Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 12 | Page 5

all the official
persons took refuge in Hamburg. During these partial insurrections
everything was neglected. Indecision, weakness, and cupidity were
manifested everywhere. Instead of endeavours to soothe the minds of
the people, which had been, long exasperated by intolerable tyranny,
recourse was had to rigorous measures. The prisons were crowded with
a host of persons declared to be suspected upon the mere
representations of the agents of the police. On the 3d of March a special
military commission condemned six householders of Hamburg and its
neighbourhood to be shot on the glacis for no other offence than having
been led, either by chance or curiosity, to a part of the town which was
the scene of one of the riots. These executions excited equal horror and
indignation, and General Carra St. Cyr was obliged to issue a
proclamation for the dissolution of the military commission by whom
the men had been sentenced.
The intelligence of the march of the Russian and Prussian troops; who
were descending the Elbe, increased the prevailing agitation in
Westphalia, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, and all the French

troops cantoned between Berlin and Hamburg, including those who
occupied the coast of the Baltic, fell back upon Hamburg. General
Carra St. Cyr and Baron Konning, the Prefect of Hamburg, used to go
every evening to Altona. The latter, worn out by anxiety and his
unsettled state of life, lost his reason; and on his way to Hamburg, on
the 5th of May, he attempted to cut his throat with a razor. His 'valet de
chambre' saved his life by rushing upon him before he had time to
execute his design. It was given out that he had broken a blood-vessel,
and he was conveyed to Altona, where his wound was cured, and he
subsequently recovered from his derangement. M. Konning, who was a
native of Holland, was a worthy man, but possessed no decision of
character, and but little ability.
At this juncture exaggerated reports were circulated respecting the
approach of a Russian corps. A retreat was immediately ordered, and it
was executed on the 12th of March. General Carra St. Cyr having no
money for the troops, helped himself to 100,000 francs out of the
municipal treasury. He left Hamburg at the head of the troops and the
enrolled men of the custom-house service. He was escorted by the
Burgher Guard, which protected him from the insults of the populace;
and the good people of Hamburg never had any visitors of whom they
were more happy to be rid.
This sudden retreat excited Napoleon's indignation. He accused
General St. Cyr of pusillanimity, in an article inserted in the 'Moniteur',
and afterwards copied by his order into all the journals. In fact, had
General St. Cyr been better informed, or less easily alarmed, he might
have kept Hamburg, and prevented its temporary occupation by the
enemy, to dislodge whom it was necessary to besiege the city two
months afterwards. St. Cyr had 3000 regular troops, and a considerable
body of men in the custom-house service. General Morand could have
furnished him with 5000 men from Mecklenburg. He might, therefore,
not only have kept possession of Hamburg two months longer, but even
to the end of the war, as General Lexnarrois retained possession of
Magdeburg. Had not General St. Cyr so hastily evacuated the Elbe he
would have been promptly aided by the corps which General
Vandamme soon brought from the Wesel, and afterwards by the very,

corps with which Marshal Davoust recaptured Hamburg.
The events just described occurred before Napoleon quitted Paris. In
the month of August all negotiation was broken off with Austria,
though that power, still adhering to her time-serving policy, continued
to protest fidelity to the cause of the Emperor Napoleon until the
moment when her preparations were completed and her resolution
formed. But if there was duplicity at Vienna was there not folly, nay,
blindness, in the Cabinet of the Tuileries? Could we reasonably rely
upon Austria? She had seen the Russian army pass the Vistula and
advance as far as the Saale without offering any remonstrance. At that
moment a single movement of her troops, a word of declaration, would
have prevented everything. As, therefore, she would not avert the evil
when she might have done so with certainty and safety, there must have
been singular folly and blindness in the Cabinet who saw this conduct
and did not understand it.
I now proceed to mention the further misfortunes which occurred in the
north of Germany, and particularly at Hamburg. At fifteen leagues east
of Hamburg, but within its territory, is a village named Bergdorf. It was
in that village that the Cossacks were first seen. Twelve or fifteen
hundred of them arrived there under the command of Colonel
Tettenborn. But for the retreat