Equally disappointing were affairs in Italy. On the 11th of January, Murat made an alliance with Austria, and promised to aid her with a corps of 30,000 Neapolitans, while she guaranteed him his throne and a slice of the Roman territory. Napoleon directed Eugène, as soon as this bad news was confirmed, to prepare to fall back on the Alps. But, in order to clog Murat's movements, the Emperor resolved to make use of the spiritual power, which for six years he had slighted. He gave orders that the aged Pope should be released from his detention at Fontainebleau, and hurried secretly to Rome. "Let him burst on that place like a clap of thunder," he wrote to Savary (January 21st). But this stagey device was not to succeed. Even now Napoleon insisted on conditions with which Pius VII. could not conscientiously comply, and he was still detained at Tarrascon when his captor was setting out for Elba.
Three days after Murat's desertion, Denmark fell away from Napoleon. Overborne by the forces of Bernadotte, the little kingdom made peace with England and Sweden, agreeing to yield up Norway to the latter Power in consideration of recovering an indemnity in Germany. To us the Danes ceded Heligoland. Thus, within three months of the disaster at Leipzig, all Napoleon's allies forsook him, and all but the Danes were now about to fight against him—a striking proof of the artificiality of his domination.[pg.381]
By this time it was clear that even France would soon be stricken to the heart unless Napoleon speedily concentrated his forces. On the north and east the allies were advancing with a speed that nonplussed the Emperor. Accustomed to sluggish movements on their part, he had not expected an invasion in force before the spring, and here it was in the first days of January. Bülow and Graham had overrun Holland. The allies, with the exception of the Czar, had no scruples about infringing the neutrality of Switzerland, as Napoleon had consistently done, and the constitution, which he had imposed upon that land eleven years before, now straightway collapsed. Detaching a strong corps southwards to hold the Simplon and Great St. Bernard Passes and threaten Lyons, Schwarzenberg led the allied Grand Army into France by way of Basel, Belfort, and Langres. The prompt seizure of the Plateau of Langres was an important success. The allies thereby turned the strong defensive lines of the Vosges Mountains, and of the Rivers Moselle and Meuse, so that Blücher, with his "Army of Silesia," was able rapidly to advance into Lorraine, and drive Victor from Nancy. Toul speedily surrendered, and the sturdy veteran then turned to the south-west, in order to come into touch with Schwarzenberg's columns. Neither leader delayed before the eastern fortresses. The allies had learnt from Napoleon to invest or observe them and press on, a course which their vast superiority of force rendered free from danger. Schwarzenberg, on the 25th, had 150,000 men between Langres, Chaumont, and Bar-sur-Aube; while Blücher, with about half those numbers, crossed the Marne at St. Dizier, and was drawing near to Brienne. In front of them were the weak and disheartened corps of Marmont, Ney, Victor, and Macdonald, mustering in all about 50,000 men. Desertions to the allies were frequent, and Blücher, wishing to show that the war was practically over, dismissed both deserters and prisoners to their homes.[[401]]
But the war was far from over: it had not yet begun.[pg.382] Hitherto Napoleon had hurried on the preparations from Paris, but the urgency of the danger now beckoned him eastwards. As before, he left the Empress as Regent of France, but appointed King Joseph as Lieutenant-General of France. On Sunday, January 23rd, he held the last reception. It was in the large hall of the Tuileries, where the Parisian rabble had forced Louis XVI. to don the bonnet rouge. Another dynasty was now tottering to its fall; but none could have read its doom in the faces of the obsequious courtiers, or of the officers of the Parisian National Guards, who offered their homage to the heir of the Revolution.
He came forward with the Empress and the King of Rome, a flaxen-haired child of three winters, clad in the uniform of the National Guard. Taking the boy by the hand into the midst of the circle, he spoke these touching words: "Gentlemen,—I am about to set out for the army. I intrust to you what I hold dearest in the world—my wife and my son. Let there be no political divisions." He then carried him amidst his dignitaries and officers, while sobs and shouts bespoke the warmth of the feelings kindled by this scene. And never, surely, since the young Maria Theresa appealed in person to the Hungarian magnates to defend her against rapacious neighbours, had any monarch spoken so straight to the hearts of his lieges. The secret of his success is not far to seek. He had not commanded as Emperor: he had appealed as a father to fathers and mothers.
It is painful to have to add that many who there swore to defend him were even then beginning to plot his overthrow. Most painful of all is it to remember that when, before dawn of the 25th, Marie Louise bade him farewell, it was her last farewell: for she, too, deserted him in his misfortunes, refused to share his exile, and ultimately degraded herself by her connection with Count Neipperg.
Heedless of all that the future might bring, and concentrating his thoughts on the problems of the present, the great warrior journeyed rapidly eastwards to [pg.383] Châlons-sur-Marne, and opened the most glorious of his campaigns. [Illustration (missing): THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814 to face] And yet it began with disaster. At Brienne, among the scenes of his school-days, he assailed Blücher in the hope of preventing the junction of the Army of Silesia with that of Schwarzenberg further south (January 29th). After sharp fighting, the Prussians were driven from the castle and town. But the success was illusory. Blücher withdrew towards Bar-sur-Aube, in order to gain support from Schwarzenberg, and, three days later, turned the tables on Napoleon while the latter was indulging in hopes that the allies were about to treat seriously for peace.[[402]] Nevertheless, though surprised by greatly superior numbers, the 40,000 French clung obstinately to the village of La Rothière until their thin lines were everywhere driven in or outflanked, with the loss of 73 cannon and more than 3,000 prisoners. Each side lost about 5,000 killed and wounded—a mere trifle to the allies, but a grave disaster to the defenders.
The Emperor was much discouraged. He had put forth his full strength, exposed his own person to the hottest fire, so as to encourage his men, and yet failed to prevent the union of the allied armies, or to hold the line of the River Aube. Early on the morrow he left the castle of Brienne, and took the road for Troyes; while Marmont, with a corps now reduced to less than 3,000 men, bravely defended the passage of the Voire at Rosnay, and, after delaying the pursuit, took post at Arcis-sur-Aube. The means of defence, both moral and material, seemed wellnigh exhausted. When, on February 3rd, Napoleon entered Troyes, scarcely a single vivat was heard. Even the old troops were cast down by defeat and hunger, while as many as 6,000 conscripts are said to have deserted. The inhabitants refused to supply the necessaries of life except upon requisition. "The army is perishing of famine," writes the Emperor at Troyes. Again at Nogent: "Twelve men have died of hunger, though we have used fire and sword to get food on our way here." And, now, into the space left undefended[pg.384] between the Marne and the Aube, Blücher began to thrust his triumphant columns, with no barrier to check him until he neared the environs of Paris. Once more the Prussian and Russian officers looked on the war as over, and invited one another to dinner at the Palais-Royal in a week's time.[[403]]
But it was on this confidence of the old hussar-general that Napoleon counted. He knew his proneness to daring movements, and the strong bias of Schwarzenberg towards delay: he also divined that they would now separate their forces, Blücher making straight for Paris, while other columns would threaten the capital by way of Troyes and Sens. That was why he fell back on Troyes, so as directly to oppose the latter movement, "or so as to return and manoeuvre against Blücher and stay his march."[[404]] Another motive was his expectation of finding at Nogent the 15,000 veterans whom he had ordered Soult to send northwards. And doubtless the final reason was his determination to use the sheltering curve of the Seine, which between Troyes and Nogent flows within twenty miles of the high-road that Blücher must use if he struck at Paris. At many a crisis Napoleon had proved the efficacy of a great river line. From Rivoli to Friedland his career abounds in examples of riverine tactics. The war of 1813 was one prolonged struggle for the line of the Elbe. He still continued the war because he could not yet bring himself to sign away the Rhenish fortresses: and he now hoped to regain that "natural boundary" by blows showered on divided enemies from behind the arc of the Seine.
With wonderful prescience he had guessed at the general plan of the allies. But he could scarcely have dared to hope that on that very day (February 2nd) they were holding a council of war at Brienne, and formally resolved that Blücher should march north-west on Paris with about 50,000 men, while the allied Grand[pg.385] Army of nearly three times those numbers was to diverge south-west towards Bar-sur-Seine and Sens. So unequal a partition of forces seemed to court disaster. It is true that the allies had no magazines of supplies: they could not march in an undivided host through a hostile land where the scanty defenders themselves were nearly starving. If, however, they decided to move at all, it was needful to allot the more dangerous task to a powerful force. Above all, it was necessary to keep their main armies well in touch with one another and with the foe. Yet these obvious precautions were not taken. In truth, the separation of the allies was dictated more by political jealousy than by military motives. To these political affairs we must now allude; for they had no small effect in leading Napoleon on to an illusory triumph and an irretrievable overthrow. We will show their influence, first on the conduct of the allies, and then on the actions of Napoleon.