"Gentlemen, I depart to-night to place myself | your faithful guardianship. To you I confide at the head of the army. On quitting the capital I leave behind, with confidence, my wife and son, upon whom so many hopes repose. I shall depart with a mind freed from a weight of disquietude, when I know that these pledges are under

The Allies had now crossed the Rhine, and I gave the most affecting demonstrations of their were sweeping all opposition before them. They gratitude and their love. " The humblest cabins," issued the atrocious proclamation that every says Lamartine, "gave up their little stores, with French peasant who should be taken with arms cordial hospitality, to warm and nourish these in his hands, endeavoring to defend his country, last defenders of the soil of France." Napoleon, should be shot as a brigand; and that every vil- in the midst of a column of troops, marched frelage and town, which offered any resistance, quently on foot, occasionally entering a peasant's should be burned to the ground. Even Mr. hut, to examine his maps, or to catch a moment's Lockhart exclaims, "This assuredly was a fla- sleep by the fire on the cottage hearth. grant outrage, against the most sacred and inalienable rights of mankind."

Napoleon drove rapidly in his carriage, about one hundred miles east of Paris, to Vitry and St. Dizier. Here, at the head of a few thousand soldiers, he encountered the leading Cossacks of Blucher's army. He immediately fell upon them, and routed them entirely. Being informed that Blucher had a powerful army near Troyes, about fifty miles south of Vitry, Napoleon marched all the next day, through wild forest roads, and in a drenching rain, to surprise the unsuspecting and self-confident foe The ground was covered with snow, and the wheels of the cannon were with the utmost difficulty dragged through the deep quagmires. But intense enthusiasm inspired the soldiers of Napoleon, and the inhabitants of the country through which they passed,

About noon on the 29th, with but twenty thousand men, he encountered sixty thousand Russians, commanded by Blucher, formidably posted in the castle and upon the eminences of Brienne. Napoleon gazed for a moment upon these familiar scenes, hallowed by the reminiscences of childhood, and ordered an immediate assault, without allowing his troops a moment to dry their soaked garments. Before that day's sun went down behind the frozen hills, the snow was crimsoned with the blood of ten thousand of the Allies, and Blucher was retreating to effect a junction with Schwartzenberg at Bar-sur-Aube, some few miles distant.

As Napoleon was slowly returning to his quarters, after the action, indulging in melancholy thought, a squadron of Russian artillery, hearing the footfalls of his feeble escort, made a sudden

charge in the dark. Napoleon was assailed, at | plexity. Such a concession would dishonor him the same moment, by two dragoons. General in the eyes of France and of Europe. It would Corbineau threw himself upon one of the Cos- leave France weakened and defenseless;-exsacks, while General Gourgaud shot down the posed not only to insult, but to successful invaother. The escort, who were but a few steps sion from the powerful and banded enemies who behind, immediately charged, and rescued the surrounded the republican empire. Napoleon Emperor. Napoleon had lost in the conflict at shut himself up for hours pondering the terrible Brienne five or six thousand men in killed and crisis. Ruin was coming, like an avalanche, wounded. upon him and upon France. The generals of The next day Blucher and Schwartzenberg, the army urged him to submit to the dire neceshaving effected a junction, marched with a hund-sity. With reluctance Napoleon transmitted red and fifty thousand men, to attack Napoleon these inexorable conditions of the Allies to his at Rothierre, nine miles from Brienne. Prince Schwartzenberg sent a confidential officer to Blucher, to inquire respecting the plan of attack. He abruptly replied, "We must march to Paris. Napoleon has been in all the capitals of Europe. We must make him descend from a throne, which it would have been well for us all that he had never mounted. We shall have no repose, till we pull him down."

The Emperor had with much difficulty assembled there, forty thousand troops. The French, desperately struggling against such fearful odds, maintained their position during the day. As a gloomy winter's night again darkened the scene, Napoleon retreated to Troyes, leaving six thousand of his valiant band, in every hideous form of mutilation, upon the frozen ground. Alexander and Frederic William, from one of the neighboring heights, witnessed, with unbounded exultation, this triumph of their arms. Blucher, though a desperate fighter, was in his private character one of the most degraded of bacchanals and debauchees. "The day after the battle," says Sir Archibald Alison, “the sovereigns, embassadors, and principal generals supped together, and Blucher striking off, in his eagerness, the necks of the bottles of champagne with his knife, quaffed off copious and repeated libations to the toast, drank with enthusiasm by all present, To Paris."

privy council at Paris. All but one voted for accepting them. His brother Joseph wrote to him: "Yield to events. Preserve what may yet be preserved. Save your life, precious to millions of men. There is no dishonor in yielding to numbers and accepting peace. There would be dishonor in abandoning the throne, because you would thus abandon a crowd of men who have devoted themselves to you. Make peace at any price."

Thus urged and overwhelmed, Napoleon, at last, with extreme anguish, gave Caulaincourt permission to sign any treaty which he thought necessary to save the capital. His consent was given in a singularly characteristic manner. Calmly taking from a shelf a volume of the works of Montesquieu, he read aloud the following passage:

"I know nothing more magnanimous, than a resolution which a monarch took, who has reigned in our times, to bury himself under the ruins of his throne, rather than accept conditions unworthy of a king. He had a mind too lofty to descend lower than his fortunes had sunk him. He knew well that courage may strengthen a crown, but infamy never."

In silence he closed the book. Murat still entreated him to yield to the humiliating concessions. He represented that nothing could be more magnanimous than to sacrifice even his glory to the safety of the state, which would fall with him. The Emperor, after a moment's pause,

"Well! be it 30. Let Caulaincourt sign whatever is necessary to procure peace. I will bear the shame of it, but I will not dictate my own disgrace."

Napoleon was now in a state of most painful perplexity. His enemies, in bodies vastly outnumbering any forces he could raise, were march-replied: ing upon Paris, from all directions. A movement toward the north only opened an unobstructed highway to his capital, from the east and the south. Tidings of disaster were continually reaching his ears. A conference was still carried on between Napoleon and the Allies in reference to peace. Napoleon wrote to Caulaincourt, to agree to any reasonable terms "which would save the capital and avoid a final battle, which would swallow up the last forces of the kingdom."

The Allies, however, had no desire for peace. They wished only to create the impression that Napoleon was the one who refused to sheathe the sword. Consequently they presented only such terms as Napoleon could not, without dishonor, accept. On receiving, at this time, one of those merciless dispatches, requiring that he should surrender all the territory which France had acquired since his accession to the throne, Napoleon was plunged into an agony of per

But to make peace with the republican Emperor was the last thing in the thoughts of these banded kings. When they found that Napoleon was ready to accede to their cruel terms, they immediately abandoned them for other and still more exorbitant demands. Napoleon had consented to surrender all the territory which France had acquired since his accession to power.

The Allies now demanded that Napoleon should cut down France to the limits it possessed before the Revolution. The proposition was a gross insult. Can we conceive of the United States as being so humbled as even to listen to such a suggestion! Were England to combine the despotisms of Europe in a war against Republican America, and then to offer peace only upon the condition that we would surrender all the territory

which has been annexed to the United States an answer to Caulaincourt, and tell him that I since the Revolution-Florida, Louisiana, Texas, reject the treaty. I would rather incur the risks New Mexico, California-what administration of the most terrible war." This spirit his foes would dare to accede to such terms? And yet de- have stigmatized as insatiable ambition, and the mands so atrocious the Allies pronounced moder- love of carnage. ate and reasonable. Napoleon nobly resolved to perish, rather than yield to such dishonor.

councilors of the Emperor were in despair. They | Chevalier de Goualt, accompanied by five or six urged him, from absolute necessity, to accede to any terms which the Allies might extort.

The firmness which Napoleon displayed under these trying circumstances, soars into sublimity. To their entreaties that he would yield to dishonor, he calmly replied:

of the inhabitants, with the white cockade of the fallen dynasty upon their breasts, treasonably called upon the Emperor Alexander, and said:

"We entreat your Majesty, in the name of all the respectable inhabitants of Troyes, to accept with favor the wish which we form, for the re-establishment of the royal house of Bourbon on the throne of France."

But Alexander, apprehensive that the genius of Napoleon might still retrieve his fallen fortunes, cautiously replied: "Gentlemen, I receive you with pleasure. I wish well to your cause, but I fear your proceedings are rather premature. The chances of war are uncertain, and I should be grieved to see brave men like you compromised or sacrificed. We do not come ourselves to give a king to France. We desire to know its wishes, and to leave it to declare itself."

"But it will never declare itself," M. de Goualt replied, “as long as it is under the knife. Never, so long as Bonaparte shall be in authority in France, will Europe be tranquil."

"No! no! we must think of other things just now. I am on the eve of beating Blucher. He is advancing on the road to Paris. I am about to set off to attack him. I will beat him to-morrow. I will beat him the day after to-morrow. If that movement is attended with the success it deserves, the face of affairs will be entirely changed. Then we shall see what is to be done." Napoleon had formed one of those extraordinary plans which so often, during his career, had changed apparent ruin into the most triumphant success. Leaving ten thousand men at Nogent, to retard the advance of the two hundred thousand Austrians, he hastened, with the remaining thirty thousand troops, by forced marches across the country, to the valley of the Marne. It was his intention to fall suddenly upon the flank of Blucher's self-confident and unsuspecting army. The toil of the wintery march, through miry roads and through storms of sleet and rain, was The royalist deputation retired, encouraged so exhausting that he had but twenty-five thou-with the thought that, from prudential consider. sand men to form in line of battle, when he en-ations, their cause was adjourned, but only for a countered the enemy. It was early in the morning of the 10th of February, as the sun rose brilliantly over the snow-covered hills, when the French soldiers burst upon the Russians, who were quietly preparing their breakfasts. The victory was most brilliant. Napoleon pierced the centre of the multitudinous foe, then turned upon one wing, and then upon the other, and proudly scattered the fragments of the army before him. But he had no reserves, with which to profit by this extraordinary victory. His weary troops could not pursue the fugitives.

"It is for that very reason," replied Alexander, "that the first thing we must think of is to beat him-to beat him-to beat him."

few days. At the same time the Marquis of Vitrolles, one of the most devoted of the Bourbon adherents, arrived at the head-quarters of the Allies, with a message from the royalist conspirators in Paris, entreating the monarchs to advance as rapidly as possible to the capital. A baser act of treachery has seldom been recorded. These very men had been rescued from penury and exile by the generosity of Napoleon. He had pardoned their hostility to republican France; had sheltered them from insult and from injury, and, with warm sympathy for their woes, which Napoleon neither caused or could have averted, had received them under the protection of the imperial regime.

In ten days Napoleon had gained five victories.

The next day Blucher, by energetically bringing forward reinforcements, succeeded in collecting sixty thousand men, and fell with terrible fury upon the little band who were gathered around Napoleon. A still more sanguinary bat-The inundating wave of invasion was still rolling tle ensuel, in which the Emperor was again, and still more signally triumphant. These brilliant achievements elated the French soldiers beyond measure. They felt that nothing could withstand the genius of the Emperor, and even Napoleon began to hope that fortune would again smile upon him. From the field of battle he wrote a hurried line to Caulaincourt, who was his plenipotentiary at Chatillon, where the Allies had opened their pretended negotiation. "I have conquered," he wrote; "your attitude must be the same for peace. But sign nothing without my order, because I alone know my position."

While Napoleon was thus cutting up the army of Blucher upon the Marne, a singular scene was transpiring in Troyes. The royalists there, encouraged by Napoleon's apparently hopeless defeat, resolved to make a vigorous movement for the restoration of the Bourbons. A deputation, consisting of the Marquis de Vidranges and the

steadily on toward Paris. The activity and energy of Napoleon surpassed all which mortal man had ever attempted before. In a day and night march of thirty hours he hurried back to the banks of the Seine. The Austrians, now three hundred thousand strong, were approaching Fontainebleau. Sixty miles southeast of Paris, at the confluence of the Seine and the Yonne, is situated, in a landscape of remarkable beauty, the little town of Montereau.

Here Napoleon, having collected around him forty thousand men, presented a bold front, to arrest the farther progress of the Allies. An awful battle now ensued. Napoleon, in the eagerness of the conflict, as the projectiles from the Austrian batteries plowed the ground around him, and his artillerymen fell dead at his feet, leaped from his horse, and with his own hand directed a gun against the masses of the enemy. As the balls from the hostile batteries tore through the