have no counsel to take from any one, and take none except from God and my sword." Having once given scope to his passion, he broke out into bitter complaints against the Austrians, and declared his intention of retiring into winter-quarters. All attempts of the Archduke to make him change his resolution were unavailing. Suwaroff proposed to establish his headquarters at Augsburg, and his Imperial Highness was inconsiderate enough to remonstrate against the choice of that particular place, as it interfered with the Austrian line of communication. “Would it be more agreeable," replied the old marshal, "that I should retire into Bohemia?" Writing to the Archduke on the 1st of November, he says, "In your letter of the 30th ult. you make use, in regard to me, of the word 'retreat:' against this I beg to protest, having never in the whole course of my life known that word or 'defensive war;' which cost us 10,000 men in the Tyrol at the opening of the campaign—a greater loss than we sustained during the whole course of it in Italy."

As long as wars are carried on by men of mere earthly mould, influenced by human feelings and passions, so long must a knowledge of human character form the first requisite of an officer; and yet it is nearly the last attended to in all ranks; and the extreme want of tact and judgment displayed by the Archduke Charles and the Austrian Cabinet in their intercourse with Suwaroff, must detract greatly from their claims to fitness for the high situations which they filled.

In the first instance the Russian army only fell back to Augsburg; but the representations of Suwaroff, the Grandduke Constantine, and other officers, had been so unfavourable to the Austrian Government, that the Emperor Paul recalled the troops, and renounced the alliance. The Emperor Francis, with whom Suwaroff had always corresponded in the most friendly terms, as well as the Archduke Charles, used every effort to detain the field-marshal;

but in vain. All they could obtain was a promise that he would wait for further orders at Prague, and return to the field if commanded. As no such orders arrived, he proceeded on his march, and led the army back into Russia. That he had great reason to complain of the Austrian Government is certain; but this sudden abandonment of the cause, which he and his sovereign looked upon as an honourable one, and in support of which he had performed so many brilliant actions,—the unexpected forsaking of an ally, called to the field by Russian promises, seems hardly to admit of any defence: for in his high station it was a crime to allow personal anger to influence public conduct. His march through Switzerland was one of victory rather than of defeat; and such even the result would have proved, if, with the conviction of having performed great actions, and with the consciousness of being equal almost to the greatest, he had not allowed a hatred of the Austrians to spring up in his breast, and smother all the better feelings of his nature. By yielding to unworthy resentment, he excluded himself from the brilliant career allotted to him; exchanged the noble part he was called upon to act in directing the efforts of civilised nations, for that of a mere Tartar khan, who, in a moment of barbaric rage, calls out to horse, and gallops back to his deserts, followed by the whole of his savage horde.

Suwaroff had been invited to Petersburg, where he was to be received with triumphal honours; but he was taken ill on the road, and confined to bed for several weeks at Kotryn. During this time his enemies contrived to excite the displeasure of the weak-minded Paul against him. In the course of the campaign Suwaroff had occasionally neglected some of those points of military etiquette on which little minds place such great value, and the Emperor issued an order, which he caused to be read at the head of every regiment, and which was to the effect that "the general-in-chief, Prince Italinsky, deserved the utmost

censure for having disobeyed the orders of the Emperor." The blow struck the old man severely, and again threw him back on his bed of sickness, and he was often heard to exclaim that he had lived too long. He recovered sufficiently, however, to proceed to Petersburg, which he only entered after dusk; and though received by the guard with military honours, he went immediately to the house of a relative in a retired part of the town, where none of his friends were allowed to visit him. This mark of imperial displeasure, together with the grief occasioned by seeing himself totally abandoned by the world in the hour of affliction, pressed heavily upon him, and he declined rapidly. The Emperor relented indeed, at last; but it was too late: exhausted by toil, suffering, sorrow, and anxiety, the old man breathed his last on the 18th of May 1800, in the seventy-first year of his age.

VII.

MARSHAL MASSEN A.

THE memoirs of one of Napoleon's marshals, of one of those successful soldiers who so long acted domineering parts over the fairest portions of Continental Europe, could hardly fail, if written in an honest and truthful spirit, to prove both instructive and interesting. Such a work would be of the greatest value to the future historian, would unveil the obscurity that still conceals the source of so many dark and dubious actions, and would enable us to discover bright and brilliant truth beneath the false guise so often cast over it by party zeal, national vanity, and selfish egotism. But desirable as such a book would be, we have not yet, even in these book-making days, been so fortunate as to obtain one. The Memoirs of Marshal St Cyr' are ably and forcibly written, and have in many respects great merit; but do not take that comprehensive view of the general state of affairs of the directing spirit of the time, that in our estimation should be possessed by the work for which we are pleading. The 'Memoirs of Marshal Ney,' Recollections of Caulaincourt,' and other works of the same class, manufactured, fabricated rather, by Parisian book-makers, are of course totally undeserving of notice. Nor can the book which has given rise to

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these remarks* claim any particular share of praise, superior as it certainly is to the mass of fabricated memoirs. Written by an officer who deservedly acquired a fair rank in literature, founded on documents furnished by Massena's family, and which the Marshal had himself prepared for his future biography, having everywhere access to the best information, and writing of times and events deeply interesting to all who take an interest in history, General Koch certainly had it in his power to give us a work both instructive and interesting; instead of which, he has only given us seven as dry and barren volumes as could possibly be furnished with these advantages. The author, though not one of the most extravagant Bonapartists, writes completely in the spirit of the Bonaparte age, sees everything through its medium, and estimates skill, courage, honour, patriotism, not according to the standard by which these virtues have been measured in the ordinary world, but according as they fit into "le système de l'Empereur." And we should certainly have left the book to the exclusive admiration of our neighbours, had not the career of Massena been connected with some of the most important events of our military history.

André Massena was born at Nice on the 6th of May 1758. His father was a tanner; and as he lost this parent in early life, his education was greatly neglected. One of his relations, however, commanded a trading vessel, and the ardent spirit of the boy led him, when very young, to join his kinsman's crew. As a sailor he made two voyages up the Mediterranean, and one to French Guiana, and then forsaking the sea-to which it is probable, however, that he owed some of that daring and energetic activity which constituted the best trait of the brightest period of his

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* Mémoires de Massena, redigés d'après les Documents qu'il a laissés et sur ceux du Dépot de la Guerre, et du Dépot des Fortifications.' Par le Général Koch. 7 volumes, 8vo. Paris, 1848.