A general council of war, held at the castle of Brienne [Feb. 2,] now resolved that the two armies (although having so lately found the advantage of mutual support) should separate from each other, and that Blucher, detaching himself to the northward, and uniting under his command the division of D'Yorck and Kleist, both of whom had occupied St. Dizier and Vitry, should approach Paris by the Marne; while Prince Schwartzenberg and the grand army should descend on the capital by the course of the Seine. The difficulty of finding provisions for such immense armies was doubtless in part the cause of this resolution. But it was likewise recommended by the success of a similar plan of operations at Dresden, and afterwards at Leipsic, where the enemies of Buonaparte approached him from so many different quarters as to render it impossible for him to make head against one army without giving great opportunity of advantage to the others.[331]
Buonaparte reached Troyes, on which he retreated after crossing the Aube, in a disastrous condition; but his junction with his old guard, whose appearance and high state of appointments restored courage to the dejected troops who had been beaten at La Rothière, gave a new impulse to the feelings of his army, and restored the young levies to confidence. He resolved, taking advantage of the division of the two armies of the allies, to march upon that of Blucher. But, in order to disguise his purpose, he first sent a small division upon Bar-sur-Seine, to alarm the Austrians with an attack upon their right wing.[332] Schwartzenberg immediately apprehended that Buonaparte was about to move with his whole force in that direction; a movement which, in fact, would have been most favourable for the allies, since it would have left the road to Paris undefended, and open to the whole. But, terrified by the idea that his left flank might be turned or forced, the Austrian general moved his chief strength in that direction; thus at once suspending his meditated march on the Seine, and increasing the distance betwixt the grand army and that of Silesia. Buonaparte having deceived Schwartzenberg by this successful feint, evacuated Troyes, leaving the Maréchals Victor and Oudinot to oppose the Austrians with very inadequate means, while he directed his own march against Blucher.
Blucher, in the meanwhile, having left Napoleon in front of the grand army, and not doubting that the Austrians would find him sufficient employment, hurried forward to the Marne, forced Macdonald to retreat from Chateau Thierry, and advanced his headquarters to Vertus; while Sacken, who formed his vanguard, pushed his light troops as far as Ferté la Jouarre, and was nearer to Paris than was the Emperor himself. General D'Yorck had advanced as far as Meaux, and Paris was in the last degree of alarm.
Even Buonaparte himself was so much struck by the inextricable situation of his affairs after the defeat of La Rothière, that a thought occurred to him, which posterity, excepting on his own avowal, would hardly give credit to. The plan which suggested itself, was that of sacrificing his own authority to the peace of France, and of abdicating the crown in favour of the Bourbons, while he had yet the means of resistance in his possession. He felt he had reigned and combated long enough for his own glory, and justly thought that the measure of his renown would be filled up by such an act of generous self-denial. But a maxim occurred to him, (suggested, he says, by Mr. Fox,) that restored monarchs could never forgive those who had occupied their place. Probably his thoughts turned also to the murder of the Duke d'Enghien; for there was no other point of personal offence betwixt Buonaparte and the exiled family, which their restoration, if the event took place by his intervention, might not have fully atoned for. If our conjecture be real, it serves to show how such a crime operates in its consequences to obstruct its perpetrator in future attempts to recover the path of virtue and honour. Had Napoleon been really capable of the generous act of self-denial which he meditated, he must have been ranked, in despite of the doubtful points of his character, as one of the greatest men who ever lived.
But the spirit of egotism and suspicion prevailed, and the hopes of accomplishing the discomfiture and defeat of the Silesian army, appeared preferable to meriting, by one act of disinterested devotion, the eternal gratitude of Europe; and the philosopher and friend of humanity relapsed into the warrior and conqueror. There is, no doubt, something meritorious in the conceiving of great and noble resolutions, even although they remain unrealised. But this patriotism of the imagination does not rise to a higher scale of merit, than the sensibility of those who cannot hear a tale of sorrow without weeping, but whose sympathy never assumes the expensive form of actual charity.
ATTACK ON BLUCHER.
The army of Napoleon was now to be transferred from the high-road leading from Paris to Troyes, to that leading from Chalons to Paris, on which Blucher was operating, and that by flank marches through an impracticable country; but which, if they could be accomplished, would enable the French Emperor to attack the Silesian army at unawares in flank and rear. The lateral cross-roads, which connect one highway with another through France, are generally scarce passable in winter, even for the purpose of ordinary communication, much less for an army with its carriages and artillery. Buonaparte had to traverse a country intersected with thickets, marshes, drains, ditches, and impediments of every kind; the weather was execrable, and but for the extraordinary exertions of the Mayor of Barbonne, who collected 500 horses to extricate the guns, they must have been abandoned on the road. But by dint of perseverance, Buonaparte accomplished this forced march, on 10th of February, and the flank of the Silesian army was in consequence placed at his mercy.[333] They were moving on without the least suspicion of such an attack. Sacken led the advance, the Russian General Alsusieff followed, and Blucher himself brought up the rear with the main body. All intent upon the advance to Paris, they were marching with careless haste, and had suffered such large intervals to take place betwixt their divisions, as to expose them to be attacked in detail.
Buonaparte fell upon the central division of Alsusieff, at Champ-Aubert, surrounded, defeated, and totally dispersed them, taking their artillery, and 2000 prisoners, while the remainder of the division fled into the woods, and attempted to escape individually. The whole force of the Emperor was now interposed between the advanced-guard under Sacken, and the main body under Blucher. It was first directed towards the former, whom Napoleon encountered sooner than he expected, for Sacken, on hearing of the action at Champ-Aubert, instantly countermarched his division to assist Alsusieff, or at least to rejoin Blucher; but he was overwhelmed by the superior force of the French, and having lost one-fourth of his division, about 5000 men, was forced to leave the high-road, upon which Blucher was advancing, and retreat by that on Chateau-Thierry. At this village Sacken was joined by General D'Yorck and Prince William of Prussia; but, still unable to make a stand, they could only secure a retreat by destroying the bridge over the Marne. War began now to show itself in its most hideous forms. The stragglers and fugitives who could not cross the bridge before its destruction, were murdered by the peasantry, while the allied soldiers, in revenge, plundered the village of Chateau-Thierry, and practised every excess of violence. The defeat of Sacken took place on the 12th of February.[334]
Blucher, in the meanwhile, ignorant of the extent of the force by which his vanguard had been attacked, pressed forward to their support, and, in a wide and unenclosed country, suddenly found himself in the front of the whole army of Napoleon, flushed with the double victory which they had already gained, and so numerous as to make a retreat indispensable on the part of the Prussians. Blucher, if surprised, remained undismayed. Having only three regiments of cavalry, he had to trust for safety to the steadiness of his infantry. He formed them into squares, protected by artillery, and thus commenced his retreat by alternate divisions; those battalions which were in motion to the rear, being protected by the fire of the others then standing fast, and covering them with theirs while they retired in turn. The French cavalry, though so strong as to operate at once on the flanks and rear, failed in being able to break a single square. After the Prussians had retired several leagues in this manner, fighting every foot of their way, they were nearly intercepted by a huge column of French horse, which, having made a circuit so as to pass them, had drawn up on the causeway to intercept their retreat. Without a moment's hesitation, Blucher instantly attacked them with such a murderous fire of infantry and artillery, as forced them from the high-road, and left the passage free. The Prussians found the village of Etoges, through which they were obliged to pass, also occupied by the enemy; but here also they cleared their way by dint of fighting. This expedition of the Marne, as it is called, is always accounted one of Napoleon's military chefs-d'œuvre; for a flank march undertaken through such a difficult country, and so completely successful, is not perhaps recorded in history. On the other hand, if Blucher lost any credit by the too great security of his march, he regained it by the masterly manner in which he executed his retreat. Had the army which he commanded in person shared the fate of his vanguard, it is probable there would have been no campaign of Paris.[335]
The Parisians, in the meantime, saw at length actual proofs that Napoleon had been victorious. Long columns of prisoners moved through their streets, banners were displayed, the cannon thundered, the press replied, and the pulpit joined, in extolling and magnifying the dangers which the citizens had escaped, and the merits of their preserver.[336]