The allies proclaimed everywhere as they advanced, that they came as the friends, not the enemies of the French nation, and that any of the peasantry who took up arms to oppose them must be content to abide the treatment of brigands; a flagrant outrage against the most sacred and inalienable rights of mankind.
Meanwhile, nearer and nearer each day the torrent of invasion rolled on, sweeping before it, with but slight resistance, the various corps which had been left to watch the Rhine. Ney, Marmont, Victor and Mortier, commanding in all about 50,000 men, retired of necessity before the enemy.
From a Painting by H. Bellange
Napoleon at the Battle of Wagram
It now became apparent that the allies had resolved to carry the war into the interior without waiting for the reduction of the great fortresses on the Rhenish frontier. They passed on with hosts overwhelmingly superior to all those of Napoleon's lieutenants, who withdrew, followed by crowds of the rustic population, rushing onwards towards Paris by any means of transport. Carts and wagons, filled with terrified women and children thronged every avenue to the capital.
The Emperor now resolved to break silence to the Parisians and prepared to reappear in the field. On the 22d of January, 1814, the official news of the invasion appeared. The next morning—Sunday—the officers of the National Guard to the number of nine hundred were summoned to the Tuileries. Napoleon took his station in the centre of the hall and immediately the Empress, with her son, the King of Rome, carried in the arms of Countess Montesquiou, appeared at his side.
"Gentlemen," said the Emperor "France is invaded; I go to put myself at the head of my troops, and with God's help and their valor, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the frontier." Here he took Marie Louise in one hand and her son in the other, and continued, "But if they should approach the capital, I confide to the National Guard the Empress and the King of Rome—my wife and my child!"—Several officers stepped from their places and approached with tears in their eyes.