Napoleon reached Warsaw on the 10th of December, after a narrow escape

of being taken at a village named Youpranoui. On the 14th of December

he was in Dresden, and had a long conversation with his satrap king

there; and, after escaping some endeavours of the Prussians to seize

him, he arrived safely in Paris at midnight of the 18th, where the

Parisians, who had with some indifference suppressed the conspiracy

got up by the Republicans under General Mallet, hastened to overwhelm

him with the most fulsome flatteries. The story of his rubbing his

hands over the fire on his arrival at the Tuileries, and saying, "This

is pleasanter than Moscow," shows an intensity of selfishness which

no history on earth can equal. In this one campaign, that magnificent

army, the very flower of French, German, and Polish soldiery--perhaps

the finest army ever assembled--had perished to a mere fraction, and

that amid the most unheard of, the most hitherto unconceived horrors.

The remnant of these soldiers was still struggling on in their deserted

march, through these horrors even still more intensified. Numbers

were falling every day all along the frozen desert tracks, exhausted

by famine and cold, and the snows immediately buried them. When they

approached any place of rest or refreshment, they fought furiously for

fragments of firewood or pieces of horse-flesh. When a horse fell under

the burdens they had piled upon him, he was torn by them limb from

limb, while yet palpitating with life, and devoured raw. Such was the

weariness of these miserable fugitives over immeasurable deserts of

frost and snow, through cutting, scythe-edged winds, that nothing but

the sound of the Cossack drum, and the howls of the Cossack avengers

could induce them to rise and pursue their desolate march. And the

man who had brought all these terrible calamities upon nearly half a

million of men--and more than half a million by far, including women,

children, and other camp-followers, to say nothing of the invaded

Russians--felt not a pang for these vast human sufferings, but only for

his own detestable pride.

We need not follow the track of the deserted army with much minuteness.

The moment Buonaparte was gone, all discipline and command ceased. The

chief officers quarrelled vehemently; and Murat denounced his Imperial

brother-in-law in the bitterest terms, and escaped away into Italy on

the first opportunity. The Austrians and Prussians marched off, and

the French, pursued by the Russians till they crossed the Niemen, were

continually assailed, and dispersed or killed; so that Macdonald at

length reached Königsberg with nine thousand men, the body of French

presenting anything but the appearance of an army! In this fatal

campaign, Boutourlin states that, of this splendid army, one hundred

and twenty-five thousand were killed; one hundred and thirty-two

thousand died from fatigue, hunger, and the severity of the climate;

and one hundred and ninety-three thousand, including forty-eight

generals and three thousand officers, were taken prisoners--an awful

comment on the assertions of Buonaparte that he had beaten the

Russians everywhere. The nine thousand soldiers who returned with

Macdonald leave only eleven thousand to be accounted for of the whole

four hundred and seventy thousand, besides women, children, and camp

servitors, who entered Russia. These eleven thousand were, no doubt,

dispersed fugitives, some of whom might eventually reach France. Such

a destruction of human life in one campaign, so utterly unfelt for by

the man who occasioned it, stands alone in the history of this world's

miserable wars. The crime of it, as it rests on the head of that guilty

soul, is beyond mortal calculation.

During this momentous struggle, Russia was munificently supported by

Great Britain. The peace which Mr. Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford

de Redcliffe, our ambassador at Constantinople, had been the means of

effecting between Turkey and Russia, released Admiral Tchitchagoff and

his army of thirty thousand men to march against Buonaparte; and had

not that stupid personage suffered himself to be so grossly deceived by

the French Emperor at the Beresina, neither Buonaparte nor a man of his

army had ever got across that river. At the same time peace was made

with Russia by Great Britain, and Russia sent her fleet, for security,

to an English port during the invasion. Peace also was ratified between

Great Britain and Sweden; and Bernadotte was at liberty to pursue his

plans for aiding in the general movement of the North for the final

extinction of the Buonaparte rule. Great Britain also bountifully

supplied the Russians with money and arms, and other necessaries,

so that a French officer who accompanied General Lauriston to the

headquarters of the Russian army was astonished to find abundance of

British money circulating and in the highest esteem, though Buonaparte

had represented Great Britain as on the verge of bankruptcy. "When I

saw British bank-notes passing," he said, "as if they were gold, I

trembled for our daring enterprise."

Whilst the latter scenes of this great tragedy were passing, in Britain

a new Parliament assembled on the 24th of November, and amongst its

first acts were, before Christmas, to vote one hundred thousand pounds

to the Marquis of Wellington, and two hundred thousand pounds for the

relief of sufferers in Russia. And thus closed the remarkable year of

1812.

The year 1813 opened in Great Britain with high hopes. The defeat of

Napoleon in Russia, and the destruction of his army, opened prospects

of at length seeing this ambitious and unprincipled man, who had

drenched all Europe in blood, brought down and removed from the scene.

Lord Liverpool had for some time predicted that one day a British army

would march into Paris, and encamp on the Bois de Boulogne, and now it

really seemed probable. The nations of the north and centre of Europe

were mustering to follow the aggressor home, and Lord Wellington, in

Spain, was daily advancing towards the southern frontiers of France

by victory after victory. True, there was much yet to be done, and

enormous calls on the wealth of Britain had yet to be made; and at this

time, whilst Great Britain and all Europe were engaged in this mighty

contest, the people of the United States, instead of sympathising

with the grand occasion, were doing all they could to divide our

attention and weaken our hands. There were warm debates in Parliament

on the American question, but Government carried addresses expressing

approbation of the course which Great Britain had taken in regard to

the United States. But this annoying quarrelsomeness of the Americans

tended necessarily to raise the amount of the Budget, already too much

swelled by the aids to Russia and our contest in Spain. The supplies

demanded were seventy-two million pounds--more than had been granted

in any former year. Amongst the ways and means were a fresh loan of

twenty-one million pounds, and vote of credit for six million pounds.

It was, however, some consolation that the nation at last saw the

beginning of the end.

Before pursuing the immediate story of Buonaparte and his pursuers

from the North, we will narrate the progress of Lord Wellington during

this year. It was a favourable circumstance for him that, although he

continued to receive no little trouble, impediment, and discouragement

from the proud and thankless Spaniards, the turn of affairs in the

North compelled Napoleon to withdraw some of his best troops and

his best general from that country to aid him in his new campaign

against Russia, Sweden, and Germany. He had altogether two hundred

and seventy thousand men in Spain, in one quarter or other, to oppose

the small Anglo-Spanish army in the south, and the miscellaneous army

under Lord Wellington, amounting only to about seventy thousand men.

He therefore withdrew one hundred and fifty skeletons of battalions

from Spain--amounting, nevertheless, to only about twenty thousand

men--as a means of disciplining his young conscripts. What was of far

more consequence, he withdrew Soult, the only general that occasioned

Wellington much trouble. The nominal Commander-in-Chief of the French

armies in Spain was King Joseph, but the real commanders were Marshal

Jourdan and Generals Clausel and Foy in the north, General Reille at

Valladolid, Drouet at Madrid, and Suchet at Toledo.

The Spaniards had at length made Lord Wellington Commander-in-Chief of

the Spanish armies, but this appointment was little more than nominal,

for the Spanish generals continued as froward and insubordinate

as ever; and the Spanish Government was poorer than ever, its

remittances from the South American colonies, which were asserting

their independence, being stopped. Wellington's dependence, therefore,

continued to rest on his army of British and Portuguese--sixty-three

thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry.

[Illustration: MARSHAL NEY.]

About the middle of May Wellington entered Spain, leading the centre

division himself, the right being commanded by General Hill, and the

left by Sir Thomas Graham, the victor of Barrosa. As they advanced, the

French hastily retreated towards Valladolid, thence towards Burgos; and

by the 12th of June, Wellington being close on that city, they blew

up the fortifications of the castle, and retreated beyond the Ebro,

which they hoped to be able to defend. But Wellington left them no time

to fortify themselves. On the 14th he crossed the Ebro; on the 16th

he was in full march after them towards Vittoria, for they found the

Ebro no defence, as they had not time to blow up the bridges. On the

16th and 17th Major-General Alten harassed their rear, and dispersed

a whole brigade in the mountains, killing considerable numbers, and

taking three hundred prisoners. On the 19th they found the French

army, commanded by Joseph Buonaparte, with Jourdan as his second and

adviser, drawn up under the walls of Vittoria. It was so placed as to

command the passages of the river Zadora, and the three great roads

from Madrid, Bilbao, and Logroño. Their left extended to the heights

of La Puebla, and behind this, at the village of Gomecha, was posted

a reserve. The position was remarkably strong, and commanded by the

hills interesting to Englishmen as those where the Black Prince, in his

day, had defeated the French army at Najera, commanded by the gallant

Duguesclin. Wellington took till the morning of the 21st to reconnoitre

the position and to concentrate his army for the attack.

[Illustration: FLIGHT OF KING JOSEPH BUONAPARTE FROM VITTORIA. (_See p._

58.)]

In the morning of that day--a fine and sunny day--Hill leading on our

right drove the French from the heights of La Puebla. This was not

done without a severe struggle. The Spanish general, Morillo, led on

his brigade bravely, and was wounded. Colonel the Hon. G. Cadogan, in

the action on the heights, was also mortally wounded, but refused to

quit the field, and was carried to an elevation where he could watch

the progress of the battle while he lived. General Hill then pushed

the French across the river Zadora and the defiles and heights beyond

to the village of Subijana de Alava, which he took possession of, and

the French left fell back on Vittoria. The other divisions, under Lord

Dalhousie, Sir Thomas Picton, and General Cole, also crossed the river

at different bridges or fords, and everywhere drove the French before

them. The scene from the heights, which were crowded with people, was

one of the most animating ever beheld; the British everywhere advancing

amid the roar of cannon and musketry, the French retiring everywhere

on Vittoria. In the meantime, our left, under Sir Thomas Graham,

having a considerable number of Spanish and Portuguese troops in it,

advanced to the heights beyond the Zadora, along the Bilbao road, and

carried the village of Gamara Mayor, while the Spanish division of

Longa carried that of Gamara Monor. Both the Spanish and Portuguese

troops behaved admirably. While Major-General Robertson's brigade

carried Gamara Mayor, Colonel Halkett's, supported by that of General

Bradford, carried the village of Abechuco. Here a determined effort was

made by the French to recover this post, but they were driven back by

Major-General Oswald, with the fifth division.

These points being all gained, the French were not left long in

possession of Vittoria. They were pushed out of the town, and the whole

united army joined in chasing them along the road towards Pampeluna. So

complete was the rout that, according to Wellington's dispatch, they

left behind them all their baggage, ammunition, every gun but one, and

a howitzer.

So close were they upon King Joseph, that a party of the British,

under Captain Wyndham, came upon him in his carriage, and fired

through the window. Joseph had the good fortune to escape to horse,

and gallop off, but his carriage fell into the hands of the British,

and it was found crammed with the most precious spoil of the churches

and palaces of Spain. Amongst his baggage, which also was taken,

were found some of the finest paintings of the Spanish masters, rich

plate, including a splendid dinner-service, a gorgeous wardrobe, and

a number of his women, for he was a perfect Sybarite in luxury and

voluptuousness. No such scene was witnessed, except on the defeat

of some Eastern army. The officers had gorged themselves with the

spoils of Spain, and here they were left, amid crowds of wives and

mistresses, monkeys, poodles, parrots, silks, satins, and jewellery.

The officers and soldiers had run for it, with nothing but their arms

and their clothes on their backs, and all along the roads leading from

the city was one vast crowding, jostling mass of waggons, loaded with

all sorts of rich spoils, splendid dresses, and wines, and money, and

fine ladies in the most terrible hurry and fright. Sheep, cattle,

lambs, like a great fair, were left behind, and became the booty of

the pursuers. There was a vigorous bursting open of packages, and rich

wardrobes of both officers and ladies were soon fluttering in the

winds--gorgeous uniforms on the backs of common soldiers and Portuguese

camp-followers--fine silks and satins, and laces and gold chains, on

the persons and necks of common women. The military chest was seized,

and the soldiers freely helped themselves to its contents. Lord

Wellington says that the troops got about a million of money. Planks

were placed from waggon to waggon, and a great auction was going on

everywhere, the lucky captors converting everything possible--even the

heavy Spanish dollars--into gold, as more convenient for carriage. The

inhabitants of the city made rich bargains, besides managing to help

themselves plentifully in the scramble.

[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH THROUGH THE TOWN OF VITTORIA,

JUNE 21st, 1813.

FROM THE PAINTING BY ROBERT HILLINGFORD.]

The army of Joseph dispersed at full speed, and as our cavalry could

not pursue them across the hedges and ditches, they managed to escape,

and made their way to Pampeluna in one wild, chaotic herd. On the field

they profess to have left eight thousand men in killed and wounded, but

their loss was far greater. They left, also, one hundred and fifty-one

pieces of brass ordnance, four hundred and fifteen caissons, more than

forty thousand rounds of ammunition, nearly two million musketball

cartridges, forty thousand six hundred and sixty-eight pounds of

gunpowder, fifty-six forage waggons, and forty-four forge waggons.

The allied army had killed, British, five hundred and one; Portuguese,

one hundred and fifty; Spaniards, only eighty-nine: wounded, British,

two thousand eight hundred and seven; Portuguese, eight hundred and

ninety-nine; Spanish, four hundred and sixty-four. Lord Wellington

reported the conduct of almost every officer engaged as admirable. King

Joseph did not stop till he was safe, for a time, within the strong

walls of Pampeluna, but the garrison there would not admit the rabble

herd of fugitives, but sent them off like enemies; and they were forced

to continue their flight into the Pyrenees.

News of this most extraordinary defeat acted on the French, on all

sides, like the concussion of some violent explosion. They fell back

and fled in confusion before any enemy appeared. General Clausel,

who was advancing from Logroño with fifteen thousand men, fled back

to Saragossa with such precipitation, and thence through the central

Pyrenees into France, that he left all his artillery and most of his

baggage on the road. The same was the case with General Foy, who fled

from Bilbao to Bayonne in hot haste, with General Graham at his heels.

Except at San Sebastian and Pampeluna, where the garrisons were soon

besieged, the French were scarcely to be found in Spain, except those

with Suchet in the south-east.

Pampeluna and San Sebastian being invested, Lord Wellington proceeded

with his main army to occupy the passes of the Pyrenees. These,

Wellington, in his dispatches, says amounted to about seventy, and,

in the service of securing these, he complains that he was left

very much without the necessary supplies for his army. The British

Government had, from some cause--he supposed to send them against the

Americans--reduced the number of convoys, and many of our store-ships

were taken by the French frigates and privateers. It was, as much as

ever, in vain to expect the Spaniards to do anything to supply the

deficiency, after all that the English had done for them. As fast as

they got rid of the French, they busied themselves in making war on the

clergy and putting them down. Wellington was, therefore, continually

obliged to arrest his marches to wait for provisions. Notwithstanding,

by the 7th of July he had driven Joseph Buonaparte through the

mountains into France, chased Clausel beyond Tudela on the Ebro, and

taken his post on the very edge of France. Buonaparte, alarmed at the

progress of Wellington, displaced Jourdan as incapable, and sent back

Soult to do what neither he, nor Ney, nor Marmont, nor Massena had

been able to do before they were necessarily displaced--that is, arrest

the onward march of Wellington into France.

Soult hurried southward, collecting fresh forces to repel the

conquering invader, and issued a proclamation, telling the French

soldiers that they had at length taught the English to fight, and they

must show them that they were still their superiors. Whilst Wellington

was superintending the sieges of San Sebastian and Pampeluna, Soult

advanced, having gathered an army of nearly seventy thousand men, and,

on the 25th of July, he suddenly attacked our outposts simultaneously

in the passes of Roncesvalles and of Maya. Both these passes converged

into one leading to Pampeluna, where Soult hoped to raise the siege.

He himself led on thirty thousand fresh men up the Roncesvalles pass

against Generals Cole and Picton, who had about ten thousand to oppose

him. He compelled them to retreat to some greater elevations, but with

considerable loss, and he hoped there to have them joined by General

D'Erlon, who had ascended the Maya pass, with thirteen thousand men,

against General Stewart, who had only four or five thousand men to

oppose him. The conflict there had been terrible; the British fighting

and giving way only step by step against the superior force. The awful

struggle went on, five thousand feet above the plains of France, amid

clouds and fogs. Stewart did not fall back till he had sixteen hundred

of his small force killed and wounded, and the defiles were actually

blocked up with the slain.

Matters were at this pass when Lord Wellington, who had heard of the

attack, at his headquarters at Lezaco, two days before, came galloping

up on the morning of the 27th. He found Soult only two leagues from

Pampeluna, and saw him so near that he could plainly discern his

features. Wellington caused his own presence to be announced to his two

bodies of troops, and they answered the announcement with loud cheers.

That day the troops of Soult were pushed backwards by a regiment of the

Irish, and a body of Spanish infantry, at the point of the bayonet.

The next day, the 28th, the French were driven down still farther. On

the 29th both armies rested, but on the 30th the fight was renewed

with fury; but Picton and Dalhousie, being sent across the mountains

in opposite directions, managed to turn both flanks of Soult, and the

French fled precipitately as far as Olaque. There the pursuing troops

fell in with the right of the French, which had been worsted by Hill.

In the darkness the French continued their flight, and the next morning

were found in full retreat for France. The British gave chase, and made

many prisoners, taking much baggage. These battles, which have been

named "The Battles of the Pyrenees," Wellington describes as some of

the most severe that he ever saw. He states the loss of the British

in killed at one thousand five hundred, but in killed and wounded at

six thousand. The French, he says, admitted that they had lost fifteen

thousand men, and he therefore gave them credit for the loss being much

more. On one occasion Wellington surprised Soult, and had so laid his

plans for surrounding him that he felt sure of capturing him; but three

drunken British soldiers, rambling carelessly beyond the outposts, were

taken, and let out the secret of Wellington being hidden close at hand,

behind the rocks, and thus saved the French commander. A second time

he was saved by the Spanish generals, Longa and Barcenas, not being

at their posts in a narrow defile near St. Estevan, where he could

only pass by a slender bridge. Still the British were at his heels,

and committed dreadful havoc on his troops in this pass. On the 2nd of

August there was a fresh encounter with Soult's forces near the town of

Echalar, where they were again beaten, and driven from a lofty mountain

called Ivantelly. Soult retired behind the Bidassoa, and concentrated

his routed forces; and Wellington, having once more cleared the passes

of the Pyrenees of the French, gave his army some rest, after nine days

of incessant and arduous action, where they could look out over the

plains of France, which they were ere long to traverse. But the army

had not much rest here. The French made determined efforts to raise the

siege of San Sebastian, while Wellington was as active in endeavouring

to force Pampeluna to capitulate. Unfortunately he had still scarcely

any proper men or tools for siege-work. He had long urged on the

Government the formation of companies of sappers and miners. But,

after eighteen months, they had formed only one company, whilst, as

Wellington informed the Government, there was no French _corps d'armée_

which had not a battalion of them. This first British company of

sappers and miners came out on the 19th of August, and were immediately

set to work. Sir George Collier sent his sailors to assist, and on

the 31st Wellington considered that he had made sufficient breach for

storming. But that morning Soult sent across the Bidassoa a strong body

of French to attack the besiegers. These were met by a division of

eight thousand Spaniards, who allowed the French to ascend the heights

of San Marcial, on which they were posted, and then, with a shout,

charged with the bayonet down hill, at which sight the French instantly

broke, and ran for it. They were pursued to the river, in which many

plunged, and were drowned. In the afternoon Soult sent over again

fifteen thousand men, having put across a pontoon bridge. These, under

the eye and encouragement of Lord Wellington, were charged again by the

Spaniards, and routed as before; many again rushing into the river,

and the rest, crushing upon the bridge, broke it down, and perished in

great numbers also. The Portuguese troops likewise met and defeated

another detachment of French, who had come by another way. These were

supported by British troops, under General Inglis, and with the same

result. Wellington was highly delighted to see the Spaniards thus, at

length, doing justice to their native valour under British discipline,

and praised them warmly. Soult is said to have lost two thousand men.

While this was going on, the town of San Sebastian was stormed by the

British. Sir Thomas Graham conducted the assault, which was led on by

the brigade of General Robinson, bravely supported by a detachment of

Portuguese under Major Snodgrass. The place was captured; the French

were driven through it to the castle standing on a height, in which

they found refuge. Seven hundred prisoners were taken. The British

lost two thousand men in the assault--a loss which would have been

far greater had a mine, containing one thousand two hundred pounds

of gunpowder, exploded, but which was fortunately prevented by the

falling in of a saucisson. Many less would have fallen, however, had

General Graham allowed shells to be thrown into the town, which he

would not, on account of the inhabitants. But the French had not only

prepared this great mine, but exploded various other appliances for

setting the town on fire. In fact they showed no care for the people

or the town. When driven to the castle, after a murderous street

fight--in which they picked off our men from behind walls and windows,

killing Sir Richard Fletcher, the commanding engineer, and wounding

Generals Robinson, Leith, and Oswald, besides slaughtering heaps of our

men--they continued to fire down the streets, killing great numbers

of the inhabitants besides our soldiers. Yet, after all, they charged

Lord Wellington with not only throwing shells into the town, but

with setting it on fire, and plundering it. His lordship indignantly

repelled these accusations in his letter to his brother, Sir Henry

Wellesley. He declares that he himself had been obliged to hasten to

his headquarters at Lezaco, on the morning of the 31st of August, but

that he saw the town on fire in various places before our soldiers

entered it; in fact, the French had set it on fire in six different

places, and had their mine exploded scarcely a fragment of the town

would have been left, or a single inhabitant alive. The lenity shown

to the town by Wellington and Graham, who acted for him, was not used

towards their calumniators in the castle. It was stoutly bombarded, and

being soon almost battered to pieces about the ears of the defenders,

the French surrendered on the 8th of September, two thousand five

hundred in number; but the siege of both town and fort had cost the

allies four thousand men in killed and wounded. Had the town been, as

the French represented, bombarded like the castle, some thousands of

English and Portuguese lives would have been spared, but at the expense

of the inhabitants.

[Illustration: PAMPELUNA.]

Lord Wellington, early in October, called down his troops from their

cold and miserable posts in the mountains, and marched them over the

Bidassoa, and encamped them amongst the French hills and valleys of

La Rhune. The last division moved across on the 10th of November, the

town of Pampeluna having surrendered on the 31st of October. This

was a very agreeable change to the troops; but, before crossing,

his lordship issued the most emphatic orders against plundering or

ill-using the inhabitants. He told them, and especially the Spanish and

Portuguese, that though the French had committed unheard-of barbarities

in their countries, he would not allow of retaliation and revenge on

the innocent inhabitants of France; that it was against the universal

marauder, Buonaparte, and his system, that the British made war, and

not against the people of France. But the passions of the Portuguese

and Spaniards were too much excited against their oppressors, and they

burnt and plundered whenever they had opportunity. On this, Wellington

wrote sternly to the Spanish general, Freyre. "Where I command," he

said, "no one shall be allowed to plunder. If plunder must be had, then

another must have the command. You have large armies in Spain, and

if it is wished to plunder the French peasantry, you may then enter

France; but then the Spanish Government must remove me from the command

of their armies. It is a matter of indifference to me whether I command

a large or a small army; but, whether large or small, they must obey

me, and, above all, must not plunder." To secure the fulfilment of

these orders, he moved back most of the Spanish troops to within the

Spanish frontiers. The strictness with which Lord Wellington maintained

these sentiments and protected the inhabitants produced the best

results. The folk of the southern provinces, being well inclined to the

Bourbons, and heartily wearied of seeing their sons annually dragged

away to be slaughtered in foreign countries for Buonaparte's ambition,

soon flocked into camp with all sorts of provisions and vegetables; and

they did not hesitate to express their wishes for the success of the

British arms.

Under sharp fighting, Wellington crossed the Nivelle on the 10th of

November, and proposed to go into cantonments at St. Jean de Luz,

on the right bank of the Nivelle; but he did not find himself in a

position to obtain supplies there, and he therefore crossed the Nive,

and occupied the country between that river and the Adour. Soult made

desperate efforts to drive the enemy back; but he was compelled to

fall back on his entrenched camp in front of Bayonne; and Wellington

went into winter-quarters about the middle of December, but quarters

extremely uncomfortable. Their late conflicts, between the 9th and

13th of December, had been made in the worst of weather, and they had

marched over the most terrible roads. During these conflicts they

had lost six hundred and fifty killed, and upwards of one thousand

wounded and five hundred missing. The French had lost three times that

number. But the French were at home amid their own people; while the

allies were in a hostile country, suffering every species of want.

At this moment Britain was sending clothes, arms, and ammunition to

the Germans, the Sclavonians, and Dutch; but her own gallant army,

which had chased the French out of Spain, and which had to maintain

the honour of Great Britain by advancing towards Paris, was suffered

to want everything, especially great-coats and shoes, in that severe

season. Wellington had earnestly implored a reinforcement of twenty

thousand men, but it did not arrive.

In the south-east of Spain the motley army of British and Sicilians

had done sufficient to keep the attention of Suchet engaged, so that

he could not quit that post to follow and assist Soult against the

main British army. Lord Wellington had instructed Sir George Murray to

embark his troops at Alicante, and, sailing to Tarragona, endeavour

to make himself master of it; if he found the French too strong in

that quarter to enable him to effect his purpose, he was to re-embark,

return to Valencia, and then attack the French lines on the Xucar

before Suchet could make the long march which would be necessary to

support them. Murray had had his army weakened by the withdrawal of

two thousand troops by Lord William Bentinck, very unnecessarily, to

Sicily; but he undertook these manœuvres, and might have succeeded in

capturing Tarragona, but, alarmed at a rumour of Suchet and General

Mathieu having combined their forces, and being in march against him,

he abandoned the place panic-stricken, and, in spite of the indignant

remonstrances of Admiral Hallowell, embarked his troops in the utmost

precipitation. Lord William Bentinck arrived on the 17th of June,

immediately after the embarkation, but not in time to save nineteen

pieces of artillery, which Murray had abandoned in the trenches. Lord

Bentinck battered down Fort Balaguer, and then sailed away to Alicante,

leaving the Spanish general exposed to the enemy, but he saved himself

by escaping into the mountains. For this conduct, Sir George Murray

on his return to England was tried by court-martial, and gently

reprimanded, but nothing more.

Lord William Bentinck, after having retired to Alicante, once more

returned to Tarragona, and made himself master of that place.

Attempting further advantages in this country, he was compelled to fall

back on Tarragona with considerable loss. He then returned to Sicily,

and General Clinton took the command of the forces, and strengthened

the defences of the post. At the same time news arrived of the retreat

of Buonaparte from Russia and the rising of Germany, which compelled

Suchet to disarm his German regiments, and march them into France

under guard. He had also to send some of his best French troops to

recruit Buonaparte's decimated army, and the Italian ones to resist the

Austrians in Italy, who were once more in motion through the Alps. In

these circumstances the campaign in the south-east of Spain closed for

the year.

During the winter of 1812 and the spring of 1813 Buonaparte was making

the most energetic exertions to renew the campaign against Russia and

the German nations that were now uniting with the Czar. He called

out new conscriptions, and enforced them with the utmost rigour;

the militia were drafted extensively into the regular army, and the

sailors, whose service had been annihilated by the victorious seamen of

Great Britain, were modelled into regiments, and turned into soldiers.

He sent for part of his forces from Spain; and in the spring he was

enabled to present himself in Germany at the head of three hundred and

fifty thousand men. But this was a very different army from that which

he had led into and lost in Russia--an army of practised veterans,

familiar with victory through a hundred fights. It was necessarily but

ill-disciplined, and much more full of the sense of wrong in having

been dragged from home and its ties than of any thirst of glory. The

cavalry was especially defective, and had lost the commander who gave

it such spirit by his own example. Disgusted by the insolence and

sarcasms of Buonaparte, and believing that his career was about to end,

Murat quitted his command on the 16th of January, 1813, and hastened

to Naples, where he was not long in opening negotiations with Great

Britain and the other Powers for the acknowledgment of his kingdom

as one independent of France, and ranking with the other established

Powers of Europe. Nor was this the only alarming circumstance.

Bernadotte was at the head of an army of Swedes against him--Bernadotte

whom he had driven by the same insolent and unbearable domination

into the arms of his enemies, and whom he now denounced as a renegade

Frenchman who had renounced his country. The truth, however, was that

Bernadotte had been adopted by a new country, and was bound to defend

it.

Next came the declaration of war by the King of Prussia, which

Buonaparte styled a treachery; but, on the contrary, the King of

Prussia had only preserved faith towards his oppressor and insulter too

long. Not only all Prussia, but all Germany was on fire to throw off

the detested yoke of the oppressor, and Frederick William would have

been a traitor to his people and to common sense to have hesitated.

Yet he proposed terms of a mutual settlement. To place himself in a

position of independent treaty, he suddenly left Berlin on the 22nd of

January, and made his way to Breslau, where he was out of the reach of

French arms, and in certainty of the arrival, at no very distant date,

of Russian ones. He invited, however, the French ambassador to follow

him, and he there proposed an armistice, on the conditions that the

French should evacuate Dantzic and all the other Prussian fortresses on

the Oder, and retire behind the Elbe, on which the Czar had promised

that he would stop the march of his army beyond the Vistula. But

Buonaparte treated the proposition with contempt; he was determined to

give up nothing--to recover everything.

Immediately on the rejection of his terms Frederick William concluded

a treaty with Alexander on the 28th of February, and Austria was

invited to join the league. Alexander had joined his army himself

on the 22nd of December, and had marched along with it through that

horrible winter. On the 1st of March Prussia concluded its alliance

with Alexander, offensive and defensive. On the 15th Alexander arrived

at Breslau, and there was an affecting meeting of the two sovereigns,

who had been placed in outward hostility by the power of Buonaparte,

but who had never ceased to be friends at heart. The King of Prussia

was moved to tears. "Courage, my brother," said Alexander; "these are

the last tears that Napoleon shall cause you."

The next day the war against France was proclaimed, and for the

righteous cause of restoring the independence of the nations. Prussia,

and indeed all Germany, had now been trampled on sufficiently to crush

the effeminacy out of all classes--to rouse the true soul of liberty

in them. Men of every rank offered themselves as the defenders and

avengers of their country; the students at this moment not only sung,

but aided freedom. The volunteers were formed into Black Bands, and

others assumed the dress and arms of the Cossacks, who had won much

admiration. They were disciplined in the system of Scharnhorst, and

soon became effective soldiers. A leader was found for them after their

own heart--the brave and patriotic Blucher, who had been reserving

himself for this day, and Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, better tacticians

than himself, were appointed to assist him, and carry out all the

strategic movements; whilst Blucher, never depressed by difficulties,

never daunted by defeat, led them on with the cheer from which he

derived his most common appellation of Marshal Forwards--"Forwards!

my children, forwards!" All classes hastened to contribute the utmost

amount possible to the necessary funds for this sacred war. The ladies

gave in their gold chains and bracelets, their diamonds and rubies, and

wore as ornaments chains and bracelets of beautifully wrought iron.

Austria stood in a hesitating position. On the one hand, she felt

reluctant to join the Allies and assist in destroying the throne of

the Emperor's son-in-law; but at the same time she was anxious to

strengthen her own position by giving more strength to her neighbour,

Prussia. For this purpose Austria offered her mediation for a peace

on terms that would restore Prussia to a more becoming position, and

such proposals of mediation were made by the Austrian Minister to

Great Britain. But these entirely failed. On the one hand, Napoleon

would concede nothing, but declared that he would entirely annihilate

Prussia, and would give Silesia to Austria for her assistance in the

war; on the other hand, Great Britain declared that there could be no

peace unless France disgorged the bulk of her usurpations.

On the 15th of April Buonaparte quitted Paris, for the last time as

a permanent abode; on the 16th he was at Mainz, and on the 25th at

Erfurt. Before quitting Paris he had appointed Maria Louisa regent in

his absence. This he deemed a stroke of policy likely to conciliate the

Emperor of Austria. But the Empress's power was merely nominal. She

could appear at the Council board, but it was only as the instrument

of the Emperor; he carried all active power along with him, and ruled

France from his camp. He had still upwards of fifty thousand troops

in the garrisons of Prussia, commanded by Eugene, the Viceroy of

Italy; and he advanced at the head of three hundred thousand men.

Eugene Beauharnais had been compelled necessarily to evacuate Dantzic,

Berlin, and Dresden as the Russians and Prussians advanced, and to

retreat upon the Elbe. In the month of May Bernadotte, according to

concert, crossed over to Stralsund with thirty-five thousand men, and

awaited the reinforcements of Russians and Germans which were to raise

his division to eighty thousand men, with which he was to co-operate

with the Allies, and protect Hamburg. The Allies, under Tetterborn,

Czernicheff, and Winzengerode, spread along both sides of the Elbe, the

Germans rising enthusiastically wherever they came. Hamburg, Lübeck,

and other towns threw open their gates to them. The French general,

Morand, endeavouring to quell the rising of the people of Lüneburg, was

surprised by the Russians, and his detachment of four thousand men was

cut to pieces, or taken prisoners. Eugene marched from Magdeburg to

surprise Berlin, but was met at Möckern, defeated, and driven back to

Magdeburg. Such was the success of the Allies, and the exulting support

of the people, that even Denmark and Saxony began to contemplate going

over to the Allies. Blucher entered Dresden on the 27th of March,

driving Davoust before him, who blew up an arch of the fine bridge to

cover his retreat. The Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia entered

the city soon afterwards, and were received by the inhabitants with

acclamations. On the 28th of April died the old Russian general,

Kutusoff, at Bautzen, and was succeeded by General Wittgenstein.

At the approach of the new French levies, Eugene Beauharnais retreated

from Magdeburg, and joined them on the Saale. The Allies and Napoleon

now lay face to face, the Allies cutting off his advance towards

Leipsic and thence to Dresden. He resolved to make a determined attack

upon them, and demoralise them by a blow which should make him master

of Leipsic, Dresden, and Berlin at once, and give its impression to

the whole campaign. In the skirmishes which took place previous to the

general engagement at Weissenfels and Poserna on the 29th of April and

the 1st of May, Buonaparte gained some advantages; but in the latter

action his old commander of the Imperial Guard, Marshal Bessières, was

killed. His death was deeply lamented, both by his men, who had served

under him from the very commencement of Buonaparte's career, and by

Buonaparte himself.

The first great battle was destined to be fought on the very ground

where Gustavus Adolphus fell, 1632. Buonaparte marched upon Leipsic,

expecting to find the Allies posted there; but he was suddenly brought

to a stand by them at Lützen. The Allies, who were on the left bank of

the Elster, crossed to the right, and impetuously attacked the French,

whose centre was at the village of Kaya, under the command of Ney,

supported by the Imperial Guard, and their fine artillery drawn up in

front of the town of Lützen; the right wing, commanded by Marmont,

extending as far as the defile of Poserna, and the left stretching from

Kaya to the Elster. Napoleon did not expect to have met the Allies on

that side of Leipsic, and was pressing briskly forward when the attack

commenced. Ney was first stopped at Gross-Görschen. Had Wittgenstein

made a decided charge with his whole column, instead of attacking by

small brigades, he would assuredly have broken the French lines. But

Buonaparte rode up, and galloped from place to place to throw fresh

troops on the point of attack, and to wheel up both of his wings so

as to enclose, if possible, both flanks of the Allies. The conflict

lasted some hours, during which it was uncertain whether the Allies

would break the centre of the French, or the French would be able to

outflank the Allies. Blucher was late on the field; the officer who was

sent overnight to him with orders from Wittgenstein is said to have put

them under his pillow and slept on them till roused by the cannon. At

length, after a desperate attack by Napoleon to recover the village of

Kaya, out of which he had been driven, the Allies observing that the

firing of Macdonald and Bertrand, who commanded the two wings, was fast

extending along their flanks, skilfully extricated themselves from the

combat, and led back their columns so as to escape being outflanked

by the French. Yet they did not even then give up the struggle for

the day. The Allied cavalry made a general attack in the dark, but

it failed from the mighty masses of the French on which they had to

act. The Allies captured some cannon, the French none. The loss of

the Allies was twenty thousand men, killed and wounded: that of the

French was equally severe. Seven or eight French generals were killed

or wounded. On the side of the Allies fell General Scharnhorst--an

irreparable loss, for no man had done more to organise the Prussian

landwehr and volunteers. The Prince Leopold of Hesse-Homburg and the

Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, both allied to the royal family of

England, were slain, and Blucher himself was wounded; but he had his

wounds dressed on the field, and would not quit it till the last moment.

[Illustration: BERNADOTTE (KING OF SWEDEN).]

Napoleon, who had every need of success to regain his former position

in the opinion of France, sent off in all haste to Paris the most

exaggerated account of the battle of Lützen, as one of the most

decisive victories that he had ever won, and that it had totally

scattered the Allies, and neutralised all the hopes and schemes of

Great Britain. The Empress went in procession to Notre Dame, where _Te

Deum_ was celebrated by Cardinal Maury, who drew the most extravagant

picture of Napoleon's invincible genius. The same false statements were

sent also to every friendly Court in Europe, even to Constantinople.

The stratagem had its effect. The wavering German princes, who

were ready to go over to their own countrymen, still ranged their

banners with the French. The King of Saxony had gone to Prague as a

place whence he might negotiate his return to the ranks of his own

fatherland; but he now hastened back again, and was in Dresden on the

12th of May with Napoleon, who conducted him in a kind of triumph

through his capital, parading his adhesion before his subjects who had

hailed the Allies just before with acclamations. The Saxon king, in

fresh token of amity to Napoleon, ceded to him the fortress of Torgau,

much to the disgust of his subjects.

But the Allies had only fallen back behind the Elbe, and taken up a

strong position at Bautzen, on the Spree, about twelve leagues from

Dresden, whilst an army under Bülow covered Berlin. No sooner did the

Allies fall back to the right bank of the Elbe than Davoust attacked

Hamburg on the 9th of May with five thousand men, and vowed vengeance

on the city for having admitted the Allies. To their surprise the

citizens found themselves defended by a body of Danes, from Altona,

who were the allies of France, but had been just then thinking of

abandoning Napoleon. But the fate of the battle of Lützen changed their

views, and they retired in the evening of that day, leaving Hamburg to

the attacks of the French. Bernadotte, not having received the promised

reinforcements, did not venture to cover Hamburg. Davoust entered the

place like a devil. He shot twelve of the principal citizens, and drove

twenty-five thousand of the inhabitants out of the city, pulled down

their houses, compelling the most distinguished men of the town to work

at this demolition and at raising the materials into fortifications.

The people had long been subjected by the French to every possible

kind of pillage and indignity; no women, however distinguished, had

been allowed to pass the gate without being subjected to the most

indecent examinations. But now the fury of the French commander passed

all bounds. He levied a contribution of eighteen millions of dollars:

and not satisfied with that, he robbed the great Hamburg bank, and

declared all his doings to be by orders of the Emperor.

Napoleon, reinforced by a number of French, Bavarian, Würtemberg, and

Saxon troops, moved off to attack the Allies at Bautzen, on the 19th of

May. He had detached Lauriston and Ney towards Berlin to rout Bülow,

but they were stopped by Barclay de Tolly and Yorck at Königswartha and

at Weissig, and compelled to retreat. On the 21st Ney combined with

Napoleon, and they made a united attack on Blucher's position on the

fortified heights of Klein and Klein-Bautzen. In this battle German

fought against German, the Bavarians against Bavarians, for they took

both sides, such was the dislocated state of the nation. It was not

till after a long and desperately-fought battle that the Allies were

compelled to give ground, and then they retired, without the loss of

a single gun, and posted themselves strongly behind the fortress of

Schweidnitz, so famous in the campaigns of Frederick of Prussia.

In this battle the Allies lost in killed and wounded ten thousand

men, the French not less than fifteen thousand. The French generals

Bruyères, Kirchner, and Duroc were amongst the killed. Duroc had long

been one of the most intimate friends and attendants of Buonaparte,

who was so much cut up by his loss that for the first time in all his

terrible campaigns he became unable to attend to further details, but

answered every call for orders with "Everything tomorrow!" When he came

to find that not a gun, not a prisoner was left behind by the Germans

and Russians, Napoleon seemed to comprehend the stern spirit in which

they were now contending, and exclaimed, "How! no result after such a

massacre? No prisoners? They leave me not even a nail!" He advanced to

Breslau, various slight conflicts taking place on the way, and on the

1st of June he entered that city, the princesses of Prussia removing

thence into Bohemia.

An armistice was now demanded by the Allies--it is said at the instance

of Austria, who desired to act as mediator--and gladly assented to by

Napoleon, who was desirous of completing his preparations for a more

determined attack. The armistice was signed on the 4th of June at the

village of Pleisswitz.

At the time of this armistice, Napoleon, by the great battles of Lützen

and Bautzen, had recovered his _prestige_ sufficiently to induce the

German Confederates of the Rhine to stand by him; but he was by no

means what he had been. The opinion of his invincibility had been

irreparably damaged by the Russian campaign, and the success in these

battles was not of a character to give confidence to his own army. They

saw that the Allies had lost all superstitious fear of him. To assist

in the negotiations of this armistice, Buonaparte sent for his two

ablest heads, Fouché and Talleyrand, whom he had so long thrown from

him for their sound advice. If Buonaparte could have heard, too, what

was really going on in France, what were the growing feelings there, he

would have been startled by a most ominous condition of things. But he

had thoroughly shut out from himself the voice of public opinion, by

his treatment of the press and of liberty, and he now was to suffer for

it. Great Britain, on the 14th of June, had concluded an alliance with

Russia and Prussia, and promised to send ample materials of assistance,

even an army to the north of Prussia; and many British officers of

the highest rank repaired to the headquarters of the Allies. When

Great Britain was asked to take part in this negotiation she refused,

declaring it useless, as Napoleon would not grant the only demands

which the Allies ought to make.

Austria professed great friendliness to Napoleon, and he thought that

she would not like to break with him on account of the Empress. But

Austria, on the 27th of June, signed an engagement with Russia and

Prussia, at Reichenbach, in Silesia, binding herself to break with

him if he did not concede the terms which they demanded. These were

to restore Illyria and the whole of Austrian Italy; to reinstate the

Pope; to leave Poland to the three Powers who had formerly possessed

themselves of it, and to renounce Spain, Holland, Switzerland, and the

Confederation of the Rhine. Buonaparte treated these demands as sheer

madness; but he was nearly mad himself when Talleyrand and Fouché, and

still more, his best military counsellors, advised him at least to

fall back to the left bank of the Rhine, and make that the boundary of

France. He offered to annihilate the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, giving up

the whole of Poland to Russia--such was his gratitude to the Poles!--to

restore Illyria to Austria, but to cut down Prussia still more by

pushing the Rhenish Confederation to the Oder.

His terms were rejected with disdain. Yet he had a last interview with

Metternich, in which he hoped to terrify him by a dread of the future

preponderance of Russia; but, seeing that it made no impression, he

became incensed, and adopted a very insolent tone towards the Austrian

Minister. "Well, Metternich," he demanded, "how much has England

given you to induce you to play this part towards me?" Metternich

received the insult in haughty silence. Buonaparte, to try how far the

diplomatist still would preserve his deference towards him, let his

hat fall: Metternich let it lie. This was a sign that the Austrian

had taken his part; it was, in fact, the signal of war. Yet, at the

last moment, Napoleon suddenly assumed a tone of conciliation, and

offered very large concessions. He had heard the news of the defeat of

Vittoria. But it was too late. The Congress terminated on the 10th of

August, and the Allies refused to re-open it. On the 12th of August,

two days after the termination of the armistice, Austria declared

herself on the side of the Allies, and brought two hundred thousand

men to swell their ranks. This redoubtable force was commanded by her

general, Prince von Schwarzenberg.

Immediately after the termination of the armistice the Russians and

Prussians joined the great army of the Austrians, which had been

concentrated at Prague. Their plan was to fall upon Buonaparte's rear.

Full of activity, that unresting man had been busy, during the whole

armistice, in defending his headquarters at Dresden by fortifications.

He had cut down all the trees which adorned the public gardens and

walks, and used them in a chain of redoubts and field-works, secured

by fosses and palisades. He was in possession of the strong mountain

fortresses of the vicinity, as well as those of Torgau, Wittenberg,

Magdeburg, and others, so that the valley of the Elbe was in his

hands; and he had a bridge of boats at Königstein, extending his

communications to Stolpe: thus guarding against an attack on the side

of Bohemia. In the beginning of August he assembled two hundred and

fifty thousand men in Saxony and Silesia. Of these, sixty thousand lay

at Leipsic under Oudinot, and one hundred thousand in different towns

on the borders of Silesia, under Macdonald; he himself lay at Dresden

with his Imperial Guard. Eugene Beauharnais he had dispatched to Italy,

where he had forty thousand men. Besides these, he had a reserve of

Bavarians, under General Wrede, of twenty-five thousand men.

Besides the grand army of the Allies, of two hundred thousand, marching

from Bohemia, one hundred and twenty thousand Austrians, and eighty

thousand Russians and Prussians, Blucher lay on the road to Breslau

with eighty thousand; the Crown Prince of Sweden, near Berlin, with

thirty thousand Swedes and sixty thousand Prussians and Russians;

Walmoden lay at Schwerin, in Mecklenburg, with thirty thousand Allies;

and Hiller, with forty thousand Austrians, watched the army of Italy.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON'S INTERVIEW WITH METTERNICH. (_See p._ 67.)]

Whilst these gigantic armies were drawing towards each other, in

the early part of August, for what was afterwards called "the grand

battle of the peoples," the weather seemed as though it would renew

its Russian miseries on the French. They had to march in constantly

deluging rains, up to the knees in mud, and to risk their lives by

crossing flooded rivers. Amid these buffetings of the elements the

conflict began, on the 21st of August, between Walmoden and Davoust, at

Vellahn. A few days afterwards, in a skirmish with Walmoden's outposts

at Gadebusch, Korner, the youthful Tyrtæus of Germany, fell.

The plan of the campaign is said to have been laid down by Bernadotte,

and adopted, after some slight revision, by General Moreau. That

general, whom the jealousy of Buonaparte had expelled from France,

and who had retired to America, now returned in the hope of seeing

the fall of Buonaparte effected, and peace and a liberal constitution

given to his country. He came not to fight against France, but against

Buonaparte. The plan showed that they who devised it knew Napoleon's

art of war. It was to prevent him from attacking and beating them in

detail. Whichever party was first assailed was to retire and draw

him after them, till the other divisions could close round him, and

assail him on all sides. Blucher was the first to advance against

Macdonald and Ney. As had been foreseen, Buonaparte hastened to support

these generals with the Imperial Guard and a numerous cavalry, under

Latour-Maubourg. But Blucher then retired, and, crossing the Katzbach,

sat down near Jauer, so as to cover Breslau. The purpose was served,

for Schwarzenberg, accompanied by the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia,

as well as by Moreau, had rushed forward on Dresden, driving St. Cyr

and twenty thousand men before them, who took refuge in Dresden. The

Allies were at his heels, and on the 25th of August began to attack the

city. They hoped to win it before Buonaparte could return, in which

case they would cut off his line of communication with France--stopping

the advance both of his supplies and reinforcements. But the very

next day, whilst they were in vigorous operation against the city, and

had already carried two redoubts, Buonaparte was seen advancing in hot

haste over the bridges into Dresden. Warned of its danger, he had left

Macdonald to defend himself, and now led his troops across the city

and out at two different gates upon the enemies. The battle continued

that day, and was resumed the next, by Buonaparte pushing forward

immense bodies of troops from different gates, and concentrating them

on the Allies. The attempt to take the city in Buonaparte's absence

had failed, and now they saw themselves in danger of being enclosed by

Murat--who had again been induced to join the Emperor--on the Freiberg

road, and by Vandamme on the road to Pirna, by the Elbe. They were,

therefore, compelled to fall back, and the withdrawal soon proved a

flight. Napoleon pursued them hotly amid torrents of wind and rain,

and made great slaughter, especially of the Austrians, who were seized

with a panic of the enemy who had so often beaten them. Seven or eight

thousand French were killed and wounded; but of the Allies, chiefly

Austrians, more than twenty thousand were killed or disabled. During

the engagement Moreau had both his legs shot away by a cannon ball, and

died in a few days.

[Illustration: VIEW IN DRESDEN.]

Buonaparte continued the pursuit of the Allies as far as Pirna, whence,

owing to indisposition, he returned to Dresden; but Vandamme, Murat,

Marmont, and St. Cyr pushed forward by different ways to cut off

the route of the fugitives into the mountains of Bohemia. Vandamme,

however, having passed Peterswald, beyond which he had orders not to

proceed, was tempted to try for Töplitz, where the Allied sovereigns

lay, and take it. In doing this he was enclosed, in a deep valley near

Kulm, by Ostermann and other bodies of the Allies, completely routed,

and taken prisoner, with Generals Haxo and Guyot, the loss of two

eagles, and seven thousand prisoners. This was on the 29th of August.

On the 26th Blucher had nearly annihilated the division of Macdonald.

No sooner did he learn the return of Buonaparte to Dresden than he

wheeled round upon Macdonald, taking him by surprise, and driving his

troops into the rivers Katzbach and Neisse, swollen by the rains. The

battle raged the most fiercely near Wahlstadt, and, on the subsidence

of the floods, hundreds of corpses were seen sticking in the mud. A

part of the French fled for a couple of days in terrible disorder along

the right bank of the Neisse, and were captured, with their general, by

the Russian commander, Langeron.

The same fate befell the troops of Ney, who had been sent to dislodge

Bernadotte and Bülow before Berlin. He was beaten at Dennewitz on the

6th of September, with a loss of eighteen thousand men and eighty guns.

Macdonald had lost on the Katzbach many thousands slain or dispersed,

eighteen thousand prisoners, and a hundred and three guns. His army was

nearly annihilated. Between this period and the end of September the

French generals were defeated in every quarter: Davoust by Walmoden;

another body of French by Platoff, on the 29th; Jerome by Czernicheff,

on the 30th; and Lefebvre by Thielemann and Platoff, at Altenburg.

These defeats, which were gradually hemming Napoleon round by his

enemies in Dresden, were the direct result of the active aid of Great

Britain to the Allies. Sir Charles Stewart, the brother of Lord

Castlereagh, had been dispatched to the headquarters of the Allies.

By means of the abundant supplies of arms and money, the population

of Hanover was raised; Bernadotte was kept firm to his support of the

Coalition; and, by Sir Charles, he was also urged to march on Leipsic,

and be present at the final conflict. Brigadier-General Lyon was sent

to head the troops in Hanover; and the Duke of Cambridge to conduct the

civil government of the country. Money was supplied in abundance, in

addition to military stores. Two millions were advanced to the Crown

Prince of Sweden for his army, two millions more to the Russians and

Prussians, and another half million to Russia to equip its fleet in the

Baltic. Without these vast supplies the combined armies could not have

kept their ground.

From the 24th of September till the commencement of October Buonaparte

continued to maintain himself at Dresden, though the Allies were fast

gathering round him. Occasionally he made a rush from the city, and on

one occasion pursued Blucher as far as Nollendorf, beyond Kulm; but

these expeditions only served to exhaust his troops, without producing

any effect on the enemy. As he chased one body on one side, others were

closing up on other sides. Seeing that he could not remain long at

Dresden, and that Bernadotte and Bülow had quitted the neighbourhood

of Berlin, he suddenly conceived the design of marching rapidly on that

city, and taking up his headquarters there; but this scheme met with

universal disapprobation from his officers, and he was compelled to

abandon it. He then continued for days, and even weeks, in a state of

listless apathy, for hours together mechanically making large letters

on sheets of paper, or debating some new schemes with his generals; but

the only scheme to which they would listen was that of retreating to

the left bank of the Rhine. In fact, they and the army were completely

worn out and dispirited.

The Allies now determined to close in on all sides, and compel the

French to a surrender. But Buonaparte, after some manœuvres to bring

Blucher to action--that general and the Crown Prince of Sweden having

crossed to the left bank of the Elbe--found it at length necessary

to retreat to Leipsic. He reached that city on the 15th of October,

and learned, to his great satisfaction, that whilst his whole force

would be under its walls within twenty-four hours, the Austrians were

advancing considerably ahead of the Prussians; and he flattered himself

that he should be able to beat the Austrians before the other Allies

could reach them.

Leipsic is nearly surrounded by rivers and marshy lands, and only,

therefore, accessible by a number of bridges. The Pleisse and the

Elster on the west, in various divisions, stretch under its walls;

on the east winds far round the Parthe; on the south only rise some

higher lands. On the 16th of October, at break of day, the Austrians

attacked the southern or more accessible side with great fury, headed

by Generals Kleist and Mehrfeldt, and were opposed by Poniatowski

and Victor. Buonaparte was soon obliged to send up Souham to support

these generals. Lauriston also was attacked by Klenau at the village

of Liebertvolkwitz. After much hard fighting, Buonaparte ordered up

Macdonald, who broke through the Austrian line at the village of Gossa,

followed by Murat; Latour-Maubourg and Kellermann galloped through with

all their cavalry. Napoleon considered this as decisive, and sent word

to the King of Saxony that the battle was won, and that poor dupe and

unpatriotic king set the church bells ringing for joy. But a desperate

charge of Cossacks reversed all this, and drove back the French to

the very walls of the town. In the meantime, Blucher had attacked and

driven in Marmont, taking the village of Machern with twenty pieces

of cannon and two thousand prisoners. On the side of the Pleisse

Schwarzenberg pushed across a body of horse, under General Mehrfeldt,

who fell into the hands of the French; but another division, under

General Giulay, secured the left bank of the Pleisse and its bridges,

and had he blown them up, would have cut off the only avenue of retreat

for the French towards the Rhine. Night fell on the fierce contest,

in which two hundred and thirty thousand Allies were hemming in one

hundred and thirty-six thousand French; for the Allies this time had

adopted Buonaparte's great rule of conquering by united numbers.

The next day the battle paused, as by mutual consent; and as it was

evident that the French must eventually retreat, this day should have

been spent in preparing temporary bridges to cross the rivers; but, as

at Moscow, the presence of mind of Buonaparte seemed to have deserted

him. He dispatched General Mehrfeldt to the Allied monarchs, to propose

an armistice, on condition that he would yield all demanded at the

previous Conference--Poland, and Illyria, the independence of Holland,

Spain, and Italy, with the evacuation of Germany entirely. Before he

went Mehrfeldt informed him that the Bavarians had gone over in a body

to the Allies. But in vain did Buonaparte wait for an answer--none was

vouchsafed. The Allied monarchs had mutually sworn to hold no further

intercourse with the invader till every Frenchman was beyond the Rhine.

On the morning of the 19th the battle recommenced with fury. The French

were now fighting close under the walls of the town, and Napoleon,

posted on an eminence called Thonsberg, watched the conflict. Till

two o'clock the fight raged all along the line, round the city; and

neither party seemed to make any advance. At length the Allies forced

their way into the village of Probstheide, and threw the French on that

side into great confusion. Ney, on the north side, was also fearfully

pressed by Blucher and the Crown Prince of Sweden, and was compelled

to retreat under the walls. On a sudden, as the Russians advanced also

against Ney, the Saxons--ten thousand in number--went over to them

with a shout. They were sent to the rear, but their cannon was at once

turned against the enemy. By evening it was clear that the French could

not hold their position another day. Schwarzenberg announced to the

Allied sovereigns that victory was certain, and they knelt on the field

and returned thanks to God. The French knew this better than their

opponents, for in the two days they had fired two hundred and fifty

thousand cannon-balls, and had only about sixteen thousand cartridges

left, which would not serve for more than two hours, much of their

artillery having been sent to Torgau. The retreat, therefore, commenced

in the night. There was only one bridge prepared, of timber, in

addition to the regular stone bridge, over which one hundred thousand

men must pass, with the enemy at their heels. To add to the misery, the

temporary bridge soon broke down. Napoleon took a hasty leave of the

King and Queen of Saxony, ordered Poniatowski to defend the rear, and

himself made for the bridge. It was not without much difficulty, and

considerable alarm lest he should be surrounded and taken, that he and

his suite got across. Then there was a terrible scene of crushing and

scrambling; and the enemy, now aware of the flight, were galloping and

running from all sides towards the bridge, to cut off the fugitives.

Soon after Buonaparte had got over, the bridge was blown up by the

French officer in charge of the mine already made, and twenty-five

thousand men were left to surrender as prisoners in the town. Amongst

these were Marshals Macdonald and Poniatowski; but, disdaining to

surrender, they sprang, with their horses, into the Pleisse--to swim.

Macdonald escaped, but Poniatowski, though he crossed the Pleisse, was

again nearly cut off, and plunging into the deep and muddy Elster,

was drowned. No braver man perished in these tragic campaigns; both

Allies and French in Leipsic followed his remains to the tomb, in

sincere honour of his gallantry. The triumph of the Allied monarchs was

complete. They met in the great square of the city, and felicitated

each other. The King of Saxony was sent, without any interview, under

a guard of Cossacks to Berlin, and at the General Congress he was made

to pay dearly in territory for his besotted adhesion to the invader of

Germany. In this awful battle the French lost three hundred guns. The

slain on both sides amounted to eighty thousand, and thousands of the

wounded lay for days around the city, exposed to the severe October

nights, before they could be collected into lazarettos; and the view of

the whole environs of Leipsic, covered with dead, was fearful.

On the 23rd of October Napoleon reached Erfurt, whose fortifications

afforded him the means of two days' delay, to collect his scattered

forces. As they came straggling in, in a most wretched condition, and

without arms, his patience forsook him, and he exclaimed, "They are a

set of scoundrels, who are going to the devil! I shall lose eighty

thousand before I get to the Rhine!" In fact, he had only eighty

thousand men left, besides another eighty thousand in the garrisons

in the north of Germany--thus also lost to him. Of his two hundred

and eighty thousand men, had utterly perished one hundred and twenty

thousand. He sent orders to those in the garrisons to form a junction

in the valley of the Elbe, and so fight their way home; but this

was not practicable; and in a few months they all surrendered, on

conditions. He here dismissed such of the Saxons and Baden troops as

remained with him, and offered the same freedom to the Poles; but these

brave men--with a generosity to which the betrayer of their country

had no claim--refused to disband till they had seen him safe over the

Rhine. Murat, with less fidelity, took his leave again, on the plea

of raising troops on the frontiers of France to facilitate Napoleon's

retreat, but in reality to get away to Naples and make terms for

himself.

Before Buonaparte quitted Erfurt he learned that his late allies, the

Bavarians, with a body of Austrians under General Wrede, were marching

to cut off his line of retreat to the Rhine, and that another body of

Austrians and Prussians were marching from near Weimar, on the same

point, with the same object. He left Erfurt on the 25th of October,

amid the most tempestuous weather, and his rear incessantly harassed by

the Cossacks. He met Wrede posted at Hanau, but with only forty-five

thousand men, so that he was able to force his way, but with a loss of

six thousand, inflicting a still greater loss on the Austro-Bavarians,

of nearly ten thousand. On the 30th of October Napoleon reached

Frankfort, and was at Mainz the next day, where he saw his army cross,

and on the 7th of November he left for Paris, where he arrived on the

9th. His reception there was by no means encouraging. In addition to

the enormous destruction of life in the Russian campaign, the French

public now--instead of the reality of those victories which his lying

bulletins had announced--saw him once more arrive alone.

When the advanced guard of the Allies came in sight of the Rhine, over

which the last of the hated invaders had fled, they raised such shouts

of "The Rhine! the Rhine!" that those behind rushed forward, supposing

that it was a call to action; but they soon learned the true cause,

and joined in a mighty acclamation, that proclaimed the haughty and

sanguinary oppressor driven out, and the soil of Germany at length

freed from his licentious and marauding legions. It turned out that

they had left behind them one hundred and forty thousand prisoners,

and seven hundred and ninety-one guns. On the 2nd of November Hanover

was again delivered to Great Britain; the Duke of Brunswick, who

had maintained his stern hatred to Buonaparte, also returned to his

patrimonial domains; the kingdom of Westphalia dissolving like a

dream, the different portions of Jerome's ephemeral realm reverted to

its former owners. The Confederacy of the Rhine was at an end, the

members of it hastening to make peace with the Allies, and save as

much of their dominions as they could. Bernadotte, immediately after

the defeat of Buonaparte at Leipsic, entered Denmark, and overran the

country of that ally of France. The Danish army speedily consented to

an armistice, by which it was agreed that the Swedes should occupy

Holstein and a part of Schleswig till the French were expelled from all

the Danish fortresses. It was already stipulated as the price of his

co-operation, that the Crown Prince should receive Norway to add to the

Swedish Crown.

Holland rose in exultation on the news of the overthrow of Buonaparte

at Leipsic. His dominion over that country had been a bitter thraldom.

Its sons had been dragged yearly, by conscription, to his great

slaughter-houses called battle-fields in distant regions. Their trade

had been crushed by his Continental system; their colonies seized by

Great Britain; their mercantile sources thus dried up--in fact, he had

squeezed the wealth and the life out of Holland as out of a sponge,

and hordes of French officials maintained an insolent dominance all

over the country. At news of the Russian disasters, the Dutch had risen

to throw off this hateful and ruinous yoke; but the French forces in

Holland had then been sufficient to put them down, and to severely

punish them for the attempt. But the necessities in Germany had nearly

drained Holland of French troops, and they now rose once more joyfully

at Amsterdam, on the 15th of November, and at the Hague on the 16th.

They received the most prompt assurances of assistance from Great

Britain. A man-of-war was immediately put at the service of the Prince

of Orange, and after a nineteen years' exile he embarked on the 25th,

and entered Amsterdam on the 1st of December as King of Holland, amid

the most enthusiastic acclamations. An army of twenty-five thousand

men was soon enrolled; the Allies were at hand; the French authorities

fled, after laying hands on all the booty they could carry off; and

with the exception of the fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom, the country was

speedily cleared of them.

[Illustration: THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU]

The Swiss acted a more cautious part. Fearful that Napoleon might

yet, by some other wonderful chance, regain his power, they summoned

a Diet, passed an order for the neutrality of the cantons, and issued

an order calling on the Allies to respect this, and not attempt to

march troops through their country. This would have suited Buonaparte

extremely well, as it would have closed his eastern frontiers to the

Austrians, who were marching that way under Count Bubna; but the

Austrians informed the Swiss authorities that they should certainly

march through; and the Allied sovereigns dispatched Count Capo d'Istria

and Herr Lebzeltern to Zurich to state that the power of France over

Switzerland was at an end, and to desire them to send deputies to meet

them, and to establish an independent government for Switzerland. Thus

assured, the greater part of the cantons sent their deputies to Zurich,

who proclaimed the restoration of national independence, and gave free

consent for the armies of the Allies to march through the country.

Whilst all the countries which Buonaparte, at such an incalculable cost

of life and human suffering, had compelled to the dominion of France

were thus re-asserting their freedom, Buonaparte, in Paris, presented

the miserable phantom of a vanished greatness. He called on the Senate

to vote new conscriptions, telling them that theirs had been made by

him the first throne of the universe, and they must maintain it as

such; that without him they would become nothing. But the Allies were

now entering France at one end, and Wellington was firmly fixed in the

other; ere long the insulted nations would be at the gates of Paris,

and the Senate and people demanded peace. Buonaparte refused to listen,

and the Senate voted the conscription of three hundred thousand men,

knowing that there was no longer any authority in the country to raise

them. La Vendée, and all the Catholic South, were on the verge of

insurrection; Murat, in Naples, was ready to throw off his last link of

adhesion to Buonaparte; and the defeated usurper stood paralysed at the

approach of his doom.

It was natural that this mighty turn in affairs on the Continent

should be watched in Great Britain with an interest beyond the power of

words. Though this happy country had never felt the foot of the haughty

invader, no nation in Europe had put forth such energies for the

overthrow of the usurper; none had poured forth such a continual flood

of wealth to arm, to clothe, to feed the struggling nations, and hold

them up against the universal aggressor. Parliament met on the 4th of

November, and, in the speech of the Prince Regent and in the speeches

in both Houses, one strain of exultation and congratulation on the

certain prospect of a close to this unexampled war prevailed. At that

very moment the "Corsican upstart" was on his way to Paris, his lost

army nearly destroyed, the remains of it chased across the Rhine, and

himself advancing to meet a people at length weary of his sanguinary

ambition, and sternly demanding peace.

Lord Castlereagh, in recounting the aid given by Great Britain to

the sovereigns of the Continent in this grand effort to put down

the intolerable military dominance of Buonaparte, drew a picture of

expenditure such as no country had presented since the commencement

of history. He said that the nations of the north of Europe were so

exhausted by their former efforts, that not one of them could move

without our aid; that this year alone we had sent to Russia two million

pounds; to Prussia two million pounds; to Austria one million pounds

in money, and one hundred thousand stand of arms; to Spain two million

pounds; to Portugal one million pounds; to Sicily four hundred thousand

pounds. By these aids Russia had been able to bring up men from the

very extremities of the earth, and Prussia to put two hundred thousand

men into the field. We had sent during the year five hundred thousand

muskets to Spain and Portugal, and four hundred thousand to other parts

of the Continent. There was something sublime in the contemplation

of one nation, by the force of her wealth and her industry, calling

together the armies of the whole world to crush the evil genius of the

earth.

But Lord Castlereagh called on Parliament to maintain the same scale

of expenditure and exertion till the great drama was completed. He

estimated that there would still be wanted for 1814 four million pounds

for the Peninsula, and six million pounds for Germany. He stated that

our army in all quarters of the world amounted to two hundred and

thirty thousand men, and that it was probable that we should have

occasion to send from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men to

Holland, which, he recommended, should be raised by drafts from the

militia. Of seamen, one hundred and forty thousand, and thirty-one

thousand marines were voted, as it was resolved to chase the flag of

the troublesome Americans from the seas. All these proposals were

assented to without hesitation, and with the warmest encomiums on the

achievements of Lord Wellington in Spain and the south of France,

Parliament adjourned on the 26th of December till the 1st of March,

1814.

At the opening of the year 1814 Buonaparte was busy endeavouring to

make good some of his false steps, so as to meet the approaching

Allies with all possible strength. He made haste to liberate the

captive Pope, and thus remove one of the causes of the hostility of

the Italians to him, for in Italy the Austrians were bearing hard on

his Viceroy, Eugene, who had but about forty-five thousand men there,

whilst Murat, at Naples, so far from supporting the claims of Napoleon,

was endeavouring to bargain with the Allies for the kingdom of Naples.

Buonaparte, at the commencement of the year, sent Cardinal Maury and

the Bishops of Evreux and Plaisance to Pius VII. at Fontainebleau.

But even in such pressing circumstances Buonaparte could not make a

generous offer. He endeavoured to bargain for the cession of a part

of the Papal territories, on condition of the surrender of the rest.

But Pius, who had always shown great spirit, replied that the estates

of the Church were not his to give, and he would not give his consent

to their alienation. Foiled on this point, Buonaparte then sent word

that the Pope should be unconditionally liberated. "Then," said Pius,

"so must all my cardinals." This was refused, but he was permitted to

go alone, and a carriage and guard of honour were given him. Before

departing, Pius called together the cardinals, seventeen in number,

and commanded them to wear no decoration received from the French

Government, and to assist at no festival to which they should be

invited. He then took his leave, on the 24th of January, and reached

Rome on the 18th of May. Thus ended the most foolish of all the

arbitrary actions of Napoleon. The folly of it was so obvious that he

disclaimed having ordered the seizure of the Pope, but he showed that

this was false by keeping him prisoner more than five years.

Another matter which he was eager to set right was the captivity of the

King of Spain. He had one hundred thousand of his best disciplined and

most seasoned troops in Spain, and he was anxious to get them out to

meet the approaching Allies. Besides this, he was equally anxious to

render the stay of Wellington in the south of France indefensible. To

effect these purposes, he determined not only to liberate Ferdinand of

Spain, but to send him home under the conditions of a treaty, by which

a full exchange of prisoners should be effected, and the continuance

of the British there be declared unnecessary. Nay, he did all in his

power to embroil the Spaniards with their deliverers, the British.

By a treaty Buonaparte recognised Ferdinand VII. and his successors

as King of Spain and the Indies, and Ferdinand, on his part, bound

himself to maintain the integrity of his empire, and to oblige the

British immediately to evacuate every part of Spain. The contracting

powers were to maintain their maritime rights against Great Britain;

and whilst Buonaparte surrendered all fortresses held by him in Spain,

Ferdinand was to continue to all the Spaniards who had adhered to King

Joseph the rights, privileges, and property they had enjoyed under him.

Could this treaty have been carried out, Buonaparte would at once have

obtained his one hundred thousand veterans from Spain, and completely

paralysed the army of Lord Wellington. The Duke de San Carlos conveyed

the treaty to Spain. He was instructed to inquire into the state of

the Regency and the Cortes, whether they were really so infected with

infidelity and Jacobinism as Napoleon had represented; but, whether

so or not, he was to procure the ratification of the treaty by these

bodies, and Ferdinand undertook to deal with them himself when once

safe upon the throne. San Carlos travelled eastward into Spain, and

visited the camp of Suchet, who very soon communicated to General

Capons, who was co-operating with General Clinton, that there was peace

concluded between Spain and France, and that there was no longer any

use for the British. Capons was very ready to act on this information

and enter into a separate armistice with Suchet; but fortunately for

both Spain and the British, neither the Regency nor the Cortes would

sign the treaty so long as the king was in durance in France.

Lord Wellington had been duly informed of the progress of these

manœuvres, and they had given him great anxiety; nor were these the

only causes of anxiety which affected him. The British Ministry were

so much absorbed with the business of supporting the Allies in their

triumphant march after Buonaparte, that they seemed to think the

necessity of Lord Wellington's exertions at an end. At the close of

1813 they recalled Sir Thomas Graham and some of his best battalions

to send them into Holland. They appeared to contemplate still further

reductions of the Peninsular army, and Lord Wellington was obliged

to address them in very plain terms to impress them with the vital

necessity of maintaining the force in this quarter unweakened. He

reminded them that thirty thousand British troops had kept two hundred

thousand of Buonaparte's best troops engaged in Spain for five years;

that without this assistance Spain and Portugal would have long ago

been completely thrown under the feet of the invader, and the Allies of

the North would have had to contend against the undivided armies and

exertions of Napoleon; that to render his own army inefficient would

be at once to release one hundred thousand veterans such as the Allied

armies had not had to deal with. This had the proper effect; and as

soon as Wellington had obtained the necessary supplies, he resumed his

operations to drive Soult from under the walls of Bayonne.

Early in February he commenced his operations, and carried them

forward with a vigour most extraordinary. He drove Soult from all his

entrenchments before Bayonne, and again on the 27th he routed him at

Orthez and pursued him to the banks of the Adour. This was a sharply

contested field, the British having nearly three hundred killed and

two thousand wounded; but the loss of the French was far heavier, for

they flung down their arms and ran, and there was a great slaughter

of the fugitives. The towns of Bayonne and Bordeaux being now left

uncovered by the French, Wellington sent bodies of troops to invest

them. Bordeaux opened its gates on March 8th, and proclaimed Louis

XVIII. Lord Wellington had issued orders that the British should take

no part in any political demonstrations, but should leave all such

decisions to the Allies, who would settle by treaty what dynasty should

reign. He himself followed Soult to Tarbes, where he expected that he

would give battle; but Soult was anxious for the arrival and junction

of Suchet, who was advancing from Spain with upwards of twenty thousand

men. Soult, therefore, retreated to Toulouse, which he reached on the

24th of March.

Lord Wellington came up with him on the 9th of April, in the meantime

having had to get across the rapid Garonne, with all his artillery

and stores, in the face of the French batteries. The next morning,

the 10th, being Easter Sunday, Wellington attacked Soult in all his

positions. These were remarkably strong, most of his troops being

posted on well-fortified heights, bristling with cannon, various

strongly-built houses being crammed with riflemen; while a network of

vineyards and orchards, surrounded by stone walls, and intersected

by streams, protected his men, and rendered the coming at them most

difficult. The forces on both sides were nearly equal. Soult had about

forty-two thousand men, and Wellington, besides his army composed of

British, Germans, and Portuguese, had a division of fifteen thousand

Spaniards. The difficulties of the situation far out-balanced the

excess of about three thousand men on the British side; but every

quarter was gallantly attacked and, after a severe conflict, carried.

Soult retired into Toulouse, and during the ensuing night he evacuated

it, and retreated to Carcassonne. The loss of the Allies in killed was

six hundred, and about four thousand wounded. Soult confessed to three

thousand two hundred killed and wounded, but we may calculate his total

loss at little less than that of the Allies, although his troops had

been protected by their stone walls and houses.

On the 12th of April Wellington entered Toulouse amid the acclamations

of the people. But Lord Wellington was accused by the French of

fighting the battle five days after the abdication of Buonaparte, and

therefore incurring a most needless waste of life. The fact was, that

it was not till the afternoon of the 12th of April that Colonel Cooke

and the French Colonel, St. Simon, arrived at Toulouse, bringing the

official information that Buonaparte had abdicated at Fontainebleau on

the 4th. Thus it happened that the battle was fought a week before the

knowledge of the peace was received. Moreover, we have the evidence

of Soult's own correspondence, that on the 7th of April, after he had

heard of the entrance of the Allies into Paris, he was determined to

fight another battle, and for the very reason that the Allies had

entered Paris. When the English and French colonels arrived at Soult's

camp with the same news that they had communicated to Wellington, Soult

refused to submit to the Provisional Government until he received

orders from Napoleon; nor did he acknowledge this Government till the

17th, when Wellington was in full pursuit of him towards Castelnaudary.

On the 18th a convention was signed between Wellington and Soult,

and on the following day a like one was signed between Wellington

and Suchet. On the 21st Lord Wellington announced to his army that

hostilities were at an end, and thanked them "for their uniform

discipline and gallantry in the field, and for their conciliatory

conduct towards the inhabitants of the country."

In preparing to meet the invasion of the Allies Napoleon had to

encounter the most formidable difficulties. In Russia and in

this German campaign he had seen the bulk of his veteran army

dissipated--nay, destroyed. After all his years of incessant drafts on

the life-blood of France, six hundred thousand men could not be readily

replaced. To replace a fourth of that number with well-disciplined

troops was impossible. He could draw none from Germany, for his

boasted Confederation of the Rhine had disappeared as a summer cloud,

and the very princes on whom he had relied were marching against him

in the vast army of the Allies. He could draw none from Italy; for

there Eugene Beauharnais was contending, with only about forty-five

thousand men, against the much more numerous Austrians; whilst his

brother-in-law, Murat, his dashing cavalry general, was gone over to

the enemy. Poland would send him no more gallant regiments, for he

had grievously deceived the Poles; and his trusted ally of Denmark

lay trodden under foot by his former companion-in-arms, Bernadotte.

When he turned his eyes over France, which had so long sent forth her

hordes to desolate Europe at his bidding, he beheld a prospect not

much more cheering. The male population, almost to a man, was drained

off, and their bones lay bleaching in the torrid sands of Egypt and

Syria, the rugged sierras of Spain and Portugal, in the fens of Holland

and the sandy flats of Belgium, on many a heath and plain in Germany,

and far away amid the mocking snows of frozen Muscovy. The fields of

"la belle France" were being cultivated by old men, by women, and

mere boys. Those who had been so long buoyed up under the loss of

husbands, fathers, and children, by the delusive mirage of the glory

of the "grand nation," now cursed the tyrant whose insane ambition had

led such millions of the sons of France to the great slaughter-house

of war. The conscriptions, therefore, were very little attended to.

Besides this, Buonaparte was well aware that there remained a strong

leaven of Jacobinism in Paris and the large towns, and he was afraid

of calling out city guards to set at liberty other soldiers, lest, in

the hour of his absence and weakness, they should rise and renounce his

authority.

Finding that there remained no other means of reinforcing his army,

he drained the garrisons all over France, and drew what soldiers he

could from Soult and Suchet in the south. He was busy daily drilling

and reviewing, and nightly engaged in sending dispatches to urge on the

provinces to send up their men. The _Moniteur_ and other newspapers

represented all France as flying to arms; but the truth was they looked

with profound apathy on the progress of the Allies. These issued

proclamation after proclamation, assuring the people that it was not

against France that they made war, but solely against the man who would

give no peace either to France or any of his neighbours; and the French

had come to the conclusion that it was time that Buonaparte should be

brought to submit to the dictation of force, as he was insensible to

that of reason.

[Illustration: ATTEMPT OF THE COSSACKS TO CAPTURE NAPOLEON AT BRIENNE.

(_See p._ 78.)]

On the 25th of January Buonaparte conferred the Regency again on Maria

Louisa, appointed King Joseph his lieutenant in Paris--the poor man

who could not take care of the capital which had been conferred on

him--and quitted Paris to put himself at the head of his army. This

army, in spite of all his exertions, did not exceed eighty thousand

men; whilst the Allies were already in France with at least a hundred

and fifty thousand, and fresh bodies marching up in succession from

the north. He arrived the next day at Châlons, where his army lay,

commanded by Marmont, Macdonald, Victor, and Ney. The Austrians, under

Schwarzenberg, had entered France on the 21st of December by the Upper

Rhine, and directed their march on Lyons. On the 19th of January, a few

days before Buonaparte quitted Paris, they had already taken Dijon,

and were advancing on Lyons, where, however, they received a repulse.

Blucher, at the head of forty thousand men, called the Army of Silesia,

about the same time entered France lower down, between Mannheim and

Coblenz, at four different points, and pushed forward for Joinville,

Vitry, and St. Dizier. Another army of Swedes, Russians, and Germans,

under the Crown Prince of Sweden, was directed to assist in clearing

Holland and Belgium, as the Crown Prince naturally wished to take no

part in the invasion of his native soil. Whilst, therefore, Bernadotte

remained to protect Belgium, Sir Thomas Graham, who, with General

Bülow, had cleared Holland of the French, except such as occupied the

fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom, remained to invest that stronghold, and

Bülow and Winzengerode entered France by its northern frontier.

As Blucher was, as usual, much ahead of the other divisions of the

Allies, Buonaparte resolved to attack him before he could form a

junction with Schwarzenberg. Blucher, informed of his purpose,

concentrated his forces at Brienne, on the Aube, fourteen miles below

Bar. Brienne is only a small village, having but two streets, one of

them ascending to the château--occupied as a military academy, where

Napoleon himself received his military education--the other leading

to Arcis-sur-Aube. Blucher had quartered himself in the château, and

was at dinner with his staff, on the 27th of January, when he was

astonished to find that Buonaparte was already upon him. The château

being surrounded by a woody park, Napoleon had approached under cover

of it, and suddenly driven in two thousand Russians posted there,

and was rushing on to capture the general and all his staff. A most

miserable look-out must have been kept by the Prussian outposts.

Blucher and his generals, startled by the terrible uproar, had just

time to escape by a postern, and by leading their horses down a flight

of steps. Recovered, however, from their surprise, the Russians turned

on the French, and were soon supported by the Prussians. The Cossacks

galloped forward, and nearly succeeded in capturing Buonaparte at

the head of his troops. One man was laying hands on the Man in the

Grey Coat, when Gourgaud shot him with a pistol. Buonaparte gained

possession of Brienne, but, like Moscow, it was burned over his head,

and it was not till eleven o'clock at night that Blucher, who had

only twenty thousand men engaged, retired, and took up a position

at La Rothière. It could scarcely be styled a victory, yet Napoleon

proclaimed it a brilliant one, asserting that he had taken fifteen

thousand prisoners and forty pieces of cannon, when he had taken no

cannon whatever, and only a hundred prisoners.

Immediately after this engagement Blucher was joined by part of the

grand army, under the Prince of Würtemberg; he therefore determined

to attack Napoleon, and on the 1st of February drew out his forces.

Napoleon would have declined the engagement; but he had the deep river

Aube in his rear, and only the bridge of Lesmont by which to pass it.

He preferred, on this account, to risk the battle, rather than retreat

in such circumstances. Blucher attacked at once from the villages of La

Rothière, Dienville, and Chaumont. The battle was severely contested

for the whole day, the Prince of Würtemberg greatly distinguishing

himself in it. In the end Buonaparte was wholly defeated, lost four

thousand prisoners and seventy-three guns, and must have been captured

himself, had not the Austrians, by surprising slowness, allowed him to

escape over the bridge. He then retreated towards Troyes, where he was

joined by his Imperial Guard; but his losses had been very heavy. Had

Blucher and Schwarzenberg, who had now met, marched on united, they

must have been in Paris in a very short time; but, with the German

fatality of dividing, they had no sooner experienced the benefit of a

powerful union than they called a council at the château of Brienne,

and agreed to separate again. Blucher, joining to his own the divisions

of Yorck and Kleist, proceeded towards Paris by the Marne, and Prince

Schwarzenberg followed the course of the Seine.

Buonaparte saw his opportunity, and, making a movement by a body of

troops on Bar-sur-Seine, he alarmed Schwarzenberg, who thought he

was intending to attack him in full force, and therefore changed his

route, separating farther from Blucher. This point gained, Buonaparte

marched after Blucher. That general had driven Macdonald from Château

Thierry, and had established his headquarters at Vertus. Sacken was in

advance as far as Ferté-sous-Jouarre, and Yorck at Meaux, much nearer

Paris than Buonaparte himself. Paris was in great alarm. But Napoleon,

taking a cross-country road, and dragging his artillery by enormous

exertions over hedges, ditches, and marshes, came upon Blucher's rear,

to his astonishment, at Champaubert. Driving in the Russians, Napoleon

defeated him, taking two thousand prisoners, and most of his artillery;

and being thus posted between Sacken and Blucher, he first attacked and

defeated Sacken, destroying or squandering five thousand men--about

one-fourth of his division--and then turned to attack Blucher himself,

who was marching rapidly up to support Sacken. Blucher, finding himself

suddenly in face of the whole army of Buonaparte, in an open country,

fell back, but conducted his retreat so admirably that he cut his way

through two strong bodies of French, who had posted themselves on the

line of his march, and brought off his troops and artillery safe to

Châlons. Napoleon then turned against Schwarzenberg, and on the 17th

of February he met and defeated him at Nangis. Such were the immediate

consequences of the folly of dividing the Allied forces. In these

movements Napoleon displayed a military ability equal to that of any

part of his career.

The Parisians were now afforded proofs that Napoleon was once more

victorious. The prisoners, banners, and cannon which he had taken

were sent forward rapidly to the capital, and ostentatiously paraded

through the streets. Meanwhile, the Allies were so alarmed, that the

sovereigns wrote to Buonaparte, expressing their surprise at his

attacks, as they had ordered their Plenipotentiaries to accept the

terms offered by his ambassador, Caulaincourt. These terms had indeed

been offered by Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, at a Congress held

at Châtillon-sur-Seine on the 5th of February, and which was still

sitting; but the Allies had never, in fact, accepted them, and now,

as he was again in the ascendant, Napoleon was not likely to listen

to them. He therefore left the letter unanswered till he should have

thoroughly defeated the Allies, and then he would dictate his reply.

He next attacked and took Montereau from the Allies, but at a terrible

cost of life. Finding then that the Austrians and Prussians were once

more contemplating a junction, he sent an answer to the letter of the

Allied sovereigns, but it was addressed only to the Emperor of Austria,

and its tenor was to persuade the Emperor to make a separate peace.

"Only gain the Austrians," he had said to Caulaincourt, on sending

him to Châtillon, "and the mischief is at an end." The Emperor sent

Prince Wenceslaus of Liechtenstein to Napoleon's headquarters, and it

was agreed that a conference should be held at Lusigny, between him

and Count Flahault, on the 24th of February. But Buonaparte did not

cease for a moment his offensive movements. On the night of the 23rd he

bombarded Troyes, and entered the place the next day. The Congress at

Châtillon still continued to sit, Caulaincourt amusing the sovereigns

and the ambassador of Great Britain, Lord Aberdeen, with one discussion

after another, but having secret instructions from Buonaparte to sign

nothing. At length he wrote to him, on the 17th of February, saying,

"that when he gave him his carte-blanche it was for the purpose of

saving Paris, but that Paris was now saved, and he revoked the powers

which he had given him." The Allies, however, continued till the 15th

of March their offer of leaving France its ancient limits, and then,

the time being expired, they broke up the conference. It is said that

as Caulaincourt left Châtillon he met the secretary of Buonaparte

bringing fresh powers for treating, but it was now too late. On the

1st of March the Allies had signed a treaty at the town of Chaumont,

pledging themselves to combined action against Napoleon, should he

still prove to be obstinate.

A succession of battles now took place with varying success, but

still leaving the Allies nearer to Paris than before. If Buonaparte

turned against Blucher, Schwarzenberg made an advance towards the

capital; if against Schwarzenberg, Blucher progressed a stage. To

check Schwarzenberg whilst he attacked Blucher, Napoleon sent Oudinot,

Macdonald, and Gerard against Schwarzenberg; but they were defeated,

and Napoleon himself was repulsed with severe loss from Craonne and

the heights of Laon. But Buonaparte getting between the two Allied

armies, and occupying Rheims, the Austrians were so discouraged that

Schwarzenberg gave orders to retreat. The Emperor Alexander strenuously

opposed retreat; but the effectual argument was advanced by Lord

Castlereagh, who declared that the moment the retreat commenced the

British subsidies should cease. A sharp battle was fought on the 20th

of March, between Schwarzenberg and Napoleon, at Arcis-sur-Aube, and

Napoleon was compelled to retreat. Blucher, who had received the order

to retreat from Schwarzenberg, had treated it with contempt, and

replied to it by his favourite word, "Forwards!" Napoleon had now to

weigh the anxious question, whether it was better to push on, and stand

a battle under the walls of Paris, with his small, much-reduced force,

against the Allies, and with the capital in a state of uncertainty

towards him--or to follow and harass the rear of the enemy. He seems

to have shrunk from the chance of a defeat under the eyes of his

metropolis, and he therefore, finding a Prussian force in Vitry,

crossed the Marne on the 22nd of March, and held away towards his

eastern frontiers, as if with some faint, fond hope that the peasantry

of Franche Comté and Alsace might rise and fly to his support. But no

such movement was likely; all parts of France were mortally sick of his

interminable wars, and glad to see an end put to them. The Allies had

now taken the bold resolve to march on Paris and summon it to surrender.

The Emperor Francis determined to remain at Aube, with the division

under General Ducca, not thinking it becoming him to join in

the attack on the French capital where his daughter ruled as

empress-regent; and a body of ten thousand cavalry, under command

of Winzengerode and Czernicheff, was ordered to watch the motions

of Napoleon and intercept his communications with Paris, whilst the

Russian and Prussian light troops scoured the roads in advance,

stopping all couriers. Blucher, at the same time, having thrown open

the gates of Rheims, was moving on Châlons and Vitry, to form a

junction with the army of Schwarzenberg. The flying parties captured,

near Sommepuix, a convoy of artillery and ammunition; and, on another

occasion, they fell in with a courier bearing a budget of the most

melancholy intelligence to the Emperor--that the British had made a

descent on Italy; that the Austrians had defeated Augereau, and were in

possession of Lyons; that Bordeaux had declared for Louis XVIII.; and

that Wellington was at Toulouse. These tidings gave immense confidence

to the Allies. Near Fère-Champenoise the Allies met, finding Blucher

in the act of stopping a body of infantry, five thousand in number,

which was bearing provisions and ammunition to the army of Napoleon.

The column consisted of young conscripts and National Guards, who had

never been in action, but they bravely defended their charge till they

were surrounded by the mingling forces of the two armies, and compelled

to surrender.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER I.]

The Allies now advanced in rapid march. They put to flight the

divisions of Mortier and Marmont, whom Buonaparte had posted to give

them a check. These divisions lost eight thousand men, besides a vast

quantity of guns, baggage, and ammunition. A similar fate awaited a

body of ten thousand National Guards. At Meaux Mortier and Marmont

blew up a great powder-magazine as Blucher approached, and then

retired beneath the walls of Paris. The Allies, in three days, had

marched seventy miles. On the 28th of March they were in full view of

Paris, and had driven Marmont and Mortier close under its walls. The

north-east side of Paris, on which they were approaching, was the only

one then fortified. A ridge of hills along that side, including the

heights of Belleville, Romainville, and Montmartre, was defended by an

old wall, and there the French authorities had placed the defenders of

the city--the shattered forces of the two retreating marshals, bodies

of the National Guard, and youths from the Polytechnic schools, many of

them mere boys of from twelve to sixteen years old, some of whom served

the guns on the batteries. The whole of the forces left to defend the

great and wealthy city of Paris amounted to between thirty and forty

thousand men.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON SIGNING HIS ABDICATION. (_See p._ 83.)]

The other side of the city was only defended by the Seine, but the

Allies, who had first to cross that river, feared that Buonaparte

might come up and attack their rear while they were doing so. They

determined, therefore, to attack the line of fortifications. The most

lying proclamations were issued by the ex-King Joseph to assure the

inhabitants that the bodies of the enemy who came in view were only

stragglers who had managed to get past the army of the Emperor, who was

dispersing the Allies most triumphantly. The forces in Paris--eight

thousand troops of the line and thirty thousand of the National

Guard--were reviewed in front of the Tuileries on a Sunday, to impress

the people with a sense of security; but on the morning of the 29th

the Empress and her child quitted the palace, attended by a regiment

of seven hundred men, and fled to Blois, carrying with her the crown

jewels and much public treasure, and followed by nearly all the members

of Government. The population--unlike their fathers, who stopped Marie

Antoinette in her attempt to escape--suffered this departure with

murmurs, but without any attempt to prevent it. When she was gone they

began heartily to curse Buonaparte for the trouble and disgrace he

had brought upon them. That very morning Joseph issued a most flaming

proclamation, assuring the Parisians that the Emperor was at hand, and

would annihilate the last traces of the audacious enemy. But already

the assault had commenced, and the next day, the 30th of March, it was

general all along the line. The Parisians fought bravely, especially

the boys from the Polytechnic schools; and as the Allies had to attack

stone walls and batteries, their slaughter was great. Joseph rode along

the line to encourage them in this useless, because utterly hopeless,

waste of life. The Allied monarchs had, before commencing the assault,

issued a proclamation, promising that all life and property should

be strictly protected if the city quietly opened its gates; and, in

the midst of the storming, they sent in again, by a French prisoner,

the same offer, adding that, should the city be carried by assault,

no power on earth could prevent it from being sacked by the enraged

soldiers, and probably destroyed. Yet Joseph did not give the order for

capitulation till the whole line was in the hands of the Allies, except

Montmartre. The Cossacks were already in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and

bombs flying into the Chaussée d'Antin. Then King Joseph, whose lying

proclamation was still selling on the boulevards at a sou each, ordered

Marmont to capitulate; and though he had vowed in his proclamation to

stand by the Parisians to the last gasp, he then fled after the Empress

to Blois. In this defence four thousand French were killed and wounded,

and double that number of the Allies, as they had to face the towers

and batteries crowded with soldiers and to fight their way up hill.

Meanwhile Buonaparte had taken the route for Troyes and Dijon, ignorant

of the rapid advance of the Allies on Paris. Never in any of his

campaigns does he seem to have been so ill-informed of the movements of

the enemy as at this most momentous juncture. On the 26th of March he

was attacked by the flying squadrons of Winzengerode. At Doulaincourt

he was startled by learning that Paris was on the point of being

assaulted by the Allies. From this place he dispatched one courier

after another to command the forces in Paris to hold out, and, ordering

the army to march with all speed, he himself entered his carriage

and was driven in all haste to Fontainebleau. Thence he was driving

to Paris, when, at an inn, called La Cour de France, he met General

Belliard with his cavalry, who gave him the confounding information

that the Empress, King Joseph, and the Court had fled; that the Allies

were in Paris, and a convention was signed. At this news he began

to rave like an insane man, blamed Marmont and Mortier--as, during

his defeats, he had often bitterly upbraided his generals,--blamed

Joseph, and everybody but himself, and insisted on going to Paris, and

seeing the Allies himself, but was at length persuaded to return to

Fontainebleau, and ordered his army to assemble, as it came up on the

heights of Longjumeau, behind the little river Essonnes.

On arriving in Paris, the Emperor Alexander took up his quarters

at the house of Talleyrand, and there the King of Prussia, Prince

Schwarzenberg and others came to consult. Talleyrand now spoke out,

and declared that it would be madness to treat with Buonaparte;

the only course was to restore the Bourbons, under certain limits.

As early as the 12th of March the Duke of Angoulême had entered

Bourdeaux, and had there proclaimed, amid acclamations, Louis XVIII.

The Comte d'Artois came along in the rear of the Allied army, and had

everywhere issued printed circulars, calling on the people to unite

under their ancient family, and have no more tyranny, no more war, no

more conscriptions. This paper had also been extensively circulated in

Paris. On the 1st of April the walls of Paris were everywhere placarded

by two proclamations, side by side, one from the Emperor Alexander,

declaring that the Allied sovereigns would no longer negotiate with

Napoleon nor any of his family, and the other from the municipality

of Paris, declaring that, in consequence of the tyranny of Napoleon,

they had renounced the allegiance of the usurper, and returned to that

of their legitimate sovereign. On the same day the Senate, under the

guidance of Talleyrand, decreed that he had violated and suppressed

the constitution which he had sworn to maintain; had chained up the

press, and employed it to disseminate his own false statements; drained

the nation, and exhausted its people and resources in wars of mere

personal ambition; and, finally, had refused to treat on honourable

conditions: for these and other plentifully-supplied causes, he had

ceased to reign, and the nation was therefore absolved from all oaths

sworn to him. This decree, on the 2nd and 3rd of April, was subscribed

by the public bodies in and around Paris. A Provisional Government was

appointed.

Caulaincourt, who had been sent by Buonaparte from Fontainebleau to

the Allied sovereigns to treat on his behalf, returned, and informed

Buonaparte of all these events. He declared that he would march on

Paris; and the next day, the 4th of April, he reviewed his troops, and

told them that some vile persons had insulted the tricolour cockade

in Paris, and they would march there at once and punish them. The

soldiers shouted, "_Paris, Paris!_" but, after the review, the marshals

produced the _Moniteur_, told him what had taken place, and that it

was necessary that he should submit. He appeared greatly agitated,

and asked them what they wished. Lefebvre said, bluntly, that he had

been advised by his best friends to make peace in time, when he would

have saved everything; there was nothing for it now but to abdicate.

Napoleon then called for a pen, and abdicated in favour of his son.

Caulaincourt and Ney were to carry this to the Allied sovereigns. They

inquired what terms they should ask for himself. He replied--"None: I

ask nothing." Yet, the moment the commissioners were gone, he started

up and vowed that he would fight with Marmont's corps and the Guards,

and would be in Paris on the morrow.

When Ney and Caulaincourt saw Marmont at Essonnes, he informed them

that he had entered into a convention with the Allied sovereigns on

his own account. They begged him to suspend it and accompany them, and

he consented. Whilst the three commissioners were with the Emperor

Alexander, news was brought that Count Souham, with whom Marmont had

left the command of his troops, had gone over, and marched the division

into the lines of the Allies. On this the Emperor said they had better

return to Napoleon, and assure him that the Allies would accept nothing

short of an absolute and unqualified abdication. When they announced

this to him, to their surprise, he exclaimed, "But what provisions are

made for me? How am I to be disposed of?" They replied that it was

proposed by the Emperor Alexander that he should retain the title of

Emperor; should have the island of Elba, a guard, a small fleet, and

all the attributes of royalty, with a suitable income. With a mood of

mind incomprehensible in any other person, he immediately called for

maps and books about Elba, and began contemplating his future position,

as though he had only been changing one France for another; but there

can be no doubt that he, in reality, was weighing the facilities of

the place for that effort to regain the empire of France, which he

certainly never renounced for a moment. On the 11th of April he drew

up a form of unconditional abdication, signed, and dispatched it.

Ney, Macdonald, and Caulaincourt arrived with the treaty to which the

Allied sovereigns had agreed. Elba was assigned to him--an island

twenty leagues in extent, with twelve thousand inhabitants--and he

was to have an income of six millions of francs, besides the little

revenue of the island. Two millions and a half more were assigned

as annuities to Josephine, and the other members of his family. The

Empress was to be created Duchess of Parma, Placentia, and Guastella,

in full sovereignty. The marshals and other officers of his army were

received into the same ranks and dignities in the army of the Bourbon

sovereign. Lord Castlereagh, who had arrived after the conclusion of

this treaty, pointed out the folly of it, which must have been apparent

to every man of the slightest reflection; for, to a certainty, Napoleon

would not for a day longer than he was compelled observe it in a place

like Elba, in the very vicinity of France. He declined, on the part of

Great Britain, any concern in it; but to avoid a renewal of the war, he

offered no formal opposition. Napoleon arrived at Elba on the 4th of

May.

The Provisional Government of France lost no time in framing a new

constitution, in which the limited monarchy and the House of Lords of

Great Britain were imitated. They declared Louis XVIII., the brother of

the last king, Louis XVI., the rightful occupant of the throne, and his

brothers and the other members of the House of Bourbon, after him in

due succession. Talleyrand was the first to put his signature to this

document; and the Abbé Siéyès, though he did not sign it, declared his

adhesion to the abdication of Buonaparte. On the 11th of April, the

same day that Napoleon signed his abdication, the brother of Louis,

the Count d'Artois, arrived, and the next day was received by the new

Government in a grand procession into Paris. There was a show of much

enthusiasm on the part of the people, but this was more show than

reality; the Bourbonist party was the only one that sincerely rejoiced

at the restoration; and when it was seen that a troop of Cossacks

closed the prince's procession, the people gave unequivocal signs of

disapprobation. The Duke of Angoulême had already entered the city of

Bourdeaux amid much acclamation, for the Bourbonist interest was strong

in the south, and he now came on to Paris. The new king, who had been

living, since the peace of Tilsit, at Hartwell, in Buckinghamshire, a

seat of the Marquis of Buckingham assigned by the British Government

for his residence, now went over. Louis was a quiet, good-natured man,

fond of books, and capable of saying witty things, and was much better

fitted for a country gentleman than for a throne. He was conducted into

London by the Prince Regent, and by crowds of applauding people. The

Prince Regent also accompanied him to Dover, where, on the 24th of

April, he embarked on board a vessel commanded by the Duke of Clarence,

afterwards William IV. He was accompanied by the Duchess of Angoulême,

the Prince of Condé, and his son, the Duke of Bourbon. On landing at

Calais, he embraced the Duchess of Angoulême, saying, "I hold again the

crown of my ancestors; if it were of roses, I would place it upon your

head; as it is of thorns, it is for me to wear it."

On the 2nd of May, two days only before Buonaparte entered his little

capital of Elba, Louis made his public entry into Paris amid quite

a gay and joyous-seeming crowd; for the Parisians are always ready

for a parade and a sensation; and none are said to have worn gloomy

looks on the occasion except the Imperial Guard, now, as they deemed

themselves, degraded into the Royal Guard--from the service of the most

brilliant of conquerors to that of the most pacific and unsoldierlike

of monarchs, who was too unwieldy even to mount a horse. For a time all

appeared agreeable enough; but there were too many hostile interests

at work for it to remain long so. In the new constitution, by which

the Senate had acknowledged Louis, they had declared him recalled on

the condition that he accepted the constitution framed for him; and

at the same time they declared the Senate hereditary, and possessed

of the rank, honours, and emoluments which Buonaparte had conferred

on the members. Louis refused to acknowledge the right of the Senate

to dictate a constitution to him. He assumed the throne as by his own

proper hereditary descent; and he then gave of his free will a free

constitution. This was the first cause of difference between the king

and the people. The Royalists condemned the new constitution as making

too much concession, and the Republicans resented his giving a charter

of freedom, because it made them the slaves of his will. The Royalists

soon began to monopolise offices and honours, and to clamour for the

recovery of their estates, now in the hands of the people, and these

were naturally jealous of their prevailing on the king and his family

to favour such reclamations. The clergy, who, like the Noblesse, had

been stripped of their property, and had now to subsist on annuities

of five hundred livres, or about twenty-six pounds sixteen shillings

and eightpence a-year, looked with resentment on those who were in

possession of the spoil; and the well-known disposition of the king

and his family to restore the status and the substance of the Catholic

Church, made those who had this property, and those--the greater part

of the nation--who had no religion whatever, readily believe that ere

long they would attempt to recall what the Revolution had distributed.

These suspicions were greatly augmented by the folly and bigotry

of the clergy. They refused to bury with the rites of the Church a

Mademoiselle Raucour, simply because she was an actress. Great tumults

arose on the occasion, and the Government was compelled to interfere

and ensure the burial in due form. The more regular observance of

the Sabbath was treated as bringing back the ancient superstitions;

and the taking up of the remains of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette

and conveying them to the royal place of sepulture in the Abbey of

St. Denis was regarded as a direct censure of the Revolution. It was

quite natural that Louis XVIII. should do this, and equally so that

he should show some favour to the surviving chiefs of La Vendée; but

these things had the worst effect on the public mind, as tending to

inspire fears of vengeance for the past, or of restoration of all that

the past had thrown down. In these circumstances, the Royalists were

discontented, because they thought Louis did too little for them, and

the rest of the community because he did too much. The Jacobins, who

had been suppressed, but not exterminated, by Buonaparte, now again

raised their heads, under so mild and easy a monarch, with all their

old audacity. They soon, however, despaired of reviving the Republic,

and turned to the son of their old partisan, Philip Égalité, the Duke

of Orleans, and solicited him to become their leader, promising to make

him king. But the present duke--afterwards King Louis Philippe--was

too honourable a man for their purpose; he placed the invitation

given him in the hands of Louis, and the Jacobins, then enraged, were

determined to bring back Napoleon rather than tolerate the much easier

yoke of the Bourbons. Carnot and Fouché soon offered themselves as

their instruments. Carnot, who had been one of the foremost men of the

Reign of Terror, had refused to acknowledge the rule of Buonaparte, who

suppressed the Revolution, for a long time, but, so late as the present

year, he had given in his adhesion, and was appointed engineer for

carrying on the fortifications of Antwerp. He had now the hardihood to

address a memorial to Louis XVIII., which, under the form of an apology

for the Jacobins during the Revolution, was in truth a direct attack on

the Royalists, describing them as a contemptible and small body, who

had allowed Louis XVI. to be destroyed by their cowardice, and now

had brought back the king by the hands of Englishmen and Cossacks to

endeavour to undo all that had been done for the people. He represented

kings as naturally prone to despotism, and priests and nobles as

inciting them to slaughter and rapine. The pretence was to lead the

monarch to rely only on the people; the object was to exasperate the

people against kings, nobles, and the Church.

[Illustration: ELBA.]