to furnish a battalion.  Blacks from San Domingo served in Naples, while sixteen nations, like so many chained dogs, advanced into Russia.  Such troops could not have the spirit of a homogeneous army.

Already, in 1808, Metternich had written from Paris to his Court, “It is no longer the nation that fights:  the present war (Spain) is Napoleon’s war; it is not even that of his army.”  But Napoleon himself was aware of the danger of the Empire from its own extent.  In the silence of his cabinet his secretary Meneval sometimes heard him murmur, “L’arc est trop longtemps tendu."]—­

by new customs, new manners, and new laws, imposed by force, and forming a heterogeneous whole, which could not fail to dissolve, as soon as the influence of the power which had created it should cease to operate.  Such was the state of Italy that I have been informed by an individual worthy of credit that if the army of Prince Eugene, instead of being victorious, had been beaten on the Piava, a deeply-organised revolution would have broken out in Piedmont, and even in the Kingdom of Italy, where, nevertheless, the majority of the people fully appreciated the excellent qualities of Eugene.  I have been also credibly informed that lists were in readiness designating those of the French who were to be put to death, as well as those by whom the severe orders of the Imperial Government had been mitigated, and who were only to be banished.  In fact, revolt was as natural to the Italians as submission to the Germans, and as the fury of despair to the Spanish nation.  On this subject I may cite an observation contained in one of the works of Alfieri, published fifteen years before the Spanish war.  Taking a cursory view of the different European nations he regarded—­the Spaniards as the only people possessed of “sufficient energy to struggle against foreign usurpation.”  Had I still been near the person of Napoleon I would most assuredly have resorted to an innocent artifice, which I had several times employed, and placed the work of Alfieri on his table open at the page I wished him to read.  Alfieri’s opinion of the Spanish people was in the end fully verified; and I confess I cannot think without shuddering of the torrents of blood which inundated the Peninsula; and for what?  To make Joseph Bonaparte a King!

The commencement of 1811 was sufficiently favourable to the French arms in Spain, but towards the beginning of March the aspect of affairs changed.  The Duke of Belluno, notwithstanding the valour of his troops, was unsuccessful at Chiclana; and from that day the French army could not make head against the combined forces of England and Portugal.  Even Massena, notwithstanding the title of Prince of Eslingen (or Essling), which he had won under the walls of Vienna, was no longer “the favourite child of victory” as he had been at Zurich.