Within three days, this "man of passiveness" crossed the French frontier, (June 21,) took every town in his way, (and all the French towns on that route are fortified,) and, on the 30th, the English and Prussians invested Paris. On the 3d of July, the capitulation of Paris, garrisoned by 50,000 regular troops and the national guard, was signed at St Cloud, and the French army was marched to the Loire, where it was disbanded.
We have now given the answer which common sense gives, and which history will always give, to the childishness of accounting for Wellington's unrivalled successes by his "doing nothing" until the "invincible" French chose to grow weary of being invincible. The historic fact is, that their generals met a superior general; that their troops met Englishmen, commanded by an officer worthy of such a command; and that "enterprise" of the most daring, sagacious, and brilliant order, was the especial, peculiar, and unequalled character of Wellington.
The volumes of M. Gravière are interesting; but he must unlearn his prejudices; or, if that be nationally impossible, he must palliate them into something like probability. He must do this even in consideration of the national passion for "glory." To be beaten by eminent military qualities softens the shame of defeat; but to be beaten by mere passiveness,—to be driven from a scene of possession by phlegm, and to be stript of laurels by the hand of indolence and inaptitude,—must be the last aggravation of military misfortune.
Yet, this stain they must owe to the pen of men who subscribe to the doctrine, that the great soldier of England conquered simply by his incapacity for action!
We think differently of the French people and of the French soldiery. The people are intelligent and ingenious; the soldiery are faithful and brave. England has no prejudices against either. Willing to do justice to the merits of all, she rejoices in making allies of nations, whom she has never feared as enemies. She wants no conquest, she desires no victories. Her glory is the peace of mankind.
But, she will not suffer the tombs of her great men to be defaced, nor their names to be taken down from the temple consecrated to the renown of their country.
[DANUBE AND THE EUXINE.]
"Danube, Danube! wherefore comest thou
Red and raging to my caves?
Wherefore leap thy swollen waters
Madly through the broken waves?
Wherefore is thy tide so sullied
With a hue unknown to me?
Wherefore dost thou bring pollution
To the old and sacred sea?"
"Ha! rejoice, old Father Euxine!
I am brimming full and red;
Noble tidings do I carry
From my distant channel bed.
I have been a Christian river
Dull and slow this many a year,
Rolling down my torpid waters
Through a silence morne and drear;
Have not felt the tread of armies
Trampling on my reedy shore;
Have not heard the trumpet calling,
Or the cannon's gladsome roar;
Only listened to the laughter
From the village and the town,
And the church-bells, ever jangling,
As the weary day went down.
And I lay and sorely pondered
On the days long since gone by,
When my old primæval forests
Echoed to the war-man's cry;
When the race of Thor and Odin
Held their battles by my side,
And the blood of man was mingling
Warmly with my chilly tide.
Father Euxine! thou rememb'rest
How I brought thee tribute then—
Swollen corpses, gash'd and gory,
Heads and limbs of slaughter'd men!
Father Euxine! be thou joyful!
I am running red once more—
Not with heathen blood, as early,
But with gallant Christian gore!
For the old times are returning,
And the Cross is broken down,
And I hear the tocsin sounding
In the village and the town;
And the glare of burning cities
Soon shall light me on my way—
Ha! my heart is big and jocund
With the draught I drank to-day.
Ha! I feel my strength awaken'd,
And my brethren shout to me;
Each is leaping red and joyous
To his own awaiting sea.
Rhine and Elbe are plunging downward
Through their wild anarchic land,
Every where are Christians falling
By their brother Christians' hand!
Yea, the old times are returning,
And the olden gods are here!
Take my tribute, Father Euxine,
To thy waters dark and drear.
Therefore come I with my torrents,
Shaking castle, crag, and town;
Therefore, with the shout of thunder,
Sweep I herd and herdsman down;
Therefore leap I to thy bosom,
With a loud, triumphal roar—
Greet me, greet me, Father Euxine—
I am Christian stream no more!"