Blucher had received his orders late in the morning, and could not commence the attack so early as that upon the left. About eleven o'clock, having contented himself with observing and blockading a body of French troops, who occupied the village of St. Denis, he directed the columns of General Langeron against the village of Aubervilliers, and, having surmounted the obstinate opposition which was there made, moved them by the road of Clichy, right against the extremity of the heights of Montmartre, whilst the division of Kleist and D'Yorck marched to attack in flank the villages of La Villette and Pantin, and thus sustain the attack on the centre and right of the French. The defenders, strongly intrenched and protected by powerful batteries, opposed the most formidable resistance, and, as the ground was broken and impracticable for cavalry, many of the attacking columns suffered severely. When the divisions of the Silesian army, commanded by Prince William of Prussia, first came to the assistance of the original assailants upon the centre, the French concentrated themselves on the strong post of La Villette, and the farm of Rouvroy, and continued to offer the most desperate resistance in defence of these points. Upon the allied left wing the Prussian guards, and those of Baden, threw themselves with rival impetuosity into the village of Pantin, and carried it at the point of the bayonet. During these advantages, the Prince Royal of Wirtemberg, on the extreme left of the allies, had forced his way to Vincennes, and threatened the right of the French battalions posted at Belleville, as had been projected in the plan of the attack. General Rayefski renewed the suspended assault upon these heights in front, when he learned that they were thus in some measure turned in flank, and succeeded in carrying those of Romainville, with the village. Marmont and Oudinot in vain attempted a charge upon the allied troops, who had thus established themselves on the French line of defence. They were repulsed and pursued by the victors, who, following up their advantage, possessed themselves successively of the villages of Belleville and Mesnilmontant, the Butte de St. Chaumont, and the fine artillery which defended this line.
About the same time the village of Charonne, on the right extremity of the heights, was also carried, and the whole line of defence occupied by the right wing of the French fell into possession of the allies. Their light horse began to penetrate from Vincennes as far as the barriers of Paris, and their guns and mortars upon the heights were turned upon the city. The centre of the French army, stationed upon the canal de l'Ourcq, had hitherto stood firm, protected by the redoubt at Rouvroy, with eighteen heavy pieces of cannon, and by the village of La Villette, which formed the key of the position. But the right flank of their line being turned by those troops who had become possessed of Romainville, the allies overwhelmed this part of the line also; and, carrying by assault the farm of Rouvroy, with its strong redoubt, and the village of La Villette, drove the centre of the French back upon the city. A body of French cavalry attempted to check the advance of the allied columns, but were repulsed and destroyed by a brilliant charge of the black hussars of Brandenburgh. Meanwhile, the right wing of the Silesian army approached close to the foot of Montmartre, and Count Langeron's corps were preparing to storm this last remaining defensible post, when a flag of truce appeared, to demand a cessation of hostilities.
It appears that, in the morning, Joseph Buonaparte had shown himself to the defenders riding along the lines, accompanied by his staff, and had repeated to all the corps engaged, the assurance that he would live and die with them. There is reason to think, that if he did not quite credit that such extensive preparations for assault were made by a single division of the allies, yet he believed he had to do with only one of their two armies, and not with their united force. He was undeceived by a person named Peyre, called, by some, an engineer officer attached to the staff of the Governor of Paris, and, by others, a superintendent belonging to the corps of firemen in that city. Peyre, it seems, had fallen into the hands of a party of Cossacks the night before, and was carried in the morning to the presence of the Emperor Alexander, at Bondy. In his route, he had an opportunity of calculating the immense force of the armies now under the walls of Paris. Through the medium of this officer, the Emperor Alexander explained the intentions of the allied sovereigns, to allow fair terms to the city of Paris, provided it was proposed to capitulate ere the barriers were forced; with the corresponding intimation, that if the defence were prolonged beyond that period, it would not be in the power either of the Emperor, the King of Prussia, or the allied generals, to prevent the total destruction of the town.
FALL OF PARIS.
Mons. Peyre, thus erected into a commissioner and envoy of crowned heads, was set at liberty, and with danger and difficulty found his way into the French lines, through the fire which was maintained in every direction. He was introduced to Joseph, to whom he delivered his message, and showed proclamations to the city of Paris, with which the Emperor Alexander had intrusted him. Joseph hesitated, at first inclining to capitulate, then pulling up resolution, and determining to abide the chance of arms. He continued irresolute, blood flowing fast around him, until about noon, when the enemy's columns, threatening an attack on Montmartre, and the shells and bullets from the artillery, which was in position to cover the attempt, flying fast over the heads of himself and his staff, he sent Peyre to General Marmont, who acted as commander-in-chief, with permission to the maréchal to demand a cessation of arms. At the same time, Joseph himself fled with his whole attendants; thus abandoning the troops, whom his exhortations had engaged, in the bloody and hopeless resistance of which he had solemnly promised to partake the dangers.[21] Marmont, with Moncey, and the other generals who conducted the defence, now saw all hopes of making it good at an end. The whole line was carried, excepting the single post of Montmartre, which was turned, and on the point of being stormed on both flanks, as well as in front; the Prince Royal of Wirtemberg had occupied Charenton, with its bridge over the Marne, and pushing forward on the high-road from thence to Paris, his advanced posts were already skirmishing at the barriers called the Trône; and a party of Cossacks had been with difficulty repulsed from the faubourg St. Antoine, on which they made a Hourra. The city of Paris is merely surrounded by an ordinary wall, to prevent smuggling. The barriers are not much stronger than any ordinary turnpike gate, and the stockade with which they had been barricaded, could have been cleared away by a few blows of the pioneers' axes. Add to this, that the heights commanding the city, Montmartre excepted, were in complete possession of the enemy; that a bomb or two, thrown probably to intimidate the citizens, had already fallen in the faubourg Montmartre, and the chaussée d'Antin; and that it was evident that any attempt to protract the defence of Paris, must be attended with utter ruin to the town and its inhabitants. Marshal Marmont, influenced by these considerations, despatched a flag of truce to General Barclay de Tolli, requesting a suspension of hostilities, to arrange the terms on which Paris was to be surrendered. The armistice was granted, on condition that Montmartre, the only defensible part of the line which the French still continued to occupy, should be delivered up to the allies. Deputies were appointed on both sides, to adjust the terms of surrender. These were speedily settled. The French regular troops were permitted to retire from Paris unmolested, and the metropolis was next day to be delivered up to the allied sovereigns, to whose generosity it was recommended.
Thus ended the assault of Paris, after a bloody action, in which the defenders lost upwards of 4000 in killed and wounded; and the allies, who had to storm well-defended batteries, redoubts, and intrenchments, perhaps about twice the number. They remained masters of the line at all points, and took nearly one hundred pieces of cannon. When night fell, the multiplied and crowded watch-fires that occupied the whole chain of heights on which the victors now bivouacked, indicated to the astonished inhabitants of the French metropolis, how numerous and how powerful were the armies into whose hands the fate of war had surrendered them.[22]
[CHAPTER LXXVII.]
State of Parties in Paris—Royalists—Revolutionists—Buonapartists—Talleyrand—Chateaubriand—Mission to the Allied Sovereigns—Their answer—Efforts of the Buonapartists—Feelings of the lowest classes—of the middling ranks—Neutrality of the National Guard—Growing confidence of the Royalists—Proclamations and White Cockades—Crowds assemble at the Boulevards—The Allies are received with shouts of welcome—Their Army retires to quarters—and the Cossacks bivouac in the Champs Elysées.
The battle was fought and won; but it remained a high and doubtful question in what way the victory was to be improved, so as to produce results of far greater consequence than usually follow from the mere military occupation of an enemy's capital. While the mass of the inhabitants were at rest, exhausted by the fatigues and anxieties of the day, many secret conclaves, on different principles, were held in the city of Paris, upon the night after the assault. Some of these even yet endeavoured to organise the means of resistance, and some to find out what modern policy has called a Mezzo-termine, some third expedient, between the risk of standing by Napoleon, and that of recalling the banished family.