The French pursued relentlessly, but with splendid skill and determination Blücher himself in command of the rearguard fought them off. Napoleon had foreseen this. He had massed all the cavalry under Grouchy and had sent them on a long round-about march across country to get in Blücher's rear. Just beyond Champaubert, in a dense wood in front of the village of Étoges, the retreating allies found the road barred by the cavalry. Grouchy had been provided with sufficient artillery to enable him to hold the retreat in check; but the mud still prevailed, many horses had been shot and killed, the peasants' horses drawing the guns had been unable to keep pace with the necessarily rapid movements of the cavalry, and the batteries had not come up. Nor was there any supporting infantry. Indeed, the retreat of the Prussians had been so sudden and so rapid that Grouchy's horse had been hard put to it to intercept them.
The regiments leading the allied retreat were formed in squares, and with musketry and cannon animated with the courage of despair, they forced a passage through the charging, barring masses of the French cavalry, not, however, without losing several of the squares in the process. It was their only possible way to safety. As it was, Blücher himself narrowly escaped capture.
Napoleon's soldiers had fought five pitched battles in four days. As a preparation, they had marched thirty miles, night and day, over incredible roads. They were now utterly exhausted. They could do no more. They must have a good rest. Blücher's forces had been scattered, eliminated, defeated in detail. There was now nothing for the Field Marshal to do but to retreat and rally his men. The success of the Emperor had been brilliant in the extreme.
The fighting was not over, however, for thirty miles to the southward lay the vast army of Schwarzenberg. Napoleon might have pursued Blücher to the bitter end. Military critics say he should have done so. To him, however, on the spot, it seemed proper to leave Blücher for the time being and endeavor to repeat on Schwarzenberg the marvelous tactics of the five days' fight.
The next morning, the fifteenth, he started back to Nogent whence he had come. Victor and Oudinot had been fighting hard with Schwarzenberg, but the news of Napoleon's victories had finally caused the cautious Austrian to stop. He began the recall and concentration of his own scattered divisions. He, at least, would not be caught napping. As usual the enemy learned something, even in defeat.
Speed was still essential to Napoleon. His men had had twenty-four hours of rest. His horses were comparatively fresh. The weather had changed, the roads were frozen, horribly rough, but still much more passable than before. Once again the Emperor resorted to the peasantry. They, too, had been intoxicated with the news of his victories, many of which they had witnessed and, in the plunder resulting, had shared. They brought their horses which they had hidden in ravines and forests when the country was overrun by the enemy. This time, instead of attaching them to the guns which their own teams—recruited from the captures—could draw on the hard roads, Napoleon had them hitched to the big farm wagons. Into the wagons he loaded his infantry. And at the highest speed of the horses the whole force made its way to the southward. To other victories—to defeats—to what?
The Emperor began once again to dream of an empire whose boundaries would be the Vistula instead of the Rhine.