The Life of Napoleon I Part 48

Never, surely, since the time of Job did calamity shower her blows so thickly on the head of mortal man: and never were they met with less resignation and more undaunted defiance. After receiving the black budget of news the Emperor straightway shut himself up. For some time his Marshals left him alone: but, as Caulaincourt's courier was waiting for the reply, Berthier and Maret ventured to intrude on his grief. He tossed them the letter containing the allied terms. A long silence ensued, while they awaited his decision. As he spoke not a word, they begged him to give way and grant peace to France. Then his pent-up feelings burst forth: "What, you would have me sign a treaty like that, and trample under foot my coronation oath! Unheard-of disasters may have s.n.a.t.c.hed from me the promise to renounce my conquests: but, give up those made before me--never! G.o.d keep me from such a disgrace. Reply to Caulaincourt since you wish it, but tell him that I reject this treaty. I prefer to run the uttermost risks of war." He threw himself on his camp bed. Maret waited by his side, and gained from him in calmer moments permission to write to Caulaincourt in terms that allowed the negotiation to proceed. At dawn on the 9th Maret came back hoping to gain a.s.sent to despatches that he had been drawing up during the night. To his surprise he found the Emperor stretched out over large charts, compa.s.s in hand. "Ah, there you are,"

was his greeting; "now it's a question of very different matters. I am going to beat Blucher: if I succeed, the state of affairs will entirely change, and then we will see."

The tension of his feelings at this time, when rage and desperation finally gave way to a fixed resolve to stake all on a blow at Blucher's flank, finds expression in a phrase which has been omitted from the official correspondence.[412] In one of the five letters which he wrote to Joseph on the 9th, he remarked: "Pray the Madonna of armies to be for us: Louis, who is a saint, may engage to give her a lighted candle." A curiously sarcastic touch, probably due to his annoyance at the _Misereres_ and "prayers forty hours long" at Paris which he bade his Ministers curtail. Or was it a pa.s.sing flash of that religious sentiment which he professed in his declining years?

He certainly counted on victory over Blucher. A week earlier, he had foreseen the chance that that leader would expose his flank: on the 7th he charged Marmont to occupy Sezanne, where he would be strongly supported; on the afternoon of the 9th he set out from Nogent to reinforce his Marshal; and on the morrow Marmont and Ney fell upon one of Blucher's scattered columns at Champaubert. It was a corps of Russians, less than 5,000 strong, with no hors.e.m.e.n and but twenty-four cannon; the Muscovites offered a stout resistance, but only 1,500 escaped.[413] Blucher's line of march was now cut in twain. He himself was at Vertus with the last column; his foremost corps, under Sacken, was west of Montmirail, while Yorck was far to the north of that village observing Macdonald's movements along the Chateau-Thierry road.

The Emperor with 20,000 men might therefore hope to destroy these corps piecemeal. Leaving Marmont along with Grouchy's horse to hold Blucher in check on the east, he struck westwards against Sacken's Russians near Montmirail. The shock was terrible; both sides were weary with night marches on miry roads, along which cannon had to be dragged by double teams: yet, though footsore and worn with cold and hunger, the men fought with sustained fury, the French to stamp out the barbarous invaders who had wasted their villages, the Russians to hold their position until Yorck's Prussians should stretch a succouring hand from the north. Many a time did the French rush at the village of Marchais held by Sacken: they were repeatedly repulsed, until, as darkness came on, Ney and Mortier with the Guard stormed a large farmhouse on their left. Then, at last, Sacken's men drew off in sore plight north-west across the fields, where Yorck's tardy advent alone saved them from destruction. The next day completed their discomfiture. Napoleon and Mortier pursued both allied corps to Chateau-Thierry and, after sharp fighting in the streets of that place, drove them across the Marne. The townsfolk hailed the advent of their Emperor with unbounded joy: they had believed him to be at Troyes, beaten and dispirited; and here he was delivering them from the brutal licence of the eastern soldiery. Nothing was impossible to him.

Next it was Blucher's turn. Leaving Mortier to pursue the fugitives of Sacken and Yorck along the Soissons road, Napoleon left Chateau-Thierry late at night on the 13th, following the ma.s.s of his troops to reinforce Marmont. That Marshal had yielded ground to Blucher's desperate efforts, but was standing at bay at Vauchamps, when Napoleon drew near to the scene of the unequal fight. Suddenly a mighty shout of "Vive l'Empereur" warned the a.s.sailants that they now had to do with Napoleon. Yet no precipitation weakened the Emperor's blow: not until his cavalry greatly outnumbered that of the allies did he begin the chief attack. Stoutly it was beaten off by the allied squares: but Drouot's artillery ploughed through their ma.s.ses, while swarms of hors.e.m.e.n were ready to open out those ghastly furrows. There was nothing for it but retreat, and that across open country, where the charges and the pounding still went on. But nothing could break that stubborn infantry: animated by their leader, the Prussians and Russians plodded steadily eastwards, until, as darkness drew on, they found Grouchy's horse barring the road before Etoges. "Forward" was still the veteran's cry: and through the cavalry they cut their way: through hostile footmen that had stolen round to the village they also burst, and at last found shelter near Bergeres. "Words fail me," wrote Colonel Hudson Lowe, "to express my admiration at their undaunted and manly behaviour."

This gallant retreat shed l.u.s.tre over the rank and file. But the sins of the commanders had cost the allies dear. In four days the army of Silesia lost fully 15,000 men, and its corps were driven far asunder by Napoleon's incursion. His brilliant moves and trenchant strokes astonished the world. With less than 30,000 men he had burst into Blucher's line of march, and scattered in flight 50,000 warriors advancing on Paris in full a.s.surance of victory. It was not chance, but science, that gave him these successes. Acting from behind the screen of the Seine, he had thrown his small but undivided force against scattered portions of a superior force. It was the strategy of Lonato and Castiglione over again; and the enthusiasm of those days bade fair to revive.

His men, who previously had tramped downheartedly over wastes of snow and miry cross-roads, now marched with head erect as in former days; the villagers, far from being cowed by the brutalities of the Cossacks, formed bands to hang upon the enemies' rear and entrap their foragers. Above all, Paris was herself once more. Before he began these brilliant moves, he had to upbraid Cambaceres for his unmanly conduct. "I see that instead of sustaining the Empress, you are discouraging her. Why lose your head thus? What mean these _Miserere_ and these prayers of forty hours? Are you going mad at Paris?" Now the capital again breathed defiance to the foe, and sent the Emperor National Guards. Many of these from Brittany, it is true, came "in round hats and _sabots_": they had no knapsacks: but they had guns, and they fought.

Could he have pursued Blucher on the morrow he might probably have broken up even that hardy infantry, now in dire straits for want of supplies. But bad news came to hand from the south-west. Under urgent pressure from the Czar, Schwarzenberg had pushed forward two columns from Troyes towards Paris: one of them had seized the bridge over the Seine at Bray, a day's march below Nogent: the other was nearing Fontainebleau. Napoleon was furious at the neglect of Victor to guard the crossing at Bray, and reluctantly turned away from Blucher to crush these columns. His men marched or were carried in vehicles, by way of Meaux and Guignes, to reinforce Victor: on the 17th they drove back the outposts of Schwarzenberg's centre, while Macdonald and Oudinot marched towards Nogent to threaten his right. These rapid moves alarmed the Austrian commander, whose left, swung forward on Fontainebleau, was in some danger of being cut off. He therefore sued for an armistice. It was refused; and the request drew from Napoleon a letter to his brother Joseph full of contempt for the allies (February 18th). "It is difficult," he writes, "to be so cowardly as that! He [Schwarzenberg] had constantly, and in the most insulting terms, refused a suspension of arms of any kind, ... and yet these wretches at the first check fall on their knees. I will grant no armistice till my territory is clear of them." He adds that he now expected to gain the "natural frontiers" offered by the allies at Frankfurt--the minimum that he could accept with honour; and he closes with these memorable words, which flash a searchlight on his pacific professions of thirteen months later: "If I had agreed to the old boundaries, I should have rushed to arms two years later, telling the nation that I had signed not a peace, but a capitulation."[414]

The events of the 18th strengthened his resolve. He then attacked the Crown Prince of Wurtemberg on the north side of the Seine, opposite Montereau, overthrew him by the weight of the artillery of the Guard, whereupon a brilliant charge of Pajol's hors.e.m.e.n wrested the bridge from the South Germans and restored to the Emperor the much-needed crossing over the river. Napoleon's activity on that day was marvellous. He wrote or dictated eleven despatches, six of them long before dawn, gave instructions to an officer who was to encourage Eugene to hold firm in Italy, fought a battle, directed the aim of several cannon, and wound up the day by severe rebukes to Marshal Victor and two generals for their recent blunders. Thus, on a brief winter's day, he fills the _role_ of Emperor, organizer, tactician, cannoneer, and martinet; in fact, he crowns it by pardoning Victor, when that brave man vows that he cannot live away from the army, and will fight as a common soldier among the Guards: he then and there a.s.signs to him two divisions of the Guard. To the artillerymen the _camaraderie_ of the Emperor gave a new zest: and when they ventured to reproach him for thus risking his life, he replied with a touch of the fatalism which enthralls a soldier's mind: "Ah! don't fear: the ball is not cast that will kill me."

Yes: Napoleon displayed during these last ten days a fertility of resource, a power to drive back the tide of events, that have dazzled posterity, as they dismayed his foes. We may seek in vain for a parallel, save perhaps in the careers of Hannibal and Frederick.

Alexander the Great's victories were won over Asiatics: Caesar's magnificent rally of his wavering bands against the onrush of the Nervii was but one effort of disciplined valour crus.h.i.+ng the impetuosity of the barbarian. Marlborough and Wellington often triumphed over great odds and turned the course of history. But their star had never set so low as that of Napoleon's after La Rothiere, and never did it rush to the zenith with a splendour like that which blinded the trained hosts of Blucher and Schwarzenberg. Whatever the mistakes of these leaders, and they were great, there is something that defies a.n.a.lysis in Napoleon's sudden transformation of his beaten dispirited band into a triumphant array before which four times their numbers sought refuge in retreat. But it is just this transcendent quality that adds a charm to the character and career of Napoleon.

Where a.n.a.lysis fails, there genius begins.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE FIRST ABDICATION

It now remained to be seen whether Napoleon would make a wise use of his successes. While the Grand Army drew in its columns behind the sheltering line of the Seine at Troyes, the French Emperor strove to reap in diplomacy the fruits of his military prowess. In brief, he sought to detach Austria from the Coalition. From Nogent he wrote, on February 21st, to the Emperor Francis, dwelling on the impolicy of Austria continuing the war. Why should she subordinate her policy to that of England and to the personal animosities of the Czar? Why should she see her former Belgian provinces handed over to a Protestant Dutch Prince about to be allied with the House of Brunswick by marriage? France would never give up Belgium; and he, as French Emperor, would never sign a peace that would drive her from the Rhine and exclude her from the circle of the Great Powers. But if Austria really wished for the equilibrium of Europe, he (Napoleon) was ready to forget the past and make peace on the basis of the Frankfurt terms.[415]

Had these offers been rather less exacting, and reached the allied headquarters a week earlier, they might have led to the break up of the Coalition. For the political situation of the allies had been even more precarious than that of their armies. The pretensions of the Czar had excited indignation and alarm. Swayed to and fro between the counsels of his old tutor, Laharpe, now again at his side, and his own autocratic instincts, he declared that he would push on to Paris, consult the will of the French people by a plebiscite, and abide by its decision, even if it gave a new lease of power to Napoleon. But side by side with this democratic proposal came another of a more despotic type, that the military Governor of Paris must be a Russian officer.

The amus.e.m.e.nt caused by these odd notions was overshadowed by alarm.

Metternich, Castlereagh, and Hardenberg saw in them a ruse for foisting on France either Bernadotte, or an orientalized Republic, or a Muscovite version of the Treaty of Tilsit. Then again, on February 9th, Alexander sent a mandate to the plenipotentiaries at Chatillon, requesting that their sessions should be suspended, though he had recently agreed at Langres to enter into negotiations with France, provided that the military operations were not suspended. Evidently, then, he was bent on forcing the hands of his allies, and Austria feared that he might at the end of the war insist on her taking Alsace, as a set-off to the loss of Eastern Galicia which he wished to absorb. So keen was the jealousy thus aroused, that at Troyes Metternich and Hardenberg signed a secret agreement to prevent the Czar carrying matters with a high hand at Paris (February 14th); and on the same day they sent him a stiff Note requesting the resumption of the negotiations with Napoleon. Indeed, Austria formally threatened to withdraw her troops from the war, unless he limited his aims to the terms propounded by the allies at Chatillon. Alexander at first refused; but the news of Blucher's disasters shook his determination, and he a.s.sented on that day, provided that steps were at once taken to lighten the pressure on the Russian corps serving under Blucher. Thus, by February 14th, the crisis was over.[416]

Schwarzenberg cautiously pushed on three columns to attract the thunderbolts that otherwise would have destroyed the Silesian Army root and branch; and he succeeded. True, his vanguard was beaten at Montereau; but, by drawing Napoleon south and then east of the Seine, he gave time to Blucher to strengthen his shattered array and resume the offensive. Meanwhile Bulow, with the northern army, began to draw near to the scene of action, and on the 23rd the allies took the wise step of a.s.signing his corps, along with those of Winzingerode, Woronzoff, and Strogonoff, to the Prussian veteran. The last three corps were withdrawn from the army of Bernadotte, and that prince was apprized of the fact by the Czar in a rather curt letter.

The diplomatic situation had also cleared up before Napoleon's letter reached the Emperor Francis. The negotiations with Caulaincourt were resumed at Chatillon on February the 17th; and there is every reason to think that Austria, England, Prussia, and perhaps even Russia would now gladly have signed peace with Napoleon on the basis of the French frontiers of 1791, provided that he renounced all claims to interference in the affairs of Europe outside those limits.[417]

These demands would certainly have been accepted by the French plenipotentiary had he listened to his own pacific promptings. But he was now in the most painful position. Maret had informed him, the day after Montmirail, that Napoleon was set on keeping the Rhenish and Alpine frontiers.[418] He could, therefore, do nothing but temporize.

He knew how precarious was the military supremacy just s.n.a.t.c.hed by his master, and trusted that a few days more would bring wisdom before it was too late. But his efforts for delay were useless.

While he was marking time, Napoleon was sending him despatches instinct with pride. "I have made 30,000 to 40,000 prisoners," he wrote on the 17th: "I have taken 200 cannon, a great number of generals, and destroyed several armies, almost without striking a blow. I yesterday checked Schwarzenberg's army, which I hope to destroy before it recrosses my frontier." And two days later, after hearing the allied terms, he wrote that they would make the blood of every Frenchman boil with indignation, and that he would dictate _his_ ultimatum at Troyes or Chatillon. Of course, Caulaincourt kept these diatribes to himself, but his painfully constrained demeanour betrayed the secret that he longed for peace and that his hands were tied.

On all sides proofs were to be seen that Napoleon would never give up Belgium and the Rhine frontier. When the allies (at the suggestion of Schwarzenberg, and _with the approval of the Czar_) sued for an armistice, he forbade his envoys to enter into any parleys until the allies agreed to accept the "natural frontiers" as the basis for a peace, and retired in the meantime on Alsace, Lorraine, and Holland.[419] These last conditions he agreed three days later to relax; but on the first point he was inexorable, and he knew that the military commissioners appointed to arrange the truce had no power to agree to the _political_ article which he made a _sine qua non_.

Accordingly, no armistice was concluded, and his unbending att.i.tude made a bad impression on the Emperor Francis, who, on the 27th, replied to his son-in-law in terms which showed that his blows were welding the Coalition more firmly together.[420]

In fact, while the plenipotentiaries at Chatillon were exchanging empty demands, a most important compact was taking form at Chaumont: it was dated from the 1st of March, but definitively signed on the 9th. Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia thereby bound themselves not to treat singly with France for peace, but to continue the war until France was brought back to her old frontiers, and the complete independence of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Spain was secured. Each of the four Powers must maintain 150,000 men in the field (exclusive of garrisons); and Britain agreed to aid her allies with equal yearly subsidies amounting in all to 5,000,000 for the year 1814.[421] The treaty would be only defensive if Napoleon accepted the allied terms formulated at Chatillon: otherwise it would be offensive and hold good, if need be, for twenty years.

Undoubtedly this compact was largely the work of Castlereagh, whose tact and calmness had done wonders in healing schisms; but so intimate a union could never have been formed among previously discordant allies but for their overmastering fear of Napoleon. Such a treaty was without parallel in European history; and the stringency of its clauses serves as the measure of the prowess and perversity of the French Emperor. It is puerile to say, as Mollien does, that England bribed the allies to this last effort. Experiences of the last months had shown them that peace could not be durable as long as Napoleon remained in a position to threaten Germany. Even now they were ready to conclude it with Napoleon on the basis of the old frontiers of France, provided that he a.s.sented before the 11th of March; but the most pacific of their leaders saw that the more they showed their desire for peace, the more they strengthened Napoleon's resolve to have it only on terms which they saw to be fraught with future danger.[422]

While the conferences at Chatillon followed one another in fruitless succession, Blucher, with 48,000 effectives, was once more resuming the offensive. Napoleon heard the news at Troyes (February 25th). He was surprised at the veteran's temerity: he had pictured him crushed and helpless beyond Chalons, and had cherished the hope of destroying Schwarzenberg.--"If," he wrote to Clarke on the morrow, "I had had a pontoon bridge, the war would be over, and Schwarzenberg's army would no longer exist.... For want of boats, I could not pa.s.s the Seine at the necessary points. It was not 50 boats that I needed, only 20."--With this characteristic outburst against his War Minister, whose neglect to send up twenty boats from Paris had changed the world's history, the Emperor turned aside to overwhelm Blucher. The Prussian commander was near the junction of the Seine and the Aube; and seemed to offer his flank as unguardedly as three weeks before.

Napoleon sent Ney, Victor, and Arrighi northwards to fall on his rear, and on the 27th repaired to Arcis-sur-Aube to direct the operations.

What, then, was his annoyance when, in pursuance of the allied plan formed on the 23rd, Blucher skilfully retired northwards, withdrew beyond the Marne and broke the bridges behind him. Then after failing to drive Marmont and Mortier from Meaux and the line of the Ourcq, the Prussian leader marched towards Soissons, near which town he expected to meet the northern army of the allies. For some hours he was in grave danger: Marmont hung on his rear, and Napoleon with 35,000 hardy troops was preparing to turn his right flank. In fact, had he not broken the bridge over the Marne at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, and thereby delayed the Emperor thirty-six hours, he would probably have been crushed before he could cross the River Aisne. His men were dead beat by marching night and day over roads first covered by snow and now deep in slush: for a week they had had no regular rations, and great was their joy when, at the close of the 2nd, they drew near to the 42,000 troops that Bulow and Winzingerode mustered near the banks of the Aisne and Vesle.

On that day Napoleon, when delayed at La Ferte, conceived the daring idea of rus.h.i.+ng on the morrow after Blucher, who was "very embarra.s.sed in the mire," and then of carrying the war into Lorraine, rescuing the garrisons of Verdun, Toul, and Metz, and rousing the peasantry of the east of France against the invaders. It mattered not that Schwarzenberg had dealt Oudinot and Gerard a severe check at Bar-sur-Aube, as soon as Napoleon's back was turned. That cautious leader would be certain, he thought, to beat a retreat towards the Rhine as soon as his rear was threatened; and Napoleon pictured France rising as in 1793, shaking off her invaders and dictating a glorious peace.

Far different was the actual situation. Blucher was not to be caught; a sharp frost on the 3rd improved the roads; and his complete junction with the northern army was facilitated by the surrender of Soissons on that same afternoon. This fourth-rate fortress was ill-prepared to withstand an attack; and, after a short bombardment by Winzingerode, two allied officers made their way to the Governor, praised his bravery, pointed out the uselessness of further resistance, and offered to allow the garrison to march out with the honours of war and rejoin the Emperor, where they could fight to more advantage. The Governor, who bore the ill-starred name of Moreau, finally gave way, and his troops, nearly all Poles, marched out at 4 p.m., furious at his "treason"; for the distant thunder of Marmont's cannon was already heard on the side of Oulchy. Rumour said that they were the Emperor's cannon, but rumour lied. At dawn Napoleon's troops had begun to cross the temporary bridge over the Marne, thirty-five miles away; but by great exertions his outposts on that evening reached Rocourt, only some twenty miles south of Soissons.[423]

The fact deserves notice: for it disposes of the strange statement of Thiers that the surrender of Soissons was, next to Waterloo, the most fatal event in the annals of France. The gifted historian, as also, to some extent, M. Houssaye, a.s.sumed that, had Soissons held out, Blucher and Bulow could not have united their forces. But Bulow had not relied solely on the bridge at Soissons for the union of the armies; on the 2nd he had thrown a bridge over the Aisne at Vailly, some distance above that city, and another on the third near to its eastern suburb.[424] It is clear, then, that the two armies, numbering in all over 100,000 men, could have joined long before Napoleon, Marmont, and Mortier were in a position to attack. Before the Emperor heard of the surrender, he had marched to Fismes, and had detached Corbineau to occupy Rheims, evidently with the aim of cutting Blucher's communications with Schwarzenberg, and opening up the way to Verdun and Metz.

For that plan was now his dominant aim, while the repulse of Blucher was chiefly of importance because it would enable him to stretch a hand eastwards to his beleaguered garrisons.[425] But Blucher was not to be thus disposed of. While withdrawing from Soissons to the natural fortress of Laon, he heard that Napoleon had crossed the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac, and was making for Craonne. Above that town there rises a long narrow ridge or plateau, which Blucher ordered his Russian corps to occupy. There was fought one of the bloodiest battles of the war (March 7th). The aim of the allies was to await the French attack on the plateau, while 10,000 hors.e.m.e.n and sixty guns worked round and fell on their rear.

The plan failed, owing to a mistake in the line of march of this flanking force: and the battle resolved itself into a soldiers' fight.

Five times did Ney lead his braves up those slopes, only to be hurled back by the dogged Muscovites. But the Emperor now arrived; a sixth attack by the cavalry and artillery of the Guard battered in the defence; and Blucher, hearing that the flank move had failed, ordered a retreat on Laon. This confused and desperate fight cost both sides about 7,000 men, nearly a fourth of the numbers engaged. Victor, Grouchy, and six French generals were among the wounded.[426]

Nevertheless, Napoleon struggled on: he called up Marmont and Mortier, gave out that he was about to receive other large reinforcements, and bade his garrisons in Belgium and Lorraine fall on the rear of the foe. One more victory, he thought, would end the war, or at least lower the demands of the allies. It was not to be. Blucher and Bulow held the strong natural citadel of Laon; and all Napoleon's efforts on March the 9th and 10th failed to storm the southern approaches.

Marmont fared no better on the east; and when, at nightfall, the weary French fell back, the Prussians resolved to try a night attack on Marmont's corps, which was far away from the main body. Never was a surprise more successful; Marmont was quite off his guard; horse and foot fled in wild confusion, leaving 2,500 prisoners and forty-five cannon in the hands of the victorious Yorck. Could the allies have pressed home their advantage, the result must have been decisive; but Blucher had fallen ill, and a halt was called.[427]

Alone, among the leaders in this campaign, the Emperor remained unbroken. All the allied leaders had at one time or another bent under his blows; and the French Marshals seemed doomed, as in 1813, to fail wherever their Emperor was not. Ney, Victor, and Mortier had again evinced few of the qualities of a commander, except bravery. Augereau was betraying softness and irresolution in the Lyonnais in front of a smaller Austrian force. Suchet and Davoust were shut up in Catalonia and Hamburg. St. Cyr and Vandamme were prisoners. Soult had kept a bold front near Bayonne: but now news was to hand that Wellington had surprised and routed him at Orthez. On the Seine, Macdonald and Oudinot failed to hold Troyes against the ma.s.ses of Schwarzenberg. Of all the French Marshals, Marmont had distinguished himself the most in this campaign, and now at Laon he had been caught napping. Yet, while all others failed, Napoleon seemed invincible. Even after Marmont's disaster, the allies forbore to attack the chief; and, just as a lion that has been beaten off by a herd of buffaloes stalks away, mangled but full of fight and unmolested, so the Emperor drew off in peace towards Soissons. Thence he marched on Rheims, gained a victory over a Russian division there, and hoped to succour his Lorraine garrisons, when, on the 17th, the news of Schwarzenberg's advance towards Paris led him southwards once more.

Yielding to the remonstrances of the Czar, the Austrian leader had purposed to march on the French capital, if everything went well; but he once more drew back on receiving news of Napoleon's advance against his right flank. While preparing to retire towards Brienne, he heard that his great antagonist had crossed that river at Plancy with less than 20,000 troops. To retrace his steps, fall upon this handful of weary men with 100,000, and drive them into the river, was not a daring conception: but so accustomed were the allies to dalliance and delay that a thrill of surprise ran through the host when he began to call up its retiring columns for a fight.[428]

Napoleon also was surprised: he believed the Grand Army to be in full retreat, and purposed then to dash on Vitry and Verdun.[429] But the allies gave him plenty of time to draw up Macdonald's and Oudinot's corps, while they themselves were still so widely sundered as at first scarcely to stay his onset. The fighting behind Arcis was desperate: Napoleon exposed his person freely to s.n.a.t.c.h victory from the deepening ma.s.ses in front. At one time a sh.e.l.l burst in front of him, and his staff s.h.i.+vered as they saw his figure disappear in the cloud of smoke and dust; but he arose unhurt, mounted another charger and pressed on the fight. It was in vain: he was compelled to draw back his men to the town (March 20th). On the morrow a bold attack by Schwarzenberg could have overwhelmed Napoleon's 30,000 men; but his bold front imposed on the Austrian leader, while the French were drawn across the river, only the rearguard suffering heavily from the belated attack of the allies. With the loss of 4,000 men, Napoleon fell back northwards into the wasted plains of Sezanne. Hope now vanished from every breast but his. And surely if human weakness had ever found a place in that fiery soul, it might now have tempted him to sue for peace. He had flung himself first north, then south, in order to keep for France the natural frontiers that he might have had as a present last November; he had failed; and now he might with honour accept the terms of the victors. But once more he was too late.

The negotiations at Chatillon had ended on March 19th, that is, nine days later than had been originally fixed by the allies. The extension of time was due mainly to their regard and pity for Caulaincourt; and, indeed, he was in the most pitiable position, a plenipotentiary without full powers, a Minister kept partly in the dark by his sovereign, and a patriot unable to rescue his beloved France from the abyss towards which Napoleon's infatuation was hurrying her. He knew the resolve of the allies far better than his master's intentions. It was from Lord Aberdeen that he heard of the failure of the parleys for an armistice: from him also he learnt that Napoleon had written a "pa.s.sionate" letter to Kaiser Francis, and he expressed satisfaction that the reply was firm and decided.[430] His private intercourse at Chatillon with the British plenipotentiaries was frank and friendly, as also with Stadion. He received frequent letters from Metternich, advising him quickly to come to terms with the allies;[431] and the Austrian Minister sent Prince Esterhazy to warn him that the allies would never recede from their demand of the old frontiers for France, not even if the fortune of war drove them across the Rhine for a time.

"Is there, then, no means to enlighten Napoleon as to his true situation, or to save him if he persists in destroying himself? Has he irrevocably staked his own and his son's fate on the last cannon?"--Let Napoleon, then, accept the allied proposal by sending a counter-project, differing only very slightly from theirs, and peace would be made.[432] Caulaincourt needed no spur. "He works tooth and nail for a peace," wrote Stewart, "as far as depends on him. He dreads Bonaparte's successes even more than ours, lest they should make him more impracticable."[433]

But, unfortunately, his latest and most urgent appeal to the Emperor reached the latter just after the Pyrrhic victory at Craonne, which left him more stubborn than ever. Far from meeting the allies halfway, he let fall words that bespoke only injured pride: "If one must receive lashes," he said within hearing of the courier, "it is not for me to offer my back to them." On the morrow he charged Maret to reply to his distressed plenipotentiary that he (Napoleon) knew best what the situation demanded; the demand of the allies that France should retire within her old frontiers was only their _first word:_ Caulaincourt must get to know their ultimatum: if this was their ultimatum, he must reject it. He (Napoleon) would possibly give up Dutch Brabant and the fortresses of Wesel, Castel (opposite Mainz), and Kehl, but would make no substantial changes on the Frankfurt terms. Still, Caulaincourt struggled on. When the session of March 10th was closing, he produced a declaration offering to give up all Napoleon's claims to control lands beyond the natural limits.

The others divined that it was his own handiwork, drawn up in order to spin out the negotiations and leave his master a few days of grace.[434] They respected his intentions, and nine days of grace were gained; but the only answer that Napoleon vouchsafed to Caulaincourt's appeals was the missive of March 17th from Rheims: "I have received your letters of the 13th. I charge the Duke of Ba.s.sano to answer them in detail. I give you directly the power to make the concessions which would be indispensable to keep up the activity of the negotiations, and to get to know at last the ultimatum of the allies, it being well understood that the treaty would have for result the evacuation of our territory and the release of all prisoners on both sides." The instructions which he charged the Duke of Ba.s.sano to send to Caulaincourt were such as a victor might have dictated. The allies must evacuate his territory and give up all the fortresses as soon as the preliminaries of peace were signed: if the negotiations were to break off they had better break off on this question. He himself would cease to control lands beyond the natural frontiers, and would recognize the independence of Holland: as regards Belgium, he would refuse to cede it to a prince of the House of Orange, but he hinted that it might well go to a French prince as an indemnity--evidently Joseph Bonaparte was meant. If this concession were made, he expected that all the French colonies, including the Ile de France, would be restored. Nothing definite was said about the Rhine frontier.

The courier who carried these proposals from Rheims to Chatillon was twice detained by the Russians, and had not reached the town when the Congress came to an end (March 19th). Their only importance, therefore, is to show that, despite all the warnings in which the Prague negotiations were so fruitful, Napoleon clung to the same threatening and dilatory tactics which had then driven Austria into the arms of his foes. He still persisted in looking on the time limit of the allies as meaningless, on their ultimatum as their _first word_, from which they would soon shuffle away under the pressure of his prowess--and this, too, when Caulaincourt was daily warning him that the hours were numbered, that nothing would change the resolve of his foes, and that their defeats only increased their exasperation against him.

If anything could have increased this exasperation, it was the discovery that he was playing with them all the time. On the 20th the allied scouts brought to head-quarters a despatch written by Maret the day before to Caulaincourt which contained this d.a.m.ning sentence: "The Emperor's desires remain entirely vague on everything relating to the delivering up of the strongholds, Antwerp, Mayence, and Alessandria, if you should be obliged to consent to these cessions, as he has the intention, even after the ratification of the treaty, to take counsel from the military situation of affairs. Wait for the last moment."[435] Peace, then, was to be patched up for Napoleon's convenience and broken by him at the first seasonable opportunity. Is it surprising that on that same day the Ministers of the Powers decided to have no more negotiations with Napoleon, and that Metternich listened not unfavourably to the emissary of the Bourbons, the Count de Vitrolles, whom he had previously kept at arm's length?

In truth, Napoleon was now about to stake everything on a plan from which other leaders would have recoiled, but which, in his eyes, promised a signal triumph. This was to rally the French garrisons in Lorraine and throw himself on Schwarzenberg's rear. It was, indeed, his only remaining chance. With his band of barely 40,000 men, kept up to that number by the arrival of levies that impaired its solidity, he could scarcely hope to beat back the dense ma.s.ses now marshalled behind the Aube, the Seine, and the Marne.

A glance at the map will show that behind those rivers the allies could creep up within striking distance of Paris, while from his position north of the Aube he could attack them only by crossing one or other of those great streams, the bridges of which were in their hands. He still held the central position; but it was robbed of its value if he could not attack. Warfare for him was little else than the art of swift and decisive attack; or, as he tersely phrased it, "The art of war is to march twelve leagues, fight a battle, and march twelve more in pursuit." As this was now impossible against the fronts and flanks of the allies, it only remained to threaten the rear of the army which was most likely to be intimidated by such a manoeuvre. And this was clearly the army led by Schwarzenberg. From Blucher and Bulow naught but defiance to the death was to be expected, and their rear was supported by the Dutch strongholds.

But the Austrians had shown themselves as soft in their strategy as in their diplomacy. Everyone at the allied headquarters knew that Schwarzenberg was unequal to the load of responsibility thrust on him, that the incursion of a band of Alsatian peasants on his convoys made him nervous, and that he would not move on Paris as long as his "communications were exposed to a movement by Chalons and Vitry."[436]

What an effect, then, would be produced on that timid commander by an "Imperial Vendee" in Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comte!