000 French soldiers then in possession of half of the chief fortresses of the country.

After various petty skirmishes, in which the French were uniformly successful, Bessieres came upon the united armies of Castile, Leon and Galicia, commanded by Generals Cuesta and Blak on the 14th of July at Riosecco, and defeated them in a desperate action in which not less than 20,000 Spaniards were killed. This calamitous battle opened the gates of Madrid to the new king, who arrived at the capital on the 20th of the month only to quit it again in less than a fortnight to take up his head quarters at Vittoria to preserve his safety. The English government, meanwhile, had begun its preparations for interfering effectually in the affairs of the peninsula. Thousands of English troops were landed, Dupont, Lefebvre and Junot meeting with reverses that resulted finally in the evacuation of the whole French army from Portugal.

The battle of Baylen was one of the first and most fatal reverses of the French. Here, after a desperate engagement on the 23rd of July, upwards of 18,000 men, under General Dupont, surrendered to the Spaniards, defiled before the Spanish army with the honors of war, and deposited their arms in the manner agreed on by both parties. General Dupont and all the officers concerned in the capitulation, who were permitted to return to France, were arrested and held in prison. Napoleon deeply appreciated the importance of the reverse which his armies had sustained, but he still more bitterly felt the disgrace. It is said that to the latest period of his life he manifested uncontrollable emotion at the mention of this disaster. Subsequently an imperial decree appeared, which prohibited every general, or commander of a body of men, to treat for any capitulation while in the open field; and declared disgraceful and criminal, and as such, punishable with death, every capitulation of that kind, of which the result should be to make the troops lay down their arms.

The catastrophe at Baylen and the valiant defense of Saragossa had in some measure opened the eyes of Napoleon to the character of the nation with whom he was contending. He acknowledged, too late, that he had imprudently entered into war, and committed a great fault in having commenced it with forces too few in number and too wildly scattered. On hearing of the ill-luck of his three generals, he at once perceived that affairs in the peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand than his brother's, and he at once resolved to take the field himself, to cross the Pyrenees in person at the head of a force capable of sweeping the whole peninsula "at one fell swoop," and restore to his brother's reign the auspices of a favorable fortune.

When setting out from Paris in the early part of October, 1808, the Emperor announced that the peasants of Spain had rebelled against their king, that treachery had caused the ruin of one corps of his army, and that another had been forced by the English to evacuate Portugal. Recruiting his armies on the German frontier and in Italy, he now ordered his veteran troops to the amount of 200,000, including a vast and brilliant cavalry and a large body of the Imperial Guards, to be drafted from those frontiers and marched through France towards Spain.

As these warlike columns passed through Paris Napoleon addressed to them one of those orations that never failed to fill them with enthusiasm. "Comrades," said he at a grand review which was held at the Tuileries on the 11th of September, "after triumphing on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula, with rapid steps you have passed through Germany. This day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse France. Soldiers, I have need of you. The hideous presence of the English leopard contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he must fly before you. Let us bear our triumphant eagles to the pillars of Hercules; there also we have injuries to avenge. Soldiers! You have surpassed the renown of modern armies; but you have not yet equalled the glory of those Romans, who, in one and the same campaign were victorious on the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus! A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of your labors. A real Frenchman could not, should not rest, until the seas are free and open to all. Soldiers, what you have done and what you are about to do, for the happiness of the French people, and for my glory, shall be eternal in my heart."

Having thus dismissed his faithful troops, Napoleon himself traveled rapidly to Erfurt, where he had invited the Emperor Alexander to confer with him. Here they addressed a joint letter to the King of England, proposing once more a general peace, but as they both refused to acknowledge any authority in Spain save that of King Joseph, the answer was in the negative. Austria also positively refused to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, and this answer was enough to satisfy Napoleon that she was determined on another campaign.

On the 14th of October the conference at Erfurt terminated, Napoleon sincerely believing himself the friend of Alexander, and little thinking he would one day say of him: "He is a faithless Greek!" Ten days later Napoleon was present at the opening of the legislative session at Paris, where he spoke with confidence of his designs and hopes in regard to Spain. "I depart in a few days to place myself at the head of my troops," he said, "and, with the aid of God, to crown the king of Spain in Madrid, and plant my eagles on the forts of Lisbon."

Two days later he left the capital and reached Bayonne on the 3rd of November, where he remained directing the movements of the last columns of his army until the morning of the 8th. He arrived at Vittoria, the headquarters of his brother Joseph, on the same evening. At the gates of the town he was met by the civil and military authorities, where sumptuous preparations had been provided, but instead of accepting their hospitality, entered the first inn he observed, and calling for maps and a detailed report of the position of all the armies, French and Spanish, proceeded instantly to draw up his plan for the prosecution of the war. Within two hours he had completed his task. Soult, who had accompanied him from Paris, set off on the instant, and within a few hours the whole machinery of the army, comprising 200,000 men, was in motion.

Ere long Napoleon saw the main way to Madrid open before him, except some forces said to be posted at the strong defile of the Somosierra, within ten miles of the capital. Saragossa on the east, the British army in Portugal on the west, and Madrid in front were the only far-separated points on which any show of opposition was still to be traced from the frontiers of France to those of Portugal, and from the sea cost to the Tagus.

Having regulated everything on his wings and rear, the Emperor with his Imperial Guards and the first division of the army, now marched towards Madrid, his vanguard reaching the foot of the Somosierra chain on the 30th of November. Here he found that a corps of 12,000 or 13,000 men had been assembled for the defense of that pass under General San Juan, an able and valiant officer who had established an advance guard of 3,000 men at the very foot of the slope which the French would have to ascend, and then distributed over 9,000 men at the pass of Somosierra, at the bottom of the gorge; there the advancing army would be obliged to go through. One part of San Juan's force, posted on the right and left of the road, which formed numerous windings, was to stop the advance of the French by a double fire of musketry. The others barred the causeway itself, near the most difficult part of the pass, with the battery. The defile was narrow and excessively steep, and the road completely swept by sixteen pieces of cannon.

At daybreak on the 1st of December the French began their attempts to turn the flank of San Juan, who imagined himself invincible in his position. Three battalions scattered themselves over the opposite sides of the defile and a warm skirmishing fire had begun. At this moment Napoleon came up, at the head of the cavalry of his Guard rode into the mouth of the pass, surveyed the scene for an instant, and perceiving that his infantry was making no progress, at once conceived the daring idea of causing his brave Polish lancers to charge up the causeway in face of the battery.

The Emperor had stopped near the foot of the mountain and attentively examined the enemy's position, the fire from which seemed to redouble, many balls falling near him, or passing over his head. Colonel PirÉ was first dispatched at the head of the Poles and having reconnoitred the position, countermanded the advance, and sent an officer to notify Napoleon "that the undertaking was impossible." Upon this information the Emperor much irritated and striking the pommel of his saddle exclaimed, "Impossible! Why, there is nothing impossible to my Poles."

General Wattier, who was present endeavored to calm him but he still continued to exclaim, "Impossible! I know of no such word. What, my Guard checked by the Spaniards,—by armed peasants?" At this moment the balls began to whistle about him and several officers came forward and persuaded him to withdraw. Among these Napoleon observed Major Philip SÉgur; to him he said, "Go, SÉgur, take the Poles, and make them take the Spaniards, or let the Spaniards take them."

Colonel PirÉ, having informed Kozietulski, commander of the Polish troops, of what the Emperor had said, that officer replied, "Come then alone with me, and see if the devil himself, made of fire as he is, would undertake this business."

Advancing, they saw 13,000 Spaniards placed as if in an amphitheatre in such a way that no one battalion was masked by another, and they could only join in columns. From that point the Poles had to sustain forty thousand discharges of musketry and as many of cannon, every minute. However, the order was positive.

"Commandant," said SÉgur, "let us go, it is the Emperor's wish; the honors will be ours; Poles advance. Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon wished to teach his soldiers that with the Spaniards they must not consider danger, but drive them wherever found.

The smoke of the skirmishers on the side hills mingled with the thick fog and vapors of the morning, and under this veil the brave cavalry of the Guard led the way fearlessly and rushed up the ascent. A brilliant cavalry officer, General Montbrun, at this time somewhat out of favor with the Emperor, advanced at the head of the Polish light horse, a young troop of elite which Napoleon had formed at Warsaw that he might have all nations and costumes in his Guard. General Montbrun with those gallant young soldiers dashed at a gallop upon the cannon of the Spaniards, and in defiance of a horrible fire of musketry. The first squadron received a discharge which threw it into disorder, sweeping down thirty or forty men in the ranks; but those that followed, passing beyond the wounded, reached the pieces, cut down the gunners and took all the cannon.

As the rushing steeds passed the Spanish infantry the latter fired and then threw down their guns, abandoned their intrenchments and fled. The brave San Juan, covered with blood, having received several wounds, strove in vain to stop his soldiers, who fled to the right and to the left in the mountains, leaving colors, artillery, 200 wagons with stores and almost all the officers in the hands of the victors. By the time the Emperor reached the top not only was the French flag found floating over Buitrago, but Montbrun's cavalry was pursuing the routed Spanish a league beyond the town.

Napoleon was delighted to have proved to his generals what the Spanish insurgents were, what his soldiers were, and in what estimation both were to be held, and to have overcome an obstacle which some had seemed to think extremely formidable. The Poles had about fifty men killed or wounded. That evening Napoleon complimented and rewarded the survivors and included in the distribution of his favors M. Philippe de SÉgur who had received several shot wounds in this charge; he also destined him to carry to the Legislative Body at Paris the colors taken at Somosierra and appointed Montbrun general of division.

On the morning of the 2nd three divisions of French cavalry made their appearance on the high ground to the north-west of the capital. The inhabitants of Madrid for eight days had been preparing to resist an invasion. Six thousand regular troops were within the town, and crowds of citizens and of the peasantry of the adjacent country were in arms with them. The pavement had been taken up, the streets barricaded, the houses on the outskirts loop-holed and occupied by a strong garrison. Many persons, suspected of adhering to the side of the French, were put to death, and amid the ringing of the bells of churches and convents, a general uprising for all means of defense was in operation when the French cavalry appeared.

The day was the anniversary of Napoleon's coronation and of the battle of Austerlitz, and for the Emperor as well as his soldiers a superstition was attached to that memorable date. The fine cavalry, on beholding its glorious chief, raised unanimous acclamations, which mingled with the shouts of rage sent up by the Spaniards on seeing the French at their portals.

At noon the town was summoned to open its gates. The young officer carrying the message barely escaped with his life, the mob being determined to massacre him. Only the interference of the Spanish regulars saved his life by snatching him out of the hands of the assassins. The Junta directed a Spanish general to convey a negative answer to the summons of the French. When sent back he was assured that firing would commence immediately, although told that in resisting they would only expose a population of women, and children and old men to the slaughter, and was informed that the city could not hold out long against the French army.

Napoleon waited until his artillery and infantry came up in the evening and then the place was invested on one side. The Emperor made a reconnaissance himself on horseback around Madrid and formed the plan of attack which might be divided into several successive acts, so as to summon the place after each of them, and to reduce it rather by intimidation than by the employment of formidable military means.

At midnight the city was again summoned and the answer still being defiant, the batteries began to open. Terror now began to prevail within, and shortly afterward the city was summoned for the third time. Thomas de Morla, the governor, came to demand a suspension of arms. He said that all sensible men in Madrid were convinced of the necessity of surrendering; but that it was necessary to make the French troops retire and allow the Junta time to pacify the people and to induce them to lay down their arms.

Napoleon replied with some show of anger that Morla himself had excited and misled the people: "Assemble the clergy, the heads of the convents, the alcaldes, the principal proprietors," he said "and if between this and six in the morning the city has not surrendered it shall have ceased to exist. I neither will nor ought to withdraw my troops.... Return to Madrid. I give you till six tomorrow morning. Go back, then; you have nothing to say to me about the people but to tell me that they have submitted. If not, you and your troops shall be put to the sword."

Morla returned to the town and urged the necessity of instantly capitulating, to which all the authorities but Costellas, the commander of the regular troops agreed. The peasantry and citizens continued firing on the French outposts during the night and then Costellas, seeing that further resistance was useless, withdrew his troops and sixteen cannon in safety.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 4th Madrid surrendered. The Spaniards were at once disarmed and the French troops filled the town and established themselves in the great buildings. Napoleon took up his residence in a country house near the capital. He gave orders for a general and immediate disarming, and tranquility was once more restored, the shops and theatres being opened as usual.

Napoleon now exercised all the rights of a conqueror and issued edicts abolishing, among other evils, the Inquisition of the Jesuits, as well as the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages. He received a deputation of the chief inhabitants who came to signify their desire to see his brother Joseph among them again. His answer was that Spain was his own by right of conquest; that he could easily rule it by viceroys; but if they chose to assemble in their churches, priests and people, and swear allegiance to Joseph, he was not indisposed to listen to their request. He distinctly affirmed that he would, in case they proved disloyal, put the crown upon his own head, treat the country as a conquered province and find another kingdom for his brother: "for" added he, "God has given me both the inclination and the power to surmount all obstacles."

Meanwhile Napoleon was making arrangements for the completion of his conquest. His plan was to invade Andalusia, Valencia and Galicia by his lieutenants, and march in person to Lisbon.

On learning on December 19th that the English army under Sir John Moore, amounting to 20,000, men, had put itself in motion, had advanced into Spain and left Salamanca to proceed to Valladolid; that a separate British corps of 13,000 men under Sir David Baird had recently landed at Corunna with orders to march through Galicia and effect a junction with Moore, either at Salamanca or Valladolid, Napoleon resolved to advance in person and overwhelm Moore. His resolution was instantly taken with that promptness of decision and unerring judgment which never forsook him. He instantly put himself at the head of 50,000 men and marched with incredible rapidity, with the view of intercepting Moore's communications with Portugal, and in short hemming the English commander in between himself and Soult.

Moore no sooner heard that Napoleon was approaching than he perceived the necessity of an immediate retreat; and he commenced, accordingly, a most calamitous one through the naked mountains of Galicia, in which his troops displayed a most lamentable want of discipline. They ill-treated the inhabitants, straggled from their ranks, and in short lost the appearance of an army except when the trumpet warned them that they might expect the French to charge.

Leaving Chamartin on the morning of the 22nd of December Napoleon arrived at the foot of the Guadarrama as the infantry of his Guard was beginning to ascend it. The weather, which till then had been superb, had suddenly become terrible, and at the very moment when forced marches were to be performed, as it was necessary that they lose no time in coming up with the English.

Napoleon, seeing the infantry of his Guard accumulating at the entrance of the gorge, in which the gun-carriages were also crowded together, spurred his horse into a gallop, and gained the head of the column which he found detained by the hurricane. The peasants declared that it was impossible to pass without being exposed to the greatest dangers. This, however, was not sufficient to stop the conqueror of the Alps. He made the chasseurs of his Guard dismount, and ordered them to advance first in close column, conducted by guides. These bold fellows, marching at the head of the army, and trampling down the snow with their own feet and those of their horses, formed a beaten track for the troops who followed.

The Emperor himself climbed the mountain on foot, amidst the chasseurs of his Guard, merely leaning, when he felt fatigued, on the arm of General Savary. The cold, which was as severe as at Eylau, did not prevent him from crossing the Guadarrama. General Marbot, who accompanied Napoleon on the journey, says in his "Memoirs": "A furious snowstorm, with a fierce wind, made the passage of the mountains almost impracticable. Men and horses were hurled over precipices. The leading battalions had actually begun to retreat; but Napoleon was resolved to overtake the English at all cost. He spoke to the men, and ordered that the members of each section should hold one another by the arm. The cavalry, dismounting, did the same. The staff was formed in similar fashion, the Emperor between Lannes and Duroc, we following with locked arms; and so, in spite of wind, snow and ice, we proceeded, though it took us four hours to reach the top. Half way up the marshals and generals, who wore jackboots, could go no farther. Napoleon, therefore, got hoisted on to a gun, and bestrode it; the marshals and generals did the same, and in this grotesque order they reached the convent at the summit. There the troops were rested and wine served out. The descent though awkward, was better."

Napoleon spent the night in a miserable post-house in the little village of Espinar. On the mules laden with his baggage had been brought the wherewithal to serve him with supper, and which he shared with his officers, cheerfully conversing with them on that series of extraordinary adventures which had commenced at the school of Brienne—to end, he knew not where!

Next day the Emperor proceeded with his Guard; but the infantry advanced with difficulty and the artillery could not stir owing to the frightful quagmires. The stragglers and baggage came up slowly while Napoleon, anxious to meet the fleeing English troops, pushed on with his advance guard and with his chasseurs until Benevento was reached. Here he came up with his own troops in pursuit of Moore at Benevento, on the 29th of December, and enjoyed for a moment, from his headquarters established there, the spectacle of the English army in full retreat.

The French columns seemed to rival each other in their efforts to overtake the enemy. In their precipitation the English abandoned their sick, hamstrung their horses, when unable to keep up with them, and destroyed the greater part of their ammunition and baggage.

Marshal Soult, who had taken another road, was much nearer the enemy. His orders to follow the English intermission were difficult of accomplishing as the mud was deep and the soldiers sank up to their knees.

Napoleon now decided that Moore was no longer worthy of his own attention and intrusted the consummation of his ruin to Soult, who was ordered to pursue the English to the last extremity, and "with his sword at their loins." He therefore set out at once, his troops marching past the Emperor.

Soult hung close on the rear of the English; he came up with them in the mountains of Leon and continued to pursue them until they reached the port of Corunna. Here Moore perceived that it would be impossible to embark without a convention or battle and he chose the latter. The attack was made by the French on the 16th of January in heavy columns and with their usual vivacity; but it was sustained and repelled by the English and they were permitted to embark without further molestation. Sir John Moore fell in the action mortally wounded by a cannon shot. His body was wrapped in a military cloak, instead of the usual vestments of the tomb, and deposited in a grave hastily dug on the ramparts of the citadel of Corunna, while the guns of the enemy paid him funeral honors. The next morning the grenadiers of France, who had been struck with admiration at the chivalry of the English commander, gathered reverently around the new-made grave, and while the English fleet was yet visible on the bosom of the Mediterranean, they erected a monument over his body and placed thereon an appropriate inscription.

Napoleon, having been informed of the embarkation of the English army, instead of returning to Madrid to complete his Spanish conquest, proceeded at once towards Astorga where his fears with reference to Austria were heightened by news from Paris by courier. The storm that was gathering once more along the shores of the Danube was of more vital consequence to France than the kingdom of Joseph Bonaparte. On his arrival at Astorga he changed all his plans. "It was late at night when the Emperor and Lannes, escorted only by their staffs, and some hundred cavalry, entered Astorga," says General Marbot. "So tired and anxious for shelter and warmth was everyone that the place was scarcely searched. If the enemy had had warning of this, and returned on their tracks, they might perhaps have carried off the Emperor; fortunately they were in too great a hurry, and we did not find one of them in the town. Every minute fresh bodies of French troops were coming up and the safety of the Imperial headquarters was soon secured."

Proceeding to Valladolid with his Guard, which he wished to keep as near to events in Germany as himself, after placing Joseph on the throne at Madrid again, he soon afterwards hastened to Paris with all speed, riding on post horses on one occasion not less than eighty-five miles in five and one-half hours. He had traversed Spain with the rapidity of lightning, followed by his Guard, to the spot where new dangers and triumphs awaited him. He left behind a feeble king, equally as incapable of keeping as obtaining a conquest; and marshals who, no longer restrained by the presence of an inflexible chief, for the most part delivered themselves over to their own self-love or private jealousies.

In his "Memorial" written in exile at St. Helena, Napoleon said "that the war of Spain destroyed him, and that all the circumstances of his disasters connect themselves with this fatal knot." "In the crisis France was placed in," he said at another time, "in the struggle of new ideas in the great cause of the age against the rest of Europe, we could not leave Spain behind."