A Conspiracy of the Carbonari

Conspiracy of the Carbonari, A

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Title: A Conspiracy of the Carbonari
Author: Louise Mühlbach
Translator: Mary J. Safford
Release Date: July 30, 2005 [EBook #16396]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARI ***

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A CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARI
BY
LOUISE MÜHLBACH,
_Author of "Berlin and Sans Souci," "Frederick the Great and His

Family," etc., etc._
TRANSLATED BY
MARY J. SAFFORD.
F. TENNYSON NEELY, 114 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 1896.
COPYRIGHT, 1896
BY F. TENNYSON NEELY
Transcriber's note: Minor typos in text corrected, and footnotes moved
to end of text.

A CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARI.
CHAPTER I.
AFTER ESSLINGEN.
It was the evening of the 22d of May, 1809, the fatal day inscribed in
blood-stained letters upon the pages of history, the day which brought
to Napoleon the first dimming of his star of good fortune, to Germany,
and especially to Austria, the first ray of dawn after the long and
gloomy night.
After so many victories and triumphs; after the battles of Tilsit,
Austerlitz, and Jena, the humiliation of all Germany, the triumphal days
of Erfurt, when the great imperial actor saw before him a whole
"parterre of kings;" after a career of victory which endured ten years,
Napoleon on the 22d of May, 1809, had sustained his first defeat, lost
his first battle. True, he had made this victory cost dearly enough.
There had been two days of blood and carnage ere the conflict was
decided, but now, at the close of these two terrible days, the fact could
no longer be denied: the Austrians, under the command of the
Archduke Charles, had vanquished the French at Aspern, though they

were led by Napoleon himself.
Terrible indeed had been those two days of the battle of Aspern or
Esslingen. The infuriated foes hurled death to and fro from the mouths
of more than four hundred cannon. The earth shook with the thunder of
their artillery, the stamping of their steeds; the air resounded with the
shouts of the combatants, who assailed each other with the fury of rage
and hate, fearing not death, but defeat; scorning life if it must be owed
to the conqueror's mercy, neither giving nor taking quarter, and in
dying, praying not for their own souls, but for the defeat and
humiliation of the enemy!
Never since those years of battle between France and Austria has the
fighting been characterized by such animosity, such fierce fury on both
sides. Austria was struggling to avenge Austerlitz, France not to permit
the renown of that day to be darkened.
"We will conquer or die!" was the shout with which the Austrians, for
the twenty-first time, had begun the battle against the enemy, who
pressed forward across three bridges from the island of Lobau in the
middle of the Danube, and whom the Austrians hated doubly that day,
because another painful wound had been dealt by the occupation of
their capital--beautiful, beloved Vienna--the expulsion of the emperor
and his family, and the possession of the German city.
Thus conquest to the Austrians meant also the release of Vienna from
the mastery of the foe, the opening the way to his capital to the
Emperor Francis, who had fled to Hungary.
If the French were vanquished, it meant the confession to the world that
the star of Napoleon's good fortune was paling; that he, too, was merely
a mortal who must bow to the will of a higher power; it meant
destroying the faith of the proud, victorious French army in its own
invincibility.
These were the reasons which rendered the battle so furious, so
bloodthirsty on both sides; which led the combatants to rend each other
with actual pleasure, with exulting rage. Each yawning wound was

hailed with a shout of joy by the person who inflicted it; each man who
fell dying heard, instead of the gentle lament of pity, the sigh of
sympathy, the jeering laugh, the glad, victorious shout of the pitiless
foe.
Then Austrian generals, eagerly encouraging their men by their own
example of bravery, pressed forward at the head of their troops. The
Archduke Charles, though ill and suffering, had himself lifted upon his
horse, and, in the enthusiasm of the struggle, so completely forgot his
sickness that he grasped the standard of a wavering battalion, dashed
forward with it, and thereby