Accordingly, this spirit predominating in the councils of the allies, led to a degree of uncertainty in their movements on this momentous occasion, which, as is usual, endeavoured to disguise itself under the guise of prudence. They resolved that the grand army should halt a short space at Langres, in hopes either that Napoleon, renewing the negotiation, the scene of which was now to be transferred to Chatillon upon the Seine, would avert his present danger, by acquiescing in the terms of the allies; or that the French nation, an event still less likely to happen, would become tired of the military monarch, whose ambition had brought such distress upon the country. In the meanwhile, the allies declined the offers of such royalists as came forward in the name, and for the interest, of the exiled family; uniformly replying, that they would give no weight to any expression of the sentiments of the French people, unless it was made in some quarter of the kingdom where it could not be supposed to be influenced by the presence of the allied army. They trusted chiefly at that moment to the effect of negotiation with the present possessor of the throne.[326]
STATE OF THE ARMIES—BRIENNE.
But Napoleon, as firmly determined in his purpose as the allies were doubtful, knowing himself to be the soul of his army, and absolute lord of his own actions, felt all the advantage which a bold, active, and able swordsman has in encountering an opponent whose skill is less distinguished, and whose determination is more flexible than his own. The allies had presented in the grand army a front of 97,000 men, Maréchal Blucher one of 40,000, affording a disposable force of 137,000.[327] To oppose this the French Emperor had only, of old troops, independent of those under Suchet in Catalonia, under Soult near Bayonne, and also of garrisons, about 50,000 men; nor could he hope to add to them more than 70,000 conscripts.[328] Nay, in fact his levies, so far as they could be brought into the field, fell greatly short of this number; for the allies were in possession of a considerable part of the kingdom of France, and, in this moment of general confusion, it was impossible to enforce the law of conscription, which was at all times obnoxious. It was soon proved, that he who so lately had led half a million of men to the Vistula, and 300,000 to the banks of the Elbe, could not now muster, for the protection of the capital of his own empire, a disposable force of more than 70,000 men.
The defensive war had no doubt considerable advantages to one who knew so well how to use them. The highways, by which the allies must advance, formed a half or quarter circle of rays, converging, as already mentioned, on Paris as a centre. A much smaller army might, therefore, oppose a large one, because, lying between Paris and the enemy, they must occupy the same roads by a much shorter line of communication than the invaders, who were farther from the centre, where the roads diverged to a greater distance from each other. With this advantage of collocation to balance a great inferiority in numerical force, Buonaparte advanced to play for the most momentous stake ever disputed, with a degree of military skill which has never been matched.
Arrived at Chalons on the 26th January, Buonaparte took the command of such an army as he had been able to assemble, by the concentration of the troops under the Maréchals Victor, Marmont, Macdonald, and Ney, all of whom had retreated from the frontier. So much were the French corps d'armée reduced, that these great and distinguished generals, who, in former times, would have commanded 60,000 or 70,000 men each, had under them all, when concentrated, but a total of 52,000, to which Napoleon was only able to add about 20,000, brought from Paris. But no one ever understood better than Buonaparte, the great military doctrine, that victory does not depend on the comparative result of numerical superiority in general, but on the art of obtaining such a superiority on the field of action itself.
Blucher was, as usual, the foremost in advance, and Napoleon resolved to bestow on this active and inveterate enemy, the terrible honour of his first attack, hoping to surprise the Silesian corps d'armée before it could receive succour from the army of Schwartzenberg. The maréchal was apprised of the Emperor's purpose, and lost no time in concentrating his forces at Brienne, on the Aube, fourteen miles below Bar. This is a small village, seated on the ascent of a hill. The place has but two streets; one of which ascends to the Chateau, occupied formerly as a royal academy for young persons designed for the army; the other conducts to Arcis-sur-Aube. The Chateau is partly surrounded by a park or chase. It was at the military school of Brienne that Napoleon acquired the rudiments of that skill in the military art with which he had almost prostrated the world, and had ended by placing it in array against him; and it was here he came to commence what seemed his last series of efforts for victory;—like some animals of the chase, who, when hard pressed by the hunters, are said to direct their final attempts at escape upon the point from which they have first started.
The alert movements of Napoleon surpassed the anticipation of Blucher. He was at table with his staff in the Chateau. General Alsusieff, a Russian, occupied the town of Brienne, and General Sacken's corps was drawn up in columns, on the road from Brienne to La Rothière. At once a horrible tumult was heard. The Russian cavalry, 2000 in number, were completely driven in by those of Napoleon, and at the same moment Ney attacked the town; while a body of French grenadiers, who, favoured by the wooded and broken character of the ground, had been enabled to get into the park, threatened to make prisoners all who were in the Chateau. Blucher, with his officers, had barely time to reach a postern, where they were under the necessity of leading their horses down a stair, and in that way made their escape with difficulty. The bold resistance of Alsusieff defended the town against Ney, and Sacken advanced to Alsusieff's assistance. The Cossacks also fell on the rear of the French in the park, and Buonaparte's own safety was compromised in the mêlée.[329] Men were killed by his side, and he was obliged to draw his sword in his own defence. At the very moment of attack, his attention was engaged by the sight of a tree, which he recollected to be the same under which, during the hours of recreation at Brienne, he used, when a school-boy, to peruse the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso. If the curtain of fate had risen before the obscure youth, and discovered to him in the same spot, his own image as Emperor of France, contending against the Scythians of the desert for life and power, how wonderful would have seemed the presage, when the mere concurrence of circumstances strikes the mind of those who look back upon it with awful veneration for the hidden ways of Providence! Lefebvre Desnouettes fell, dangerously wounded, in charging at the head of the guards. The town caught fire, and was burned to the ground; but it was not until eleven at night that the Silesian army ceased to make efforts for recovering the place, and that Blucher, retreating from Brienne, took up a position in the rear of that town, and upon that of La Rothière.
BATTLE OF LA ROTHIÈRE—TROYES.
The result of the battle of Brienne was indecisive, and the more unsatisfactory to Buonaparte, as the part of Blucher's force engaged did not amount to 20,000 men, and the sole advantage gained over them, was that of keeping the field of battle. Napoleon's principal object, which was to divide Blucher from the grand army, had altogether failed. It was necessary, however, to proclaim the engagement as a victory, and much pains was taken to represent it as such. But when it was afterwards discovered to be merely a smart skirmish, without any material results, the temporary deception only served to injure the cause of Napoleon.
On the first of February, Blucher, strongly reinforced from the grand army, prepared in his turn to assume the offensive. It would have been Napoleon's wish to have avoided an engagement; but a retreat across the Aube, by the bridge of Lesmont, which was the only mode of passing that deep and scarce fordable river, would have exposed his rear to destruction. He therefore risked a general action. Blucher attacked the line of the French on three points, assaulting at once the villages of La Rothière, Dienville, and Chaumont. The conflict, in which the Prince Royal of Wirtemberg distinguished himself, was hard fought during the whole day, but in the evening, the French were repulsed on all points, and Buonaparte was compelled to retreat across the Aube, after losing 4000 prisoners, and no less than seventy-three guns. Ney, by the Emperor's orders, destroyed the bridge at Lesmont. The allies were not aware of the amount of their advantage, and suffered the French to retire unmolested.[330]