Nevertheless, Napoleon struggled on: he called up Marmont and Mortier, gave out that he was about to receive other large reinforcements, and bade his garrisons in Belgium and Lorraine fall on the rear of the foe. One more victory, he thought, would end the war, or at least lower the demands of the allies. It was not to be. Blücher and Bülow held the strong natural citadel of Laon; and all Napoleon's efforts on March the 9th and 10th failed to storm the southern approaches. Marmont fared no better on the east; and when, at nightfall, the weary French fell back, the Prussians resolved to try a night attack on Marmont's corps, which was far away from the main body. Never was a surprise more successful; Marmont was quite off his guard; horse and foot fled in wild confusion, leaving 2,500 prisoners and forty-five cannon in the hands of the victorious Yorck. Could the allies have pressed home their advantage, the result must have been decisive; but Blücher had fallen ill, and a halt was called.[427]
Alone, among the leaders in this campaign, the Emperor remained unbroken. All the allied leaders had at one time or another bent under his blows; and the French Marshals seemed doomed, as in 1813, to fail wherever their Emperor was not. Ney, Victor, and Mortier had again evinced few of the qualities of a commander, except bravery. Augereau was betraying softness and irresolution in the Lyonnais in front of a smaller Austrian force. Suchet and Davoust were shut up in Catalonia and Hamburg. St. Cyr and Vandamme were prisoners. Soult had kept a bold front near Bayonne: but now news was to hand that Wellington had surprised and routed him at Orthez. On the Seine, Macdonald and Oudinot failed to hold Troyes against the masses of Schwarzenberg. Of all the French Marshals, Marmont had distinguished himself the most in this campaign, and now at Laon he had been caught napping. Yet, while all others failed, Napoleon seemed invincible. Even after Marmont's disaster, the allies forbore to attack the chief; and, just as a lion that has been beaten off by a herd of buffaloes stalks away, mangled but full of fight and unmolested, so the Emperor drew off in peace towards Soissons. Thence he marched on Rheims, gained a victory over a Russian division there, and hoped to succour his Lorraine garrisons, when, on the 17th, the news of Schwarzenberg's advance towards Paris led him southwards once more.
Yielding to the remonstrances of the Czar, the Austrian leader had purposed to march on the French capital, if everything went well; but he once more drew back on receiving news of Napoleon's advance against his right flank. While preparing to retire towards Brienne, he heard that his great antagonist had crossed that river at Plancy with less than 20,000 troops. To retrace his steps, fall upon this handful of weary men with 100,000, and drive them into the river, was not a daring conception: but so accustomed were the allies to dalliance and delay that a thrill of surprise ran through the host when he began to call up its retiring columns for a fight.[428]
Napoleon also was surprised: he believed the Grand Army to be in full retreat, and purposed then to dash on Vitry and Verdun.[429] But the allies gave him plenty of time to draw up Macdonald's and Oudinot's corps, while they themselves were still so widely sundered as at first scarcely to stay his onset. The fighting behind Arcis was desperate: Napoleon exposed his person freely to snatch victory from the deepening masses in front. At one time a shell burst in front of him, and his staff shivered as they saw his figure disappear in the cloud of smoke and dust; but he arose unhurt, mounted another charger and pressed on the fight. It was in vain: he was compelled to draw back his men to the town (March 20th). On the morrow a bold attack by Schwarzenberg could have overwhelmed Napoleon's 30,000 men; but his bold front imposed on the Austrian leader, while the French were drawn across the river, only the rearguard suffering heavily from the belated attack of the allies. With the loss of 4,000 men, Napoleon fell back northwards into the wasted plains of Sézanne. Hope now vanished from every breast but his. And surely if human weakness had ever found a place in that fiery soul, it might now have tempted him to sue for peace. He had flung himself first north, then south, in order to keep for France the natural frontiers that he might have had as a present last November; he had failed; and now he might with honour accept the terms of the victors. But once more he was too late.
The negotiations at Châtillon had ended on March 19th, that is, nine days later than had been originally fixed by the allies. The extension of time was due mainly to their regard and pity for Caulaincourt; and, indeed, he was in the most pitiable position, a plenipotentiary without full powers, a Minister kept partly in the dark by his sovereign, and a patriot unable to rescue his beloved France from the abyss towards which Napoleon's infatuation was hurrying her. He knew the resolve of the allies far better than his master's intentions. It was from Lord Aberdeen that he heard of the failure of the parleys for an armistice: from him also he learnt that Napoleon had written a "passionate" letter to Kaiser Francis, and he expressed satisfaction that the reply was firm and decided.[430] His private intercourse at Châtillon with the British plenipotentiaries was frank and friendly, as also with Stadion. He received frequent letters from Metternich, advising him quickly to come to terms with the allies;[431] and the Austrian Minister sent Prince Esterhazy to warn him that the allies would never recede from their demand of the old frontiers for France, not even if the fortune of war drove them across the Rhine for a time. "Is there, then, no means to enlighten Napoleon as to his true situation, or to save him if he persists in destroying himself? Has he irrevocably staked his own and his son's fate on the last cannon?"—Let Napoleon, then, accept the allied proposal by sending a counter-project, differing only very slightly from theirs, and peace would be made.[432] Caulaincourt needed no spur. "He works tooth and nail for a peace," wrote Stewart, "as far as depends on him. He dreads Bonaparte's successes even more than ours, lest they should make him more impracticable."[433]
But, unfortunately, his latest and most urgent appeal to the Emperor reached the latter just after the Pyrrhic victory at Craonne, which left him more stubborn than ever. Far from meeting the allies halfway, he let fall words that bespoke only injured pride: "If one must receive lashes," he said within hearing of the courier, "it is not for me to offer my back to them." On the morrow he charged Maret to reply to his distressed plenipotentiary that he (Napoleon) knew best what the situation demanded; the demand of the allies that France should retire within her old frontiers was only their first word: Caulaincourt must get to know their ultimatum: if this was their ultimatum, he must reject it. He (Napoleon) would possibly give up Dutch Brabant and the fortresses of Wesel, Castel (opposite Mainz), and Kehl, but would make no substantial changes on the Frankfurt terms. Still, Caulaincourt struggled on. When the session of March 10th was closing, he produced a declaration offering to give up all Napoleon's claims to control lands beyond the natural limits.
The others divined that it was his own handiwork, drawn up in order to spin out the negotiations and leave his master a few days of grace.[434] They respected his intentions, and nine days of grace were gained; but the only answer that Napoleon vouchsafed to Caulaincourt's appeals was the missive of March 17th from Rheims: "I have received your letters of the 13th. I charge the Duke of Bassano to answer them in detail. I give you directly the power to make the concessions which would be indispensable to keep up the activity of the negotiations, and to get to know at last the ultimatum of the allies, it being well understood that the treaty would have for result the evacuation of our territory and the release of all prisoners on both sides." The instructions which he charged the Duke of Bassano to send to Caulaincourt were such as a victor might have dictated. The allies must evacuate his territory and give up all the fortresses as soon as the preliminaries of peace were signed: if the negotiations were to break off they had better break off on this question. He himself would cease to control lands beyond the natural frontiers, and would recognize the independence of Holland: as regards Belgium, he would refuse to cede it to a prince of the House of Orange, but he hinted that it might well go to a French prince as an indemnity—evidently Joseph Bonaparte was meant. If this concession were made, he expected that all the French colonies, including the Ile de France, would be restored. Nothing definite was said about the Rhine frontier.
The courier who carried these proposals from Rheims to Châtillon was twice detained by the Russians, and had not reached the town when the Congress came to an end (March 19th). Their only importance, therefore, is to show that, despite all the warnings in which the Prague negotiations were so fruitful, Napoleon clung to the same threatening and dilatory tactics which had then driven Austria into the arms of his foes. He still persisted in looking on the time limit of the allies as meaningless, on their ultimatum as their first word, from which they would soon shuffle away under the pressure of his prowess—and this, too, when Caulaincourt was daily warning him that the hours were numbered, that nothing would change the resolve of his foes, and that their defeats only increased their exasperation against him.
If anything could have increased this exasperation, it was the discovery that he was playing with them all the time. On the 20th the allied scouts brought to head-quarters a despatch written by Maret the day before to Caulaincourt which contained this damning sentence: "The Emperor's desires remain entirely vague on everything relating to the delivering up of the strongholds, Antwerp, Mayence, and Alessandria, if you should be obliged to consent to these cessions, as he has the intention, even after the ratification of the treaty, to take counsel from the military situation of affairs. Wait for the last moment."[435] Peace, then, was to be patched up for Napoleon's convenience and broken by him at the first seasonable opportunity. Is it surprising that on that same day the Ministers of the Powers decided to have no more negotiations with Napoleon, and that Metternich listened not unfavourably to the emissary of the Bourbons, the Count de Vitrolles, whom he had previously kept at arm's length?
In truth, Napoleon was now about to stake everything on a plan from which other leaders would have recoiled, but which, in his eyes, promised a signal triumph. This was to rally the French garrisons in Lorraine and throw himself on Schwarzenberg's rear. It was, indeed, his only remaining chance. With his band of barely 40,000 men, kept up to that number by the arrival of levies that impaired its solidity, he could scarcely hope to beat back the dense masses now marshalled behind the Aube, the Seine, and the Marne.