Part 27

In October peace was signed at the camp of Schoenbrunn, and, divorcing the woman who had loved him when he had only his sword and his epaulettes, Napoleon espoused Maria Louisa of Austria; and Prince Charles, who by his accumulated blunders at the battle of Aspern, had thrown away the fortunes of Continental Europe, received from his Imperial conqueror the Grand Riband of the Legion of Honour. O'Reilly came in for a full share of the honours and decorations which were showered upon the Austrian army.

At the general peace of 1814 the Empire, exhausted by a war of five-and-twenty years, reduced her vast military establishments to 58 regiments of the line, 12 battalions of chasseurs, and 5 garrison battalions--in all, 1044 companies of fusiliers, and 116 of grenadiers. The cavalry were reduced to 36 regiments of cuirassiers, light dragoons, uhlans and hussars. Of the third regiment of light horse O'Reilly was colonel and proprietor. He was also High Chamberlain of the Empire.

At this time Louis Count Taaffe, a noble of Irish parentage, was Second President of the Austrian High Court of Justice, and General Count O'Donnel was Military Governor of Austrian Lombardy. One of the Emperor's most distinguished officers was General Count Nugent, who in the war of 1847-8 led 30,000 Austrian infantry to succour Marshal Radetzki, who was then opposed to the troops of Charles Albert.[19] Count Taaffe was a member of the new ministry formed on the 21st of March, in the year of the Austrian revolution: but he retired from office shortly before the appearance of the chartered constitution on the 19th of April.

O'Reilly lived to see Austria affected by the commotions which pervaded Europe after the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Modena and the Archduke of Parma were obliged to quit these states, and a formidable insurrection broke out in the Patrimony of St. Peter--an insurrection to quell which 18,000 Austrian troops were marched towards the frontier; but O'Reilly was too far advanced in years to draw his sword again in the service of the House of Hapsburg. He died in October, 1833, at Vienna, after attaining the patriarchal age of _ninety-two_. He had long survived his countess, and died childless.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: Nugent, a field-marshal in 1858, commanded 25,000 Austrian troops at the funeral of Marshal Radetzki, and acted as chief mourner.]

COUNT O'CONNELL,

KNIGHT OF ST. LOUIS, AND COLONEL OF THE IRISH BRIGADE.

The life of this military wanderer presents, in his chequered career, the curious anomaly of a general and his soldiers being received into the service of their native country and native monarch, against whom they had previously fought with a bravery that too often gave the laurels of victory to his enemies.

Count Daniel O'Connell was of the same family as the famous political agitator who bore his name, and he sprang from an old Milesian race who held the rank of Toparchs in their own province. He was the son of Daniel O'Connell of Derrynane, and of Mary, daughter of Duffe O'Donoghue, of Anwys in the county Kerry, Ireland, and was born at Derrynane Abbey, in 1742. At the early age of fifteen, like others whose fortunes I have recorded, he left his native country to seek foreign military service, and in 1757 was appointed a Sub-Lieutenant of the Irish Brigade in the French service, in the battalion known as the Infantry regiment of O'Brien, or Lord Clare, and which bore the title of Clare until its dissolution, thirty-five years after.

In the preceding year war had been declared between France and Britain respecting their mutual territorial claims in North America. The former prepared a vast military armament to carry on the strife; and in the army formed on the 12th July, 1759, to be led by the Marechal Princes of Conde and Soubise, were the _Irish_ and _Scottish_ Brigades; and in the former was the Regiment of Clare, with which young O'Connell was serving as a subaltern. From this period, for some time, little is known of him, save that he served throughout the Seven Years' War, and at its close, for his good conduct, was promoted into a new corps which had recently been embodied.

In 1779, when France espoused the cause of America, and sought to harass the mother country in Europe, O'Connell was engaged in the expedition against Portmahon, which is the principal town in Minorca, situated on a rocky promontory, difficult of access from the landward, and defended by Fort San Philipo, in which there was a resolute garrison. O'Connell, with his new regiment, served under the Duc de Crillon at the siege, and conducted himself with such honour as to be specially noticed. The operations were severe and protracted, but in three years the Spaniards and their allies recaptured the whole island of Minorca, which at the peace of 1763 had been formally ceded to Britain.

In 1782, O'Connell served with the combined French and Spanish armament which blockaded Gibraltar, during that memorable siege which had commenced on the 12th of January in the preceding year. Having shown considerable skill as an engineer at Minorca, he was one of the council-of-war appointed to assist the Chevalier d'Arcon in conducting the grand attempt in which France and Spain had resolved to try their full strength for the capture of that celebrated rock, the key of the Mediterranean; and for this purpose, as already related in the memoir of the Lacys, 40,000 soldiers, with 200 pieces of cannon and 80 mortars, pressed the attack by land, while 47 sail of the line, 10 battering ships, and a multitude of frigates, mounting 1000 guns and having 12,000 chosen soldiers added to their crews, lay before the fortress by sea--and in that fortress, to meet all this warlike preparation, were only 7000 British soldiers!

The French army was commanded by Louis Duc de Crillon-Mahon, the representative of an ancient noble family in the Vaucluse, who had commenced his military career in the Grey musketeers, and served under Marshal Villars in Italy. He had direction of the whole attack; his engineers were the most expert in Europe, and brave volunteers came from all quarters to take part in a siege which attracted the attention and raised the expectation of all Continental Europe.

As a member of the council-of-war, O'Connell repeatedly opposed the plans of the Duc de Crillon and of the Chevalier d'Arcon, and declared their system of attack "worthless;" and the sequel, in the triumph of General Elliot, proved that his observations were correct.

In the grand attack he accepted command of one of the floating batteries.

Ten of these, mounting from ten to twenty-eight guns, had been built under the orders of M. d'Arcon. Their bottoms were of solid timber, their sides were sheathed with wetted cork, and filled with damp sand between the timbers. They had sloping roofs of raw hides and net--work to receive the bombs, which thus exploded harmlessly over the heads of the besiegers. These floating batteries were exposed during the whole time to that terrible fire of red-hot shot--a suggestion of General Boyd--which ultimately, by firing the great ship of Buenaventura de Moreno, struck the Spaniards with confusion and dismay.

O'Connell had one of his ears torn off by a cannon-ball; and by the explosion of a shell, which by its weight penetrated the roof of skins, he was covered with wounds and bruises of minor importance.

His services, during this futile and disastrous siege, were considered so valuable by the King of France, that, on the recommendation of the Duc de Crillon, he was rewarded with the colonelcy of the Regiment de Salm-Salm; a German corps raised in the principality of that name; but this post he held for a short period, being removed to the regiment of Royal Swedish Infantry.

After this, in 1787, the government of France having resolved that the military economy of their army should undergo a complete revision and remodelling, appointed a military board, consisting of four generals and _one_ colonel to prepare reports and recommend alterations where necessary. The colonel chosen was O'Connell, who drew up a system of regimental economy, and a code of tactics, which were afterwards used with brilliant success against himself and his loyal comrades during the first campaigns of the revolution. When the labours of the board ceased, he was appointed to the onerous situation of Inspector-General of Infantry, with the duty of regulating the new uniforms and equipment of the Line, when many alterations and improvements were adopted in 1791.

He was succeeded as colonel of the Swedish regiment by Count Pherson, afterwards one of the principal agents in the escape of Louis XVI. from Paris.

O'Connell now enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most distinguished officers in France.

Besides his very extensive knowledge of mathematics and military strategy, says a French writer, he was well versed in the study of languages; and although Latin and Greek were to him alike familiar, he spoke with equal fluency French, English, Italian, and German. He had conceived a great predilection for the Erse (_gallique_) of the mountains of Kerry, and he was never more happy than when he could converse in this dear old idiom, of which he could so well appreciate the beauties.[20]

Now came the fatal, the culminating, point of the once splendid monarchy of France--the dark days of the Revolution; of the captivity and death of the weak, but unhappy Louis; of the flight or destruction of his nobles. Before the final catastrophe of the royal execution, a proposal was made by the National Assembly, which deeply interested Count O'Connell and others who had made France the land of their adoption. This was the intended expulsion from her soil of all foreign officers and soldiers who had served King Louis, including Irish, Scots, and Switzers. While this ungenerous measure was being debated, the gallant Duke of Fitzjames, in February, 1791, addressed to Louis XVI. a letter on behalf of the exiles; and this document is so remarkable in its tenor, that I may be pardoned in quoting from it one or two paragraphs. After briefly and modestly stating the services rendered by his father and grandfather to the line of St. Louis, he thus advanced the claims of the Irish in France:--

"Sire, my grandfather came not alone into France! His brave companions are now mine, and the dearest friends of my heart! He was accompanied by Thirty Thousand Irishmen, who abandoned home, fortune, and honour to follow their unfortunate king. For the descendants of those brave men, whom your ancestors deemed so worthy of protection because they had been faithful to their sovereign, I now entreat the same bounty from the great-grandson of Louis XIV. It is reported that the National Assembly propose disbanding the Irish regiments as foreign troops. The blood they have shed in the cause of France ought to have procured them the right of being denizens of that kingdom, even though their capitulation had not entitled them to that privilege.

"Sire, permit me to lay at your Majesty's feet the ardent wish of the Irish regiments, who are as much attached to France by gratitude as formerly they were to the _House of Stuart_ by love and duty. If the Assembly now reject their services, they implore your Majesty's _recommendation_ to the prince of your family now reigning in Spain, presuming to assure you that the present will be worthy of being made by a King of France, and of being favourably received by a prince of your royal race.

"Fidelity and valour are their titles to recommendation! Of the former they expect an authentic testimonial from the French nation, as they have never ONCE failed in their duty during a century, and wherever they have fought their valour has been conspicuous in battle.

"Sire, I entreat you to listen to their request; for myself I ask no compensation--for me there is none! The honour of commanding _them_ cannot be repaid. It secures my glory, as to lead them against a foe ensures immediate victory!"

But this spirited and touching letter failed to stay the popular clamour against these military strangers in the sequel.

In July the Assembly decreed that the standards of the Irish, German, and Liegoise infantry should be the tri-colour, inscribed "Discipline and obedience to the law;" but when the princes, Monsieur of France (or Comte de Provence) and Charles Philippe, the Count d'Artois, fled to Coblentz, the formal defection of several Irish officers hastened the destruction of the old brigade of immortal memory; and with it, after the 10th of August, disappeared the ancient Swiss, German, Italian, Scottish, and Catalonian regiments of the monarchy.

During the crumbling of that monarchy, O'Connell, though in secret communication with the princes at Coblentz, lingered in Paris until the close of 1791, when that strange convention was held at Pilnitz between the Emperor Leopold and the Prussian king, who formed a league to invade France and remodel its government. In a letter from Pavia, dated 6th July, the Emperor had already openly avowed his intentions in this new war, and invited all European powers to co-operate with him. At this crisis the French government proposed to place O'Connell at the head of one of their many armies levied to meet this European combination; but the count, despite the earnest recommendations of Carnot and of his friend the celebrated General Dumouriez, declined; and then, unable to withstand the issue of the suspicions which this refusal excited in Paris after the terrible 10th of August, 1792, when the attack of the Tuileries and massacre of the Swiss took place, he secretly left the city, and repairing to the princes, offered to them his sword and fealty at Coblentz; which, being within the Prussian frontier, became the head-quarters of all those emigrants and Prussian troops destined to form the army of the Prince of Conti, who vainly hoped to restore the line of St. Louis to the throne of his forefathers. His chief aid-de-camp was the Comte de Macarthy, an emigrant officer of distinction, a marshal-de-camp of horse in 1791.

O'Connell, relinquishing his higher claims among the crowd of noble applicants for service, accepted the command of a regiment as colonel, and left nothing undone to improve its discipline and efficiency, for his whole energies and enthusiasm were devoted to the reconstitution of the French monarchy.

The first of the French troops to proffer their loyalty, on this occasion, were the Scottish and Irish soldiers of the old Regiment de Berwick. The depot of this corps was then quartered at the strong town of Givet, on the frontiers of France, under the command of Sir Charles MacCarthy-Lyragh, who immediately marched his men to Coblentz, and joined the battalion. Sir Charles afterwards passed into the British service, when he was made a Colonel and Governor of Senegal, where in 1824 he fought a battle with the Ashantees, by whom he was slain and beheaded. The loyalty of the Irish brigade met with a warm response from the fugitive princes. "This offer," replied Monsieur to the deputation who came to proffer fealty, "will mitigate the sufferings of the king, who will receive from you with pleasure the same mark of fidelity which James II. received from your ancestors. This double epoch ought for ever to furnish a device for the Regiment de Berwick! It will henceforth be seen upon your colours; every faithful subject will there read his duty, and behold the model he ought to imitate."

"The colours of Berwick," added Charles Philippe the Comte d'Artois, "are, and always will be, in the path to honour, and we will march at their head!"[21]

The king perished, and then followed the campaign of 1793, a period most disastrous to the emigrants; but amid all the slaughter and merciless butchery, with which the republicans inspired the war--a war, to maintain which, the fiery zeal of Carnot enrolled no less than _fourteen_ armies, mustering 1,400,000 men--O'Connell led his battalion with honour to himself and to the cause he served, till all hope was lost, and then with others he fled to England in the beginning of 1794.

Among those condemned by Robespierre's tribunal in that year, were two distinguished officers of the Irish brigade--General O'Moran, who defended Dunkirk against the Duke of York; and John O'Donoghue, General de Brigade in the Army of the Rhine.

At the same time were condemned, M. Murdoch, a Scotsman in the service of the Comte de Montmorin; and W. Newton, an English colonel of the Dragoon Regiment de Liberte, and formerly an officer in the Russian service.

In reduced circumstances O'Connell reached London, where he resided for a time in comparative obscurity; and where, for many reasons, his residence was far from being a pleasant one. Still, undiscouraged by the aspect of affairs in France, and by the numerous bloody defeats and massacres sustained by the emigrant troops and other supporters of the Bourbons, he took a warm interest in the attempts meditated in 1794; but fresh conflicts seemed only to fire the zeal of the republicans anew, till the French armies, following their victories, drove their enemies across the Meuse and then beyond the Rhine; after which they penetrated into Holland, revolutionized it, and succeeded in detaching Prussia from its alliance with Britain.

At this epoch O'Connell laid before William Pitt the plan of a new campaign, which so pleased that minister, that he made the count, then in his fifty-second year, an offer of military service under the British government. This he at once accepted, and proposed to form a new brigade to be named _the Irish_, and to be raised principally from remnants of the regiments of Clare, Lally, Dillon, Berwick, &c., emigrant officers, and men who represented the old brigade of King James; but here O'Connell's religion, which was strictly Catholic, prevented him, in those days of intolerance, prior to the Emancipation Act, attaining in the British service a higher rank than Colonel; and this rank he held till the day of his death.

The brigade consisted of six battalions, each of the strength usual on a war establishment; but O'Connell had the mortification to find himself gazetted by the Horse Guards Colonel of the _fourth_ regiment instead of the first, to which he was justly entitled, by his previous position and general military character.

His commission was dated 1st October, 1794.[22]

The list of colonels was as follows:--

1st Regiment--the Duke of Fitzjames.

2nd Regiment--Anthony, Count Walsh de Serrant.

3rd Regiment--Honourable Henry Dillon.

4th Regiment--Count Daniel O'Connell.

5th Regiment--Charles, Viscount Walsh de Serrant,

6th Regiment--James Henry, Count Conway.[23]

Several of his old friends were appointed to the corps; among these were Bartholomew, Count O'Mahoney, Colonel, 1st January, 1801; John O'Toole, Colonel, 1805; and Colonel James O'Moore, who was appointed Major-General in 1801.

This brigade, which was embodied under circumstances so singular, instead of being sent to fight upon the continent of Europe, as O'Connell and his brother emigrants had fondly anticipated, after many changes in its constitution and organization, was ordered to Nova Scotia, to Cape Breton, and to the then pestilential West India Isles. The snows of America and the burning sun of the tropics soon had a fatal effect upon these unfortunate wanderers, and they were nearly all swept away by disease and death.

Of the six regiments, only thirty-four officers of all ranks were alive in 1818, on the Irish half-pay.

On the 25th December, 1797, O'Connell, weary of a service so heartless, and so little conducive to the welfare of the cause he loved so much, retired upon the full-pay of colonel unattached, and returned home.[24]

In 1802 he profited by the Treaty of Amiens, when peace was negotiated between Great Britain and France, to return to the latter; but the frail bond of unity was soon broken, and he was comprehended in the harsh decree which seized, as prisoners of war, all British subjects remaining in France.

At the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 he regained his liberty, and Louis XVIII. restored to him his rank of General, and with it the Colonelcy of a regiment and the pension and Grand Cross of St. Louis, which he enjoyed with his retired full pay as a British Colonel. This was after the decree of the 16th July, by which the whole of the old army was disbanded, and the command conferred upon Marshal Macdonald, who remodelled a new army from the wreck of Napoleon's veterans.

O'Connell lived in tranquillity and honour, a remnant of other days and of old romantic sympathies, until 1830, when he was again deprived of his French emoluments for his unwavering fidelity to Charles X. and the elder branch of the Bourbons. After this he retired to his chateau at Meudon, near Blois, where he died, on the 9th of July, 1833, in the ninety-first year of his age, the oldest Colonel of the British army, and the senior general of the French.

Such was the chequered career of one of the last of the brave old Irish Brigade.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: _Biographie Universelle._]

[Footnote 21: _Scots' Magazine_, 1791.]

[Footnote 22: War-Office Records--communicated.]

[Footnote 23: War-Office Record.]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid._]

MARSHAL MACDONALD.

Stephen James Joseph Macdonald, Marshal of France and Duke of Tarentum, was the son of Neil MacEachin Macdonald (a gentleman sprung from the branch of the Clanranald in Uist), who served in France as a lieutenant in the Scottish Regiment of Ogilvie, to which he had been appointed by the recommendation of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, whom he had served bravely and loyally even after the close of his disastrous campaign in Scotland, and whom he had followed into exile after materially contributing to that deliverance which was effected by the celebrated Flora Macdonald. He was one of the hundred and thirty Highlanders who gathered on the shore of Loch nan Uamh after the horrors of Culloden, and embarked with Prince Charles for France.

Neil MacEachin (_i.e._, the son of Hugh) had been a preceptor in the family of his chief, Clanranald, and being originally designed for the Catholic Church, had been educated at the Scottish College in Paris. He spoke French with great fluency, and to the exiled prince proved a faithful adherent, friend, and solace, in all his wanderings; and when Charles was so ungenerously committed to a dungeon at Vincennes by order of the French government, his captivity was shared alone by the brave islesman from Uist. According to Mr. Chambers, there is every reason to believe that he was the author of a little work entitled _Alexis_, in which he preserved a minute record of the prince's wanderings and dangers in the Western Isles of Scotland.

His son, the future Marshal of the Empire, was born on the 17th of November, 1765, in the old fortified town of Sedan, in the departement of the Ardennes.

Destining him for the profession of arms, he had him educated with the greatest care, and in his nineteenth year enrolled him as a cadet in the Legion of Maillebois, which was to enter Holland, and second a revolution there--a movement neutralized by the influence of Prussia.

In 1784 young Macdonald was appointed a Sub-lieutenant in Dillon's Regiment, a battalion of the Irish Brigade, which now included in its rank many Scottish emigrants and their descendants; and in this corps he remained a subaltern until the Revolution in 1792, when his colonel, the brave, loyal, and unfortunate Dillon, was murdered at Lisle, where his body was literally torn to pieces by the revolted soldiers and infuriated mob.