CHAPTER XXXV
The Campaign of France—Battles of Brienne and La Rothiere—Expedition of the Marne—Battles of Nangis and Montereau—Schwartzenberg Retreats—Napoleon again marches against Blucher—Attacks Soissons and is Repulsed—Battles of Craonne and Laon—Napoleon at Rheims—His Perplexities—He Marches to St. Dizier.
Napoleon spent part of the 24th of January in reviewing troops in the courtyard of the Tuileries, in the midst of a fall of snow, which must have called up ominous recollections, and at three in the morning of the 25th, once more left his capital. He had again appointed Maria Louisa Regent, placed his brother Joseph at the head of her council, and given orders for raising military defences around Paris, and for converting many public buildings into hospitals. He set off in visible dejection; but recovered all his energy on reaching once more the congenial atmosphere of arms.
He arrived at Chalons ere midnight; and found that Schwartzenberg and Blucher, having severally passed through Franche-Comté and Lorraine, were now occupying—the former with 97,000 men, the latter with 40,000—an almost complete line between the Marne and the Seine. Blucher was in his own neighbourhood, and he immediately resolved to attack the right of the Silesian army, which was pushing down the valley of the Marne, while its centre kept the parallel course of the Aube, ere the Prussian marshal could concentrate all his own strength, far less be adequately supported from the side of Schwartzenberg, who was advancing down the Seine towards Bar. A sharp skirmish took place accordingly on the 27th at St. Dizier; and Blucher, warned of Napoleon's arrival, lost no time in calling in his detachments, and taking a post of defence at Brienne-le-Chateau on the Aube—the same town where Buonaparte had received his military education. Could Napoleon force him from the Aube, it was evident that the French would be enabled to interpose themselves effectually between the two armies of the Allies: and it was most necessary to divide the enemy's strength, for after all his exertions, Napoleon had been able to add only 20,000 good troops to the 50,000 who had been retiring before the allied columns from the course of the Rhine.
Napoleon, therefore, marched through a thick forest upon the scene of his youthful studies, and appeared there on the 29th:—having moved so rapidly that Blucher was at dinner in the chateau, when the French thundered at his gates, and with difficulty escaped to the rear through a postern—actually leading his horse down a stair. The Russians, however, under Alsusieff, maintained their place in the town courageously; and, some Cossacks throwing themselves upon the rear of the French, the Emperor himself was involved in the melée, drew his sword, and fought like a private dragoon. General Gourgaud shot a Cossack when in the act of thrusting his spear at Napoleon's back. The town of Brienne was burnt to the ground; Alsusieff was made prisoner; Lefebre Desnouettes died; and there was considerable slaughter on both sides; but the affair had no result of importance. Blucher retired but a little further up the Aube, and posted himself at La Rothiere, where Schwartzenberg, warned by the cannonade, hastened to co-operate with him.
Napoleon said at St. Helena, that during the charge of the Cossacks at Brienne, he recognised a particular tree, under which, when a boy, he used to sit and read the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso. The field had been, in those days, part of the exercise ground of the students, and the chateau, whence Blucher escaped so narrowly, their lodging. How strange must have been the feelings of the man who, having but yesterday planted his eagles on the Kremlin, now opened his fifteenth campaign amidst the scenes of his own earliest recollections—of the days in which he had never dreamt of empire!
On the first of February Blucher, in his turn, assumed the offensive, assaulting the French position in his front at once on three several points. The battle lasted all day, and ended in the defeat of the French, who, with the loss of 4000 prisoners and seventy-three guns, escaped from the field in such disorder, that, according to Napoleon's own avowal at St. Helena, he had serious thoughts of putting an end to the war by voluntarily resigning the crown to the heir of the Bourbons. However this may have been, while the division of Marmont retired down the Aube before Blucher, Napoleon himself struck across the country to Troyes, which there was every reason to fear must be immediately occupied by Schwartzenberg; and was there joined by a considerable body of his own guard, in high order and spirits, whose appearance restored, in a great measure, the confidence of the troops beaten at La Rothiere.
On the 3rd, he received at Troyes a despatch from Caulaincourt, informing him that Lord Castlereagh, the English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had arrived at the headquarters of the Allies—that negotiations were to be resumed the morning after at Chatillon—(now in the rear of the armies), and beseeching him to intimate distinctly at what price he was now willing to purchase peace. Napoleon replied, by granting Caulaincourt full powers to do everything necessary "to keep the negotiation alive, and save the capital." But the Duke of Vicenza durst not act immediately on a document so loosely worded, and sent back once more to beg for a specific detail of the Emperor's purposes. Napoleon had his headquarters at Nogent, on the Seine, some leagues below Troyes, when the despatch reached him, on the evening of the 8th of February; and his counsellors unanimously urged him to make use of this, probably last, opportunity. They at length prevailed on him to agree to abandon Belgium, the left of the Rhine, Italy, and Piedmont. But in the night after the consultation, and before the ultimatum received his signature, Napoleon received information which quite altered his views. He learned that Blucher, instead of continuing his march down the Aube, and in communication with Schwartzenberg on the Seine, had transferred his whole army to the Marne, and was now advancing towards Paris by the Montmirail road. That the Allies, after experiencing the effects of disunion at Brienne, and those of conjunction at La Rothiere, should have almost in the moment of victory again resolved on separating their forces, is a circumstance which no writer has as yet explained in any satisfactory manner. The blunder was great; yet in the end its consequences were disastrous, not to those who committed, but to him whose eagle-eye detected it, and who could not resist the temptation which it presented, to make one warlike effort more. Buonaparte, in a word, refused to sign the despatch on the morning of the 9th; and having left Bourmont at Nogent, with a small force to defend the bridge over the Seine, and Oudinot with another, for the same purpose, at the next bridge in descending the river, namely, that of Bray, immediately commenced his march with the main body of his army upon Sezanne.