authority.  I sent back the diamonds, but kept the portrait.  Knowing Bonaparte’s distrustful disposition, I thought he must have suspected that Jerome had employed threats, or at any rate, that he had used some illegal influence to facilitate the success of his loan.  At last, after much correspondence, Napoleon saw clearly that everything was perfectly regular; in a word, that the business had been transacted as between two private persons.  As to the 300,000 francs which the Senate had lent to Jerome, the fact is, that but little scruple was made about it, for this simple reason, that it was the means of removing from Hamburg the Westphalian division, whose presence occasioned a much greater expense than the loan.

CHAPTER XX.

1809.

Visit to the field of Wagram.—­Marshal Macdonald—­Union of the Papal States with the Empire—­The battle of Talavera—­Sir Arthur Wellesley—­English expedition to Holland—­Attempt to assassinate the Emperor at Schoenbrunn—­Staps Interrogated by Napoleon—­Pardon offered and rejected—­Fanaticism and patriotism—­Corvisart’s examination of Staps—­Second interrogatory—­Tirade against the illuminati—­Accusation of the Courts of Berlin and Weimar—­Firmness and resignation of Staps—­Particulars respecting his death—­ Influence of the attempt of Staps on the conclusion of peace—­ M. de Champagny.

Napoleon went to inspect all the corps of his army and the field of Wagram, which a short time before had been the scene of one of those great battles in which victory was the more glorious in proportion as it had been valiantly contested.

—­[The great battle of Wagram was fought on the 6th of July 1809.  The Austrians, who committed a mistake in over-extending their line, lost 20,000 men as prisoners, besides a large number in killed and wounded.  There was no day, perhaps, on which Napoleon showed more military genius or more personal courage.  He was in the hottest of the fight, and for a long time exposed to showers of grapeshot.- Editor of 1836 edition.]—­

On that day [the type] of French honour, Macdonald, who, after achieving a succession of prodigies, led the army of Italy into the heart of the Austrian States, was made a marshal on the field of battle.  Napoleon said to him, “With us it is for life and for death.”  The general opinion was that the elevation of Macdonald added less to the marshal’s military reputation than it redounded to the honour of the Emperor.  Five days after the bombardment of Vienna, namely, on the 17th of May, the Emperor had published a decree, by virtue of which the Papal States were united to the French Empire, and Rome was declared an Imperial City.  I will not stop to inquire whether this was good or bad in point of policy, but it was a mean usurpation on the part of Napoleon, for the time was passed when a Julius ii. laid down the keys of St. Peter and took up the sword of St. Paul.  It was, besides, an injustice, and, considering the Pope’s condescension to Napoleon, an act of ingratitude.  The decree of union did not deprive the Pope of his residence, but he was only the First Bishop of Christendom, with a revenue of 2,000,000.