Marshal Suchet, after forming a junction with General Lecourbe, would at the same time have more

than 30,000 men at Lyons, independently of the garrison of that town, which was well armed, provisioned and entrenched. The defence of all the fortified places was secured. They were commanded by select officers, and garrisoned by faithful troops. Every thing might be retrieved; but it required character, energy and firmness on the part of the officers, the government, the chambers, and the whole nation: it required them to be animated by sentiments of honour, of glory, and of national independence-to take, as a model, Rome, after the battle of Cannæ, and not Carthage, after that of Zama. Should France assume this high tone of spirit, she would be invincible: her population was more military than that of any other nation. The means of carrying on the war were abundant, and fit for every purpose.

IV. On the 21st of June, Marshal Blucher and the Duke of Wellington entered the territories of the empire, in two columns. On the 22d the powder ma

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gazine at Avesne blew up. The place surrendered. On the 24th the Prussians entered Guise, and the Duke of Wellington Cambray. On the 26th he was at Peronne. During all this time, the fortresses of the first, second and third frontier lines, towards Flanders, were invested. On the 25th these two generals heard of the abdication of the Emperor, which took place on the 22d, of the insurrection of the chambers, of the discouragement these circumstances were to the army, and of the hopes conceived therefrom by the internal enemies of France. They now determined to march immediately to the capital, where they arrived on the last of June, with less than 90,000 men-a step that would have been fatal to them, and have caused their total ruin, if they had hazarded it before Napoleon:-but he had abdicated!!! The troops of the line, at Paris, more than 6,000 recruits for the guards, the riflemen of the national guards, chosen from among the people of that large city, were all devoted to him. He could have destroyed the internal enemies of the state!! But to develope the motives regulating his conduct, on so

[BOOK IX. important an occasion, and which was attended with such fatal consequences, both to himself and France, it will be necessary to resume the subject further back. It is this we intend doing in the following book.

CHAPTER VIII.

OBSERVATIONS.

I-II-III-IV.-V.-VI-VII.-VIII-IX. Observations.

I. FIRST OBSERVATION. The Emperor has been reproached,-1st. For abdicating the dictatorship at the time France most required a dictator. 2d. For changing the constitutions of the empire, at a time when all his efforts should have been directed to prevent its invasion. 3d. For suffering a revolt to be excited among the La Vendeans, who at first refused to take up arms against the imperial government. 4th. For uniting the chambers, when he should have been concentrating armies. 5th. For abdicating, and leaving France to the mercy of a divided and inexperienced assembly. For finally, if it were true that it was possible for the Emperor to save the country without the confidence of the nation, it was no less so that the nation in these critical circumstances could

neither preserve its honour or independence without Napoleon.

We shall make no reflections on subjects which are treated of more profoundly and more in detail in book X.

II. Second observation. The art by which the movements of divers corps of the French army were eoncealed from the enemy, at the opening of the campaign, deserves to be particularly remarked. Marshal Blucher and Wellington were surprised. They neither saw nor heard any thing of the movements performed near their advanced outposts.

In attacking the allied armies, the French had it in their power either to outflank their right, their left, or break through their centre. In the first case they would march by Lille to attack the English army; in the second they would pass by Givet and Charlemont and encounter the Prussian army. In each case these two armies would remain united, for they would be mutually driven on each other, the right on the left and the left on the right. The Emperor adopted the third plan, covering his movements by the Sambre, to break the lines of the two armies at Charleroy, the point of their junction. By manoeuvring with rapi