345 



VICTOR, CLAUDE PERRIN. 



VICTOR-EMMANUEL IF. 



346 



provinces of Murcia and Valencia, had taken up a menacing position 

 at Ucles. In this engagement upwards of three hundred officers, 

 including two generals, and twelve thousand soldiers, were made 

 prisoners ; all the enemy's artillery and thirty standards were captured 

 by the French. According to the Spanish accounts, this victory was 

 stained by the exercise of wanton cruelty towards the prisoners, in 

 retaliation for similar cruelty exercised on former occasions by the 

 Spaniards towards the French. (Napier, ' History of the Peninsular 

 War,' vol. ii., p. 16). At Medelin (March 28, 1809), Marshal Victor 

 obtained another important victory over the Spanish army under 

 General Cuesta, in which six thousand Spaniards are said to have 

 fallen, and three thousand to have been taken prisoners. He was 

 afterwards sent with his division to the support of the army of Marshal 

 Soult in Portugal ; but he had scarcely entered that country when he 

 was obliged to effect a retreat. Having formed a junction with the 

 troops of Joseph Bonaparte, Marshal Jourdan, and General Sebastiani, 

 he was induced to attack the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley, which was 

 advancing into Spain. The issue proved disastrous to the French 

 arms ; after a long-contested and sanguinary engagement, Victor was 

 defeated at Talavera de la Reyna (July 28, 1809). Victor having 

 however united his forces with those of Marshal Ney and Mortier, and 

 the British army being obliged to retire before the superior numbers 

 of the enemy, the French were again enabled to occupy the town of 

 Talavera. To the credit of the French commander of Talavera, it may 

 be stated that a large number of sick and wounded English soldiers 

 were treated with the greatest kindness. 



On February 4, 1810, the duty of investing Cadiz was assigned to 

 Marshal Victor, whom Napoleon had created Duke of Belluno ; he 

 conducted the operations of this siege with skill and perseverance, but 

 though protracted for a considerable length of time, they finally proved 

 unavailing. In 1812 he was summoned from the blockade of this town 

 to join the grand army destined for the. expedition to Russia, and was 

 appointed to the command of the ninth division. His name stands 

 conspicuous in the annals of this disastrous campaign. During the 

 retreat he rendered the most important services to the French army, 

 and in particular at the perilous passage of the Beresina (November 28, 

 1812), where, with six thousand men, he successfully resisted the 

 efforts of General Wittgenstein [WITTGENSTEIN] and thirty thousand 

 Russians. His courage in this action was rendered more remarkable 

 by his humanity. Being recalled, on the approach of evening, from 

 the position which he occupied at Stoudziancka, he took upon himself 

 to disobey his orders, and remained there during the whole night, for 

 the purpose of giving every assistance to the remnants of the French 

 army which had not yet effected the passage of the river. At daybreak 

 he skilfully managed to evacuate this position, without loss of either 

 baggage or artillery, taking with him the wounded and a large number 

 of camp followers, who, without his humane aid, must have fallen into 

 the hands of the pursuing enemy. 



The following year, Marshal Victor commanded the second division 

 of Napoleon's army : to the conduct of that division at the battle of 

 Dresden (August 26, 1813) the victory the French there obtained has 

 generally been attributed. With the same division he likewise greatly 

 distinguished himself at the battles of Wachau (October 16, 1813), 

 Leipzig (October 18, 19), and Hanau (October 30). After the passage 

 of the Rhine had been effected by the French army, Marshal Victor 

 was actively employed in putting in an efficient state of defence the 

 strong places of Alsace and the Franche Courte" ; he also for a long 

 time bravely opposed the entrance of the Russian army into France. 

 Compelled at length to fall back upon the Meuse, he effected this 

 movement with his usual skill. He afterwards dislodged the allies 

 from the position they had taken up at St. Dizier (January 27, 1814), 

 and drove them out at the point of the bayonet from the village of 

 Brienne. During the whole campaign he zealously seconded the 

 efforts of Napoleon and the French army in checking the advance of 

 the allies. On the 9th of February he marched his troops towards the 

 Seine, for the purpose of more effectually co-operating with the move- 

 ments of his chief, and sustained his high character as a soldier in the 

 defence of the bridge of Nogent (February 11, 1814) and in the actions 

 of Nangis (February 17) and Villeneuve le Roi. His failure in dis- 

 lodging the allies from Montereau, where he had the misfortune to 

 lose his son-in-law, General Ch&teau, exposed him to the displeasure 

 of the emperor, who deprived him of his command. The marshal, it 

 is said, refused to leave the service, and observed with emotion to his 

 chief, that " he had once been a private soldier, that he had not for- 

 gotten the use of the musket, and would again take his place in the 

 ranks." The emperor, moved by this proof of his fidelity, put him at 

 the head of two brigades of his guard, with which he distinguished 

 himself a few days after at the battle of Craonne, where he was severely 

 wounded, and was obliged to retire from the field. 



When the success of the allies and the abdication of Napoleon had 

 replaced the Bourbon dynasty on the throne, he was among the first 

 to offer them his allegiance, and was rewarded by an appointment to 

 the command of the second military division. On the return of Napo- 

 leon from Elba, he issued a proclamation, in which he allowed himself 

 to speak of the creator of his fortunes in terms which reflect high 

 discredit upon his character : he describes him as " the man who has 

 tyrannised, desolated, and betrayed France during twelve years ; " and 

 he urges every Frenchman to pursue to the utmost not only this 



tyrant, but " his satellites who have accompanied him on his plundering 

 excursion." Independently of the ingratitude which this language 

 betrays, it evinces a singular want of discernment, coming from one 

 who had once been among the most conspicuous of these satellites. 

 He afterwards followed the examples of Marshals Berthier and Mar- 

 mont in accompanying Louis XVIII. to Ghent. [Louis XVIII.] On 

 the second restoration, he was created a peer of France, and appointed 

 one of the four major-generals of the royal guard. He was also 

 unfortunately conspicuous as the president of the commission charged 

 to inquire into the conduct of his former brethren-in-arms during the 

 Hundred Days. [NET, MARSHAL.] In that capacity he is reported to 

 have displayed an unnecessary and pertinacious severity. In 1816 

 Marshal Victor was appointed to the command of the sixteenth mili- 

 tary division of France. In 1821 he was named by Louis XVIII. 

 minister of the war department. In this capacity he altogether disap- 

 pointed the expectations to which his military talents had given rise ; 

 he alienated the affections of the new army as effectually as he had 

 done those of the old, and lost the little popularity he had hitherto 

 enjoyed. He actively promoted the expedition to Spain of 1823 

 [SXJCHET], and having retired from the ministry, accompanied the army 

 as second in command to the Duke of Angoule'me. After the revolu- 

 tion of 1830 [CHARLES X.] he ceased to take any active part in public 

 affairs ; though he gave in his adhesion to the government of Louis 

 Philippe, he attached himself to the legitimist party, and appears on 

 one occasion to have been seriously compromised, with several of the 

 leading men of that party, in espousing the cause of the Bourbon 

 claimant to the throne of France. He died on the 3rd of March 

 1841. 



The position occupied by Marshal Victor among the generals of 

 Napoleon is not a very high one. Though his services to the Imperial 

 cause were numerous, and many of his exploits were brilliant, he is 

 rather distinguished as a brave soldier than as a skilful commander. 

 At the head of a division he executed with boldness and precision the 

 movements indicated to him by his chief, but he was devoid of the 

 military genius requisite to originate a skilful plan of battle. Hence, 

 in a separate command, as in many instances in the Peninsular War, 

 he was generally unsuccessful. He does not however appear to have 

 merited the very harsh remark made concerning him by Napoleon, 

 which O'Meara records : " Victor dtait une bete sans talens et sans 

 tete." (' Napoleon in Exile,' vol. i., p. 511.) Such a judgment proba- 

 bly escaped Napoleon under the influence of the feelings which Victor's 

 conduct, on his return from Elba, had excited. It is indeed scarcely 

 possible that it was the real estimate he had formed of this general's 

 military character, since he had raised him from the position of a 

 private soldrer to the highest dignities of his empire ; dignities which 

 were in every case the reward of some species of merit, and not the 

 mere fancy of favouritism. 



VICTOR-EMMANUEL I., King of Sardinia, was born on July 24, 

 1759, the second sou of Victor- A uaadeus III., and during his father's 

 life bore the title of Duke of Aosta. He took an active part in the 

 war undertaken by his father against the French revolutionists, and 

 gained some advantages over them, but was at length compelled to 

 retreat before their power. When his father concluded a peace with 

 Bonaparte in 1796, he refused to agree to it, and withdrew to Southern 

 Italy. Carlo-Emmanuel IV., who succeeded Victor-Amadeus III., 

 abdicated in 1802, and Victor-Emmanuel assumed his brother's 

 titles, but remained at Cagliari in the island of Sardinia under 

 British protection, till 1814, when he returned to Turin. The treaty 

 of Paris in 1814, restored to him Nice and the half of Savoy ; by 

 that of 1815 he obtained the remainder of Savoy ; and the Congress 

 of Vienna gave him the sovereignty over Genoa. The Piedmontese 

 expected now an adoption of the French institutions to which they 

 had been for some time accustomed, but the government by degrees 

 replaced them by the old laws. This occasioned discontents, to which 

 the persecutions commenced against the Valdenses and the Jews 

 added fresh cause. The contests between the supporters of the old 

 and the new ideas of government, occasioned the formation of a 

 number of secret societies, and at length on March 21, 1821, a 

 revolution took place. As Victor-Emmanuel could not make up his 

 mind to take the oaths to the new constitution adopted by the 

 military, he abdicated on March 23, and was succeeded by his brother, 

 Carlo-Felix, who was followed by Carlo-Alberto. Victor-Emmanuel I. 

 died at Moncalieri on January 10, 1824. 



* VICTOR-EMMANUEL II. was born on March 14, 1820, the son 

 of Carlo-Alberto. Carefully educated by his father he took as crown- 

 prince an active share in all the political movements of 1848, and by his 

 father's side witnessed the campaign against Austria, until the loss of 

 the fatal battle of Novara occasioned his father to abdicate the throne. 

 On March 23, 1849, he formally assumed the crown under the most 

 trying circumstances, with an unsuccessful war in progress, and 

 bitter political domestic factions in active existence. He however 

 succeeded in effecting a treaty of peace with Austria without any 

 humiliating concessions, and in setting bounds to the wishes of the 

 extreme democratic party by carrying out strictly and with a rare 

 conscientiousness the provisions of the constitution given by his 

 father, and by endeavouring to uphold and advance the formation of 

 a liberal public opinion. Alike against the requisitions of foreign 

 powers, and the efforts of the ultra-Romanist portion of the ecclesias- 



