While the prudent and sagacious English general slowly continued his work in Spain, the Emperor Napoleon had ventured, played, and lost his great stake against Russia. Moscow was set on fire through individual resolution, as patriotic as cruel. From victory to victory, the French army, destroyed by the climate, by the distances, by fatigue, and sufferings of all kinds, disappeared, little by little, in the snows; abandoned by the Emperor, who had secretly taken his departure for Paris on the 5th of December. Some lines inserted in the Moniteur had alone preceded him. These announced that he had assembled his generals at Smorgoni, transmitted the command to King Murat for the time being, as the cold paralyzed military operations, and that he was coming to Paris to personally direct the affairs of the empire. Some months later he entered Germany, where a national movement, encouraged by the disasters of the Russian campaign, was becoming each day more determined against him. The King of Prussia finally took up arms. Everywhere the Emperor Alexander was hailed as the liberator of Germany. Only the terrible battles of Lützen and Bantzen slackened the zeal of the allies. The mediation of Austria obtained an armistice; more useful, however, to the allies than to Napoleon. He rejected all the conditions proposed by the Emperor Joseph. The terrible battles of Dresden and of Leipsic were the final struggles of the dying lion.
Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister of England, a prudent, moderate, and determined statesman, was assassinated by a personal enemy, in the vestibule of the House of Commons. Lord Liverpool at once assumed the entire responsibility of affairs, recently complicated by a declaration of war from the United States. The English government had not revoked, in time, those decrees of the Council which were opposed to, and abused, the rights of nations, and which were particularly unfortunate in the present instance, as Napoleon had raised the continental blockade in their favor. When the English finally withdrew their prohibitions, it was too late, as hostilities had already begun on sea and land. An American army invaded Canada, and the English and American fleets fought with desperation. There, however, England did not expend her warlike efforts; for in 1813 the progress of Wellington in Spain absorbed all her thoughts and all her hopes.
For a time Marshal Jourdan took command of the French army that supported King Joseph, in Spain. On the 21st of June he was defeated by the English at Vittoria. Joseph narrowly escaped being captured. Marshal Soult succeeded Jourdan. In a proclamation to his army, he attributed the defeats to the cowardice and incapacity of those who had preceded him in the command: a sad presumption which was soon to receive its chastisement. The conflicts of Roncesvalles, on the 28th and 31st of July, 1813, forced the Marshal to fall back upon the Bidassoa, without being able to make even an effort for the relief of the besieged city of San Sebastian, which fell into the hands of the English, on the 8th of September. On the 7th of October Wellington, in his turn, crossed the Bidassoa, and while Pampeluna surrendered to the Anglo-Spanish forces, on the 31st of October, Marshal Soult was forced within his lines at St. Jean de Luz. French territory was invaded. Delivered in advance to the anger of its enemies, it was to suffer cruel reprisals of which France has not even yet ceased to bear the weight or pay the price.
Napoleon defended Champagne and Lorraine; calling to his aid the troops from Spain, as well as the remnants of the German army, and blaming Marshal Augereau, who was slow in joining him. More than ever master, and more than ever imperious, he continued indomitable and inexhaustible in the fecundity of his genius. "The Minister of War has shown me your letter of the 16th," wrote Napoleon to Augereau, his old comrade of the revolution: "that letter has grieved me deeply. What! six hours after receiving the first troops from Spain, and you are not already on the march! Were six hours of repose necessary? I gained the battle of Nangis with a brigade of dragoons from Spain, who had not been off their horses since they left Bayonne. The six battalions of Nîmes lack, you say, clothing and equipments, and are inexperienced. What an excuse to make me, Augereau! I have destroyed 80,000 of the enemy, with battalions composed of conscripts, having no cartridge boxes, and but half clothed. There is no money, you say; and where do you expect to find money? We will have that, only when we have torn our receipts from the hands of the enemy. You lack horses? Take them everywhere. You have no magazines? That is too ridiculous! I order you to take up your line of march within twelve hours, after you receive this letter. If you are still the Augereau of Castiglione, obey this order; but if your sixty years weigh too heavily upon you, turn over your command to the oldest of your general officers. The country is threatened, and in danger. It can only be saved by audacity and good-will, and not by vain temporizations. You ought to have a nucleus of more than six thousand veteran troops; I have not as many, and I have moreover destroyed three armies, made 40,000 prisoners, taken two hundred cannons, and three times saved the capital. The enemy fly in all directions toward Troyes; be the first at the ball. It is no longer a question of acting, as in the last days, but it is necessary to act with the spirit and resolution of '93. When the French soldiers see your plume in the advance, and when they see you the first to expose yourself to the fire of the enemy, you will be able to do with them whatever you wish."
The blows of despair, although heroic, were not sufficient to destroy the consequences of a long series of faults and fatal errors. The empire succumbed beneath the efforts of combined Europe, driven to extremities, and finally resolved to shake off a yoke which England alone had never submitted to. During the month of February, 1814, the forces of Marshal Soult and those of Wellington were nearly equal. A series of minor conflicts compelled the marshal to leave his intrenched camp, under the walls of Bayonne. On the 27th of February, the battle of Orthez was lost by the French army, and General Foy was wounded. Soult was obliged to fight while retreating.
Waterloo.
Bordeaux already proclaimed the Bourbons. The army of Soult covered Toulouse, and there was fought, on the 10th of April, the last battle of that war, which had already lasted more than twenty years. The glory of the marshal was increased, although the disaster which menaced France was not lessened. Before the army of Wellington had again met their old adversaries of Spain before Toulouse, the Emperor Napoleon had abdicated at Fontainbleau (April 11th, 1814).