All these resources, when they should be disposable, and they might be before the end of the campaign, would have mounted the strength of the acting army to more than three hundred thousand fighting men; and that of the army of reserve, namely the national guards in the second line, or in the fortified towns, to four hundred thousand men. They would have been recruited, the first by levies from the conscriptions of 1814 and 1815; the second, by calling into service fresh battalions of the flank companies.
The whole army was superb, and full of ardour: but the Emperor, more a slave, than could have been believed, to his remembrances and habitudes, committed the fault of replacing it under the command of its former chiefs. Most of these, notwithstanding their addresses to the King, had not ceased to pray for the triumph of the imperial cause; yet they did not appear disposed to serve it with the ardour and devotion, that circumstances demanded. They were not now the men, who, full of youth and ambition, were generously prodigal of their lives, to acquire rank and fame; they were men tired of war, and who, having reached the summit of promotion, and being enriched by the spoils of the enemy or the bounty of Napoleon, had no further wish, than peaceably to enjoy their good fortune under the shade of their laurels.
The colonels and generals, who entered on their career subsequent to them, murmured at finding themselves placed under their tutelage. The soldiers themselves were dissatisfied: but this dissatisfaction did not abate their confidence of victory, for Napoleon was at their head[40].
On the 14th the Emperor directed the following proclamation, to be issued in the orders of the day.
"Avesnes, June 14, 1815.
"Soldiers,
"This is the anniversary of Marengo and of Friedland, which twice decided the fate of Europe: then, as after Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were too generous! We trusted to the protestations and oaths of the princes, whom we left on the throne! Now, however, in coalition against us, they aim at the independence and the most sacred rights of France, They have commenced the most unjust of aggressions. Let us then march to meet them: are not they and we still the same men?
"Soldiers, at Jena, against these same Prussians, now so arrogant, you were but one to three, and at Montmirail one to six! Let those among you, who were prisoners to the English, give you an account of their hulks (pontons), and of the dreadful miseries they endured.
"The Saxons, the Belgians, the Hanoverians, the soldiers of the confederation of the Rhine, groan at being obliged to lend their arms to the cause of princes, who are enemies to justice, and to the rights common to all people. They know, that this coalition is insatiate. After having devoured twelve millions of Polanders, twelve millions of Italians, a million of Saxons, six millions of Belgians, it would devour all the states of the second order in Germany.
"Madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded them. The oppression and humiliation of the French people are out of their power! If they enter France, they will find in it their graves.