French. The smoke of their guns, and the in one resistless body, advanced once more toclouds of dust raised by their horses' hoofs, en- ward Paris, thronging, with their vast array, all veloped them in impenetrable obscurity. Napo- the roads which follow the valley of the Marne. leon, from a distance, with his eagle glance, per- Napoleon was about two hundred miles from ceived the approach of this whirlwind of battle. Paris. He hoped, by doubling his speed, to dePutting spurs to his horse he galloped to the scend the valley of the Seine, and to arrive at the spot. He here encountered crowds of soldiers, metropolis almost as soon as the Allies. There some of them wounded and bleeding, flying in he had resolved to make his last and desperate dismay. It was a scene of awful tumult. At stand. that moment an officer, bareheaded and covered with blood, galloped to meet the Emperor, exclaiming :

"Sire! the Cossacks, supported by an immense body of cavalry, have broken our ranks, and are driving us back." The Emperor rushed into the midst of the fugitives, and, raising himself in his stirrups shouted in a voice that rung above the uproar of the battle, "Soldiers! rally! Will you fly when I am here? Close your ranks; forward!"

As soon as Napoleon learned that the combined army were marching vigorously upon Paris, he exclaimed, "I will be in the city before them. Nothing but a thunder-bolt can now save us." Orders were immediately given for the army to be put in motion. The Emperor passed the whole night shut up in his cabinet, perusing his maps.

"This," says Caulaincourt, "was another cruel night. Not a word was uttered. Deep sighs sometimes escaped his oppressed bosom. He seemed as if he had lost his power of breathing. Good heaven! how much he suffered!"

His brother Joseph was then in command of the city. Napoleon dispatched courier after courier, entreating him, in the most earnest terms, to rouse the populace, to arm the students, and to hold out until his arrival. He assured him that if he would keep the enemy in check but for two days, at the longest, he would arrive, and would yet compel the Allies to accept reasonable terms.

At that well known and dearly beloved voice, the flying troops immediately re-formed. Napoleon placed himself at their head and, sword in hand, plunged into the midst of the Cossacks. With a shout of Vive l'Empereur! the men followed him. The Cossacks were driven back with enormous slaughter. Thus one thousand men, headed by the Emperor, arrested and drove back six thousand of their foes. The Emperor then tranquilly returned to his post, and continued to direct the dreadful storm of war. During every hour of this conflict, the masses of the "If the enemy," said he, "advance upon Paris Allies were accumulating. Night at length dark-in such force as to render all resistance vain, send ened over the dreadful scene, and the feeble bands of the French army retired into the town of Arcis. The Allies, alarmed by this bold march of Napoleon toward the Rhine, now concentrated their innumerable forces on the plains of Chalons. Even Blucher and Bernadotte came back to join them.

Soon after the battle of Arcis, the Austrians intercepted a French courier who had, with other dispatches, the following private letter from Napoleon to Maria Louisa. "My love! I have been for some days on horseback. On the 20th I took Arcis-sur-Aube. The enemy attacked me there at eight o'clock in the evening; I beat him the same evening; I took two guns and retook two. The next day the enemy's army put itself in battle array, to protect the march of its columns on Brienne and Bar-sur-Aube; and I resolved to approach the Marne and its environs, in order to drive them further from Paris, by approaching my own fortified places. This evening I shall be at St. Dizier. Farewell, my love! Embrace my son!"

Another council of war was held by the Allies. The dread of Napoleon was so great, that many argued the necessity of falling back upon the Rhine, to prevent Napoleon from entering Germany, and relieving his garrisons which were blockaded there. Others urged the bolder counsel of marching directly upon Paris. Napoleon was now at Arcis. The Allies were thirty miles north of him at Chalons, on the banks of the Marne. On the 25th of March the Allies, united

off, in the direction of the Loire, the EmpressRegent, my son, the grand dignitaries, the ministers, and the great officers of the crown and of the treasury. Do not quit my son. Recollect that I would rather see him in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of France. The fate of Astyanax, prisoner of the Greeks, has always appeared to me the most unhappy fate recorded in history."

Napoleon at Arcis, was four marches further distant from Paris than were the Allies at Chalons. It was a singular spectacle which the two armies now presented. The Allies, numbering some three hundred thousand, were rushing down the valley of the Marne. The war-wasted army of Napoleon, now dwindled to thirty thousand men, with bleeding feet, and tattered garments, and unhealed wounds, were hurrying down the parallel valley of the Seine. The miry roads, just melting from the frosts of winter, and cut up by the ponderous enginery of war, were wretched in the extreme. But the soldiers, still adoring their Emperor, who marched on foot in their midst, sharing their perils and their toils, were animated by the indomitable energies of his own spirit.

Throwing aside every thing which retarded their speed, they marched nearly fifty miles a day. Napoleon, before leaving Areis, with characteristic humanity, sent two thousand francs, from his private purse, to the Sisters of Charity, to aid them in relieving the wants of the sick and wounded. At midnight, on the 29th of

March, the French army arrived at Troyes. In | Marshal Marmont also, who was contending the early dawn of the next morning, Napoleon against Blucher, sent a similar proposition to the was again upon the march, at the head of his Allies. But the fire was so dreadful, and the guard. Having advanced some fifteen miles, confusion so great, that seven times the officers, his impatience became so insupportable, that he who attempted, with flags of truce, to pass over threw himself into a light carriage, which chance to the hostile camp, were shot down, with their presented, and proceeded rapidly to Sens. The horses, on the plain. During this scene, Marnight was cold, dark, and dismal, as he entered mont slowly retreated, with one arm severely the town. He immediately assembled the mag-wounded, the hand of the other shattered by a istrates, and ordered them to have refreshments bullet, and having had five horses killed under ready for his army, upon its arrival. Then, him during the action. mounting a horse, he galloped, through the long hours of a dark night, along the road toward Fontainebleau.

In the gloomy hours of the night, when Napoleon was galloping along the solitary road, the allied monarchs were congratulating themselves upon their astonishing victory. Napoleon had avoided Fontainebleau, lest he should encounter there some detachments of the enemy.

The

ened the sky, and Napoleon encountered no one on the deserted roads who could give him any information respecting the capital. Far away in the distance the horizon blazed with the bivouacfires of his foes. The clock on the tower of the church was tolling the hour of twelve as he entered the little village of La Cour. Through the gloom, in the wide street, he saw groups of disbanded soldiers, marching toward Fontainebleau. Riding into the midst of them, he exclaimed with astonishment—

Dreadful was the scene which was then occurring in Paris. The Allied army had already approached within cannon-shot of the city. Mortier and Marmont made a desperate, but an un-night was intensely cold; gloomy clouds darkavailing resistance. At last, with ammunition entirely exhausted, and with their ranks almost cut to pieces by the awful onslaught, they were driven back into the streets of the city. Marmont, with his sword broken, his hat and clothes pierced with balls, his features blackened with smoke, disputed, step by step, the advance of the enemy into the suburbs. With but eight thou- | sand infantry and eight hundred cavalry, he held at bay, for twelve hours, fifty-five thousand of the Allies. In this dreadful conflict the enemy lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, fourteen thousand men. The Empress, with the chief officers of the state, and with the ladies of her General Belliard, one of Napoleon's most decourt, had fled to Blois. Her beautiful child, in-voted friends, from behind a door recognizing the heriting the spirit of his noble sire, clung to the curtains of his apartment, refusing to leave.

64

They are betraying my papa, and I will not go away," exclaimed the precocious child, who was never destined to see that loved father again. | "I do not wish to leave the palace. I do not wish to go away from it. When papa is absent, am I not master here?" Nothing but the ascendency of his governess, Madame Montesquieu, could calm him. And she succeeded only by promising faithfully that he should be brought back again. His eyes were filled with tears as he was taken to the carriage. Maria Louisa was calm and resigned; but pallid with fear, she took her departure, as she listened to the deep booming of the cannon, which announced the sanguinary approach of her own father.

The batteries of the Allies were now planted upon Montmartre, and upon other heights which commanded the city, and the shells were falling thickly in the streets of Paris. Joseph, deeming further resistance unavailing, ordered a capitulation. Mortier, in the midst of a dreadful fire, wrote, upon a drum-head, the following lines to Schwartzenberg:

How is this! why are not these soldiers marching to Paris?"

voice of the Emperor, immediately came forward and said, "Paris has capitulated. The enemy enters to-morrow, two hours after sunrise. These troops are the remains of the armies of Marmont and Mortier, falling back on Fontainebleau, to join the Emperor's army at Troyes."

The Emperor seemed stunned by the blow. For a moment there was dead silence. The cold drops of agony oozed from his brow. Then, with rapid step, he walked backward and forward on the rugged pavement in front of the hotel, hesitating, stopping, retracing his steps, bewildered by the enormity of his woe. He then, in rapid interrogatories, without waiting for any answer, as if speaking only to himself, exclaimed,

"Where is my wife? Where is my son? Where is the army? What has become of the National Guard of Paris, and of the battle they were to have fought, to the last man, under its walls? and the Marshals Mortier and Marmont, where shall I find them again?"

acquainted with his skill in the management of affairs.

He would have had no hesitation to have thrown the arsenals open to the people. His presence would have influenced the multitude. He would have imparted a salutary direction to their enthusiasm, and Paris would no doubt have imitated the example of Saragossa; or, to speak more correctly, the enemy would not have ventured to make any attempt upon it; for, independently of the Emperor's being for them a Medusa's head, it was ascer tained, at a later period, that in the battle which preceded the surrender of the capital, they had consumed nearly the whole of their ammunition. Tears of blood are ready to flow at the bare recollection of these facts."-Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, vol. iv. p. 44.

After a moment's pause, he continued, with | years, I can never forget these scenes. They are impatient voice and gesture: "The night is still the fixed ideas of my sleepless nights. My remine. The enemy only enters at daybreak. My miniscences are frightful. They kill me. The carriage! my carriage! Let us go this instant! repose of the tomb is sweet after such sufferings." Let us get before Blucher and Schwartzenberg! It was now past midnight. Caulaincourt Let Belliard follow me with the cavalry! Let mounted another horse, and galloped in the deep us fight even in the streets and squares of Paris! obscurity by another route to Paris. Napoleon My presence, my name, the courage of my troops, also mounted his horse, and in silence and in the necessity of following me or of dying, will sadness took the route to Fontainebleau. A arouse Paris. My army, which is following me, group of officers, dejected, exhausted, and woewill arrive in the midst of the struggle. It will worn, followed in his train. At four o'clock in take the enemy in rear, while we are fighting the morning he arrived at this ancient palace of them in front. Come on! success awaits me the kings of France. Conscious of his fallen forperhaps in my last reverse!" tunes, he seemed to shrink from every thing which General Belliard then acknowledged to him could remind him of the grandeurs of royalty. that, by the terms of the capitulation, the army Passing by the state apartments which his glory of Paris was bound to fall back upon Fontaine- had embellished, and to which his renown still bleau. For a moment Napoleon was again silent, attracts the footsteps of travelers from all lands, and then exclaimed: "To surrender the capital he entered, like a private citizen, into a small and to the enemy! What cowards! Joseph ran off obscure chamber in one angle of the castle. A too! my very brother! And so they have capit-window opened into a small garden, shaded with ulated! betrayed their brother, their country, their funereal firs, which resembled the cemeteries of sovereign; degraded France in the eyes of Europe! Entered into a capital of eight hundred thousand souls without firing a shot! It is too dreadful. What has been done with the artillery? They should have had two hundred pieces, and ammunition for a month. And yet they had only a battery of six pieces, and an empty magazine, on Montmartre. When I am not there, they do nothing but heap blunder upon blunder."

his native island. Here he threw himself upon
a couch, and his noble heart throbbed with the
pulsations of an almost unearthly agony. But he
was calm and silent in his woe.
The troops
which had followed him from Troyes, and those
which had retired from Paris, soon arrived, and
were cantoned around him. They numbered about
fifty thousand. Their devotion to the Emperor
was never more enthusiastic, and they clamored
loudly to be led against the three hundred thou-
sand Allies, who were marching proudly into
Paris.

BABY

A group of officers successively arriving, now closed sadly around their Emperor. Napoleon became more calm, as he interrogated them, one by one, and listened to the details of the irreparable disaster. Then taking Caulaincourt aside, THE POOR CHILD'S CRADLE. he directed him to ride, with the utmost speed, to ABYHOOD is certainly an important period the head-quarters of the Allies. "See," said he, of human existence. Important, not only to "if I have yet time to interpose in the treaty the individual in that juvenile stage, who has his which is signing already perhaps, without me and long career of three score and ten before him, and against me. I give you full powers. Do not is forming the shape of his legs, the configuration lose an instant. I await you here." Caulain- of his features, and, for aught we know, going court mounted his horse and disappeared. Na- through an analogous process of mental developpoleon then, followed by Belliard and Berthier, ment, but also to his anxious parents, and his entered the hotel. kindred more or less remote.

Caulaincourt speedily arrived at the advanced posts of the enemy. He gave his name, and demanded a passage. The sentinels, however, refused to allow him to enter the lines. After an absence of two hours, Caulaincourt returned to the Emperor. They conversed together for a few moments, during which Napoleon, though calm, seemed plunged into the profoundest grief, and Caulaincourt wept bitterly.

"My dear Caulaincourt,” said Napoleon, "go again, and try to see the Emperor Alexander. You have full powers from me. I have now no hope but in you, Caulaincourt." Affectionately he extended his hand to his faithful friend.

How important a personage is the first-born of the family on his first appearance! How his coming is heralded, like that of the hero on the stage, by flourish of (their own) trumpets, by nurses and doctors! What stores of baby linen and soft outer wrapping! What consultation over Christian names; what balancing of choice between the plain patronymic and the tempting surname of pet hero, presidential candidate, or parson! The baby is born, and is at once king of the household, Grand Lama of the domestic Thibet. Gentle must be the footfall about his couch, that his slumbers be not rudely broken, pleasant-featured the countenance that greets his waking eyes, tender the touch, gentle the hand and arms that move and dandle. Not only are father and mother ab

Caulaincourt pressed it fervently to his lips, and said, "I go, Sire; dead or alive, I will gain entrance into Paris, and will speak to the Em-ject slaves themselves of the new comer, but they peror Alexander."

As, several years after, Caulaincourt was relating these occurrences, he said, "My head is burning; I am feverish; should I live a hundred

see to it that all others shall be so as well. The stranger within their gates must play the courtier if he would maintain his occasional right to draw his chair to the fireside, and ply knife and fork