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.

ATTEMPT OF THE COSSACKS TO CAPTURE NAPOLEON AT BRIENNE. (See p. [78].)

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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.