MONTEREAU.
In the midst of the joy natural on such an occasion, the Parisians suddenly learned that the town of Fontainbleau was occupied by Hungarian hussars, and that not Cossacks only, but Tartars, Baskirs, and Kalmouks, tribes of a wild and savage aspect, a kind of Asiatic Ogres, to whom popular credulity imputed a taste for the flesh of children, had appeared in the neighbourhood of Nangis. These renewed signs of approaching danger arose from the grand army of the allies having carried, at the point of the bayonet, Nogent and Montereau, and advanced the headquarters of the monarchs to Pont-sur-Seine. This alarm to Paris was accompanied by another. Schwartzenberg, learning the disasters on the Marne, not only pushed forward from three directions on the capital, but despatched forces from his right towards Provins, to threaten Napoleon's rear and communications. Leaving the pursuit of Blucher, the Emperor countermarched on Meaux, and, marching from thence to Guignes, he joined the army of Oudinot and Victor, who were retreating before Schwartzenberg. He here found the reinforcements which he had drawn from Spain, about 20,000 in number, tried and excellent troops. With this army he now fronted that of Schwartzenberg, and upon the 17th February, commenced the offensive at all points, and with success, possessing himself of Nangis, and nearly destroying the corps under Count Pahlen at Mormant. The Prince Royal of Wirtemberg was forced to retreat to Montereau.
So alarmed were the allies at the near approach of their terrible enemy, that a message was sent to Napoleon from the allied sovereigns, by Prince Schwartzenberg's aide-de-camp, Count Par, stating their surprise at his offensive movement, since they had given orders to their plenipotentiaries at Chatillon to sign the preliminaries of peace, on the terms which had been assented to by the French envoy, Caulaincourt.
This letter, of which we shall hereafter give a more full explanation, remained for some days unanswered, during which Napoleon endeavoured to push his advantages. He recovered the bridge at Montereau, after a desperate attack, in which the Crown Prince of Wirtemberg signalized himself by the valour of his defence. In the course of the action Napoleon returned to his old profession of an artilleryman, and pointed several guns himself, to the great delight of the soldiers. They trembled, however, when the fire attracted the attention of the enemy, whose balls began to be aimed at the French battery. "Go, my children," said Buonaparte, ridiculing their apprehensions; "the ball is not cast that is to kill me."
Having taken the place by storm, Buonaparte, dissatisfied with the number of men he had lost, loaded with reproaches some of his best officers. Montbrun was censured for want of energy, and Digeon for the scarcity of ammunition with which the artillery was served; but it was chiefly on Victor, the Duke of Belluno, that his resentment discharged itself. He imputed to him negligence, in not having attacked Montereau on the day before the action, when it was unprovided for resistance; and he ordered him to retire from the service. The marshal endeavoured to obtain a hearing in his own defence, but for some time could not succeed in checking the stream of reproaches. At length they were softened into a charge of broken health, and the love of repose, incident to wounds and infirmities. "The best bed," said the Emperor, "which the quarters afford must now be sought out for the once indefatigable Victor." The marshal felt the charge more severely in proportion as it became moderated within what was probably the bounds of truth; but he would not consent to quit the service. "I have not," he said, "forgot my original trade. I will take a musket. Victor will become a private in the Guard."—Buonaparte could not resist this mark of attachment. He held out his hand.—"Let us be friends," he replied; "I cannot restore to you your corps d'armée, which I have given to Girard; but I will place you at the head of two divisions of the Guard. Go—assume your command, and let there be no more of this matter betwixt us."[337]
It was upon such occasions, when he subdued his excited feelings to a state of kindness and generosity, that Buonaparte's personal conduct seems to have been most amiable.
The allies, in the meantime, remembering perhaps, though somewhat of the latest, the old fable of the bunch of arrows, resolved once more to enter into communication with the Silesian army, and, concentrating near Troyes, to accept of battle, if Buonaparte should offer it. The indefatigable Blucher had already recruited his troops, and, being reinforced by a division of the army of the North, under Langeron, moved southward from Chalons, to which he had retreated after his disaster at Montmirail, to Mery, a town situated upon the Seine, to the north-east of Troyes, to which last place the allied monarchs had again removed their headquarters. Here he was attacked with fury by the troops of Buonaparte who made a desperate attempt to carry the bridge and town, and thus prevent the proposed communication between the Silesian army and that of Schwartzenberg. The bridge, which was of wood, was set fire to in the struggle. The sharpshooters fought amid its blazing and cracking beams. The Prussians, however, kept possession of Mery.
RETREAT OF THE AUSTRIANS.
A council of war was now held by the allies. Blucher urged the fulfilment of their original purpose of hazarding an action with Napoleon. But the Austrians had again altered their mind, and determined on a general retreat as far as the line between Nancy and Langres; the very position on which the allies had paused when they first entered France. The principal cause alleged for this retrograde movement, by which they must cede half the ground they had gained since their entering France, was, that Augereau, who had hitherto contented himself with his successful defence of Lyons, had been recruited by considerable bodies of troops from the army of Suchet, which had been employed in Catalonia. Thus reinforced, the French marshal was now about to assume the offensive against the Austrian forces at Dijon, act upon their communications with Switzerland, and raise in a mass the warlike peasantry of the departments of the Doubs, the Saonne, and the mountains of the Vosges. To prevent such consequences, Schwartzenberg sent General Bianchi to the rear with a large division of his forces, to support the Austrians at Dijon; and conceived his army too much weakened by this detachment to retain his purpose of risking a general action. It was therefore resolved, that if the headquarters of the grand army were removed to Langres, those of Blucher should be once more established on the Marne,[338] where, strengthened by the arrival of the northern army, which was now approaching from Flanders, he might resume his demonstration upon Paris, in case Buonaparte should engage himself in the pursuit of the grand army of the allies.
This retrograde movement gave much disgust to the Austrian soldiers, who considered it as the preface to a final abandonment of the invasion. Their resentment showed itself not only in murmurs and in tearing out the green boughs with which, as in sign of victory, they usually ornament their helmets and schakos, but also, as is too frequently the case in similar instances, in neglect of discipline, and excesses committed in the country.