The mill on the river Kinzig which runs without the town, was the scene of many desperate struggles. Here the French drove the Bavarians to the banks, precipitating hundreds into the deep stream. The miller, however, at the risk of his life, at length coolly went out, amidst a shower of balls and stopped the flood-gates, so as to leave a safe retreat to the Bavarians over the mill-dam. The side of the town next to the scene of battle was constantly taken and retaken by the contending armies, and during the night of the 30th the watch-word was changed not less than seven times. Six of the Austro-Bavarian's generals were killed or wounded and both cannon and flags were left in the power of the conqueror.
The pursuit of Napoleon, which had been intrusted to the Austrians, was far from vigorous and no considerable annoyance succeeded the battle of Hanau. The relics of the French host, now reduced to 60,000 men, at length passed the Rhine; and the Emperor, having quitted them at Mayence, arrived in Paris on the 9th of November.
[XIV]
THE INVASION OF FRANCE
By the defeat of the Emperor in the campaign of 1813 the Confederation of the Rhine was dissolved forever. The princes who adhered to that league were now permitted to sue for forgiveness by bringing a year's revenue and a double conscription to the banner of the Allies. Bernadotte turned from Leipsic to reduce the garrisons which Napoleon had not seen fit to call in, and one by one they fell, though in most cases, particularly at Dantzic, Wirtemberg and Hamburg, the resistance was obstinate and long.
The Crown Prince of Sweden having witnessed the reduction of some of these fortresses, and intrusted the siege of others to his lieutenants, invaded Denmark and the government of that country severed its long adhesion to Napoleon by a treaty concluded at Kiel on the 14th of January, 1814. Sweden yielded Pomerania to Denmark; Denmark gave up Norway to Sweden; and 10,000 Danish troops having joined his standard, Bernadotte turned his face towards the Netherlands. Holland also revolted after Leipsic, the Prince of Orange returning in triumph from England and assumed administration of affairs in the November following. On the side of Italy, Eugene Beauharnais was driven beyond the Adige by an Austrian army headed by General Hiller, and it was not at all likely that he could hope to maintain Lombardy much longer. To complete Napoleon's perplexity his brother-in-law, Murat, was negotiating with Austria and willing, provided Naples was guaranteed to him, to array the force of that state on the side of the Confederacy. Beyond the Pyrenees, Soult, who had been sent from Dresden to retrieve, if possible, the fortunes of the army defeated in June at Vittoria, had been twice defeated; the fortresses had fallen, and except a detached, and now useless force under Suchet in Catalonia, there remained no longer a single French soldier in Spain.
Such were the tidings which reached Napoleon from his Italian and Spanish frontiers at the very moment when it was necessary for him to make head against the Russians, the Austrians, and the Germans, chiefly armed and supplied at the expense of England, and now rapidly concentrating in three great masses on different points of the valley of the Rhine. The royalists, too, were exerting themselves indefatigably in the capital and the provinces, having recovered a large share of their ancient influence in the society of Paris even before the Russian expedition. The Bourbon princes watched the course of events with eager hope. The republicans, meanwhile, were not inactive. They had long since been alienated from Napoleon by his assumption of the imperial dignity, his creation of orders and nobles, and his alliance with the House of Austria; these men had observed, with hardly less delight than the royalists, that succession of reverses which had followed Napoleon in his last two campaigns. Finally, not a few of Napoleon's own ministers and generals were well prepared to take a part in his overthrow. Talleyrand, and others only second to him in influence, were in communication with the Bourbons, before the allies crossed the Rhine. "Ere then," said Napoleon, "I felt the reins slipping from my hands."
The Allied Princes issued at Frankfort, a manifesto on the 1st of December in which the sovereigns announced their belief that it was for the interests of Europe that France should continue to be a powerful state, and their willingness to concede to her, even now, greater extent of territory than the Bourbon kings had ever claimed—the boundaries, namely, of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. Their object in invading France was to put an end to the authority which Napoleon had usurped over other nations. The hostility of Europe, they said, was against,—not France, but Napoleon—and even as to Napoleon, against not his person but his system. These terms were tendered to the Emperor himself, and although he authorized Caulaincourt to commence negotiations in his behalf, it was merely for the purpose of gaining time.