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Text originally published in 1827 under the same title.
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WAR IN THE PENINSULA, UNDER NAPOLEON;
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A VIEW OF THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY STATE OF THE FOUR BELLIGERENT POWERS.
BY GENERAL FOY.
PUBLISHED BY THE COUNTESS FOY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE COUNTESS FOY TO THE FRENCH NATION.
IN publishing the first part of a work which is far from having received a final revision, I think myself bound to give the Reader some details, in order to meet the reproaches which may possibly be made to it by severe criticism, and to satisfy the wishes of a more friendly interest as to what it contains.
When in 1814 my husband returned into the bosom of private life, he conceived the idea of writing the History of the Peninsular War, a near in which he had been engaged for seven years, and the narrative of which, mingled with political considerations, seemed destined to be the commencement of his ,apprenticeship to a new career. From that moment he devoted himself to it, with, that conscientious research and activity of mind which he displayed in everything he undertook. after collecting numerous materials in France and England, he proceeded to write, uninterruptedly, what I now publish. The first half of the work was revised by himself, rather with a view to improve the arrangement and division of his materials, (as is proved by the corrections, which are entirely in his own handwriting,) than to purity the style, a labour which he deferred until a later period. The second half was written over only once; it was his first idea; it was, as it were, an improvisation. In 1817, his bad state of health having compelled him to interrupt his labours, he left the work imperfect and never afterwards revised it.
Such as it is, however, I conceive it to be my duty to publish itnot so much with the hope of increasing the inheritance of renown which he left to his children, as with the idea of restoring to his Country a work which he had consecrated to it; for his Country was the constant object of his fidelity and his affections, in hours of danger as well us in hours of leisure.
I hope that Country will allow me to take this method of discharging a small portion of the sacred debt contracted by a family whose misfortunes have been supported and illustrated by their Countys adoption. France has covered the tomb of my husband and the name of his sous with such glory, that I hope she will pardon me for venturing, as a widow and a mother, to quit for a moment the solitude in which my sorrow has placed me, in order to express my gratitude to her.
L. COUNTESS FOY.
PREFACE.
WHEN in 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, and during the occupation of France, the French army was dissolved, General Foy conceived that his military career was terminated. The field of battle was no longer the ground on which those opinions were to be defended which had twenty years before called him to arms. The honour and the national independence of France, which had been the two passions of his whole life, were now for him only motives of endurance. Even though the remains of our old army had been partially collected and incorporated in a new one, we can easily conceive that a proud mind, full of noble recollections, which felt nothing in the past to be ashamed of, would cast far from it the idea of claiming the least indulgence for, or of concealing in any way, its former sentiments and its present impressions. Besides, when we had at last obtained, as the price of our sufferings, and the consolation for our reverses, a government founded on free deliberation and publicity, the time was come when honour and promotion were only to be looked for from the glorious patronage of public opinion. In some lines which the General then wrote, intended to form part of the Preface to his book, he thus expresses himself: Places are not worthy of the ambition of an elevated soul; in a popular government there is nothing good which does not spring from the people.
He had not, however, yet obtained access to that tribune to which his vocation and his glory called him; and his mind, greedy after action and information, could not vegetate in useless leisure. Removed all at once from the agitated and adventurous life of camps, he was not, like many others, reduced to sink under an oppressive indolence. The chances of war, and the warm and studious taste which he always had for his glorious profession, were not sufficient to occupy all his faculties; that sphere, however vast it might be, had never bounded his thoughts and his imagination. Stimulated by the thirst for information, wherever he had found a country to observe, a fact to note down, a book to read, a conversation to listen to, his whole attention was devoted to it. Exact knowledge and freedom of judgment were, under all circumstances, imperious wants with him. It was not merely necessary for him to collect and combine all that presented itself to his eyes, but his mind being more active than meditative, more practical than theoretical, he was anxious to derive some positive results from his continual studies. During the whole of his life, seldom a day passed without his writing, frequently even to minuteness, what he had seen, learned, or thought. The numerous volumes of this curious journal which he left behind him, afford the best evidence of his prodigious activity.
He had scarcely quitted the military profession when he conceived the plan of writing the History of the War in Spain. Other periods were no doubt dearer to his memory; but as he had made all the campaigns in the Peninsula, the recollection of them was still quite fresh in his mind and in the public attention. That war formed as it were a sort of episode distinct from the other enterprizes of the French armies. Moreover, it was much more mixed up with popular movements, with the influence of opinions, with diversities of national character, and with political considerations. Finally, it was justly regarded as the first and principal cause of the fall of Napoleon. There, much better than elsewhere, was the genius of that great personage to be appreciated, who, after having reigned over all wills, still filled all imaginations.
