strict discipline among their barbarous hordes of horsemen, then scattered over a wide extent of country, that the sense of individual suffering afforded even a glimpse of hope to Napoleon, and those who, like him, were eager to oppose a national insurrection to the allied march.

Meantime, nearer and nearer every day the torrent of invasion rolled on-sweeping before it, from post to post, the various corps which had been left to watch the Rhine. Marmont, Mortier, Victor, and Ney, commanding in all about 50,000 men, retired of necessity before the enemy. It had been considered as certain that much time must be occupied with the besieging of the great fortresses on the Rhenish frontier. But it was now apparent that the allies had resolved to carry the war into the interior, without waiting for the reduction of these formidable outworks. Their numbers were such that they could afford to mask them, and still pass on with hosts overwhelmingly superior to all those of Napoleon's lieutenants. These withdrew, and with them, and behind them, came crowds of the rustic population possessing any means of transport. Carts and wagons, crammed with terrified women and children, thronged every avenue to the capital. It was at last necessary that the emperor should break silence to the Parisians, and reappear in the field.

The invasion of France, however, rallied around Napoleon some persons of eminence who had long hung aloof from him. Carnot in particular, who, ever since he opposed the assumption of the imperial title, had remained in retirement, came forward to offer his sword in what he now considered as the cause of his country. Nor did Buonaparte fail to receive such proposals as they deserved. He immediately sent his old enemy to command the great city and fortress of Antwerp: and similar instances of manly confidence might be mentioned to his honour.

On the 22d of January, the first official news of the invasion appeared; the Moniteur announced that Schwartzenberg had entered Switzerland on the 20th of December, and that Blucher also had crossed the Rhine on the first day of the year: thus confessing openly the deliberate deceit of its previous silence. The next morning, being Sunday, the officers of the national guard were summoned to the Tuilleries. They lined the saloon of the marshals, to the number of 900, altogether ignorant of the purpose for which they had been convoked. The emperor took his station in the centre of the hall; and immediately afterward the empress, with the king of Rome (carried in the arms of countess Montesquiou), appeared at his side. "Gentlemen," said Napoleon, "France is invaded; I go to put myself at the head of my troops, and, with God's help and their valour, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the frontier." Here he took Maria Louisa in one hand and her son in the other, and continued"But if they should approach the capital, I confide to the national guard the empress and the king of Rome"-then correcting himself, he said in a tone of strong emotion-"my wife and my child." Several officers stepped from their places and approached him; and tears were visible on the cheeks even of those who were known to be no worshippers of the emperor, or hearty supporters of his cause.

A Frenchman can rarely resist a scene; and such this was considered, and laughed at accordingly, ere next morning. It is, nevertheless, difficult to refuse sympathy to the chief actor. Buonaparte was sincerely attached to Maria Louisa, though he treated her rather with a parental tenderness than like a lover; and his affection for his son was the warmest passion in his heart, unless, indeed, we must except his pride and his ambition, both of which may be well supposed to have merged for a moment in the feeling which shook his voice.

CHAPTER XXXV.

The Campaign of France--Battles of Brienne and La Rothiere--Expedition of the Marne-Battles of Nangis and Montereau-Schwartzenberg retreats-Napoleon again marches against Blucher-Attacks Soissons and is repulsed-Battles of Craonne and Laon-Napoleon at Rheims-His Perplexities-He marches to St. Dizier.

NAPOLEON spent part of the 24th of January in reviewing troops in the court-yard of the Tuilleries, in the midst of a fall of snow, which must have called up ominous recollections, and at three in the morning of the 25th once more left his capital. He had again appointed Maria Louisa regent, placed his brother Joseph at the head of her council, and given orders for raising military defences around Paris, and for converting many public buildings into hospitals. He set off in visible dejection; but recovered all his energy on reaching once more the congenial atmosphere of arms.

He arrived at Chalons ere midnight; and found that Schwartzenberg and Blucher, having severally passed through Franche-Comté and Lorraine, were now occupying-the former with 97,000 men, the latter with 40,000-an almost complete line between the Marne and the Seine. Blucher was in his own neighbourhood, and he immediately resolved to attack the right of the Silesian army, which was pushing down the valley of the Marne, while its centre kept the parallel course of the Aube, ere the Prussian marshal could concentrate all his own strength, far less be adequately supported from the side of Schwartzenberg, who was advancing down the Seine towards Bar. A sharp skirmish took place accordingly on the 27th, at St. Dizier; and Blucher, warned of Napoleon's arrival, lost no time

in calling in his detachments, and taking a post of defence at Brienne-le-Chateau on the Aube-the same town where Buonaparte had received his military education. Could Napoleon force him from the Aube, it was evident that the French would be enabled to interpose themselves effectually between the two armies of the allies: and it was most necessary to divide the enemy's strength, for after all his exertions, Napoleon had been able to add only 20,000 good troops to the 50,000 who had been retiring before the allied columns from the course of the Rhine.

Napoleon, therefore, marched through a thick forest upon the scene of his youthful studies, and appeared there on the 29th;-having moved so rapidly that Blucher was at dinner in the chateau, when the French thundered at its gates, and with difficulty escaped to the rear through a posternactually leading his horse down a stair. The Russians, however, under Alsusieff, maintained their place in the town courageously; and, some Cossacks throwing themselves upon the rear of the French, the emperor was himself involved in the melée, drew his sword, and fought like a private dragoon. General Gourgaud shot a Cossack when in the act of thrusting his spear at Napoleon's back. The town of Brienne was burnt to the ground; Alsusieff was made prisoner; Lefevre Desnouettes died; and there was considerable slaughter on both sides; but the affair had no result of importance. Blucher retired but a little farther up the Aube, and posted himself at La Rothiere, where Schwartzenberg, warned by the cannonade, hastened to co-operate with him.

Napoleon said, at St. Helena, that during the charge of the Cossacks at Brienne, he recognised a particular tree, under which, when a boy, he used to sit and read the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso. The field had been, in those days, part of the exercise ground of the students, and the chateau, whence

Blucher escaped so narrowly, their lodging. How strange must have been the feelings of the man who, having but yesterday planted his eagles on the Kremlin, now opened his fifteenth campaign amid the scenes of his own earliest recollections of the days in which he had never dreamed of empire.

On the 1st of February, Blucher, in his turn, assumed the offensive, assaulting the French position in his front at once on three several points. The battle lasted all day, and ended in the defeat of the French, who, with the loss of 4000 prisoners and seventy-three guns, escaped from the field in such disorder that, according to Napoleon's own avowal at St. Helena, he had serious thoughts of putting an end to the war by voluntarily resigning the crown to the heir of the Bourbons. However this may have been, while the division of Marmont retired down the Aube before Blucher, Napoleon himself struck across the country to Troyes, which there was every reason to fear must be immediately occupied by Schwartzenberg; and was there joined by a considerable body of his own guard, in high order and spirits, whose appearance restored, in a great measure, the confidence of the troops beaten at La Rothiere.

On the 3d, he received at Troyes a despatch from Caulaincourt, informing him that lord Castlereagh, the English secretary of state for foreign affairs, had arrived at the head-quarters of the allies-that negotiations were to be resumed the morning after at Chatillon (now in the rear of the armies)-and beseeching him to intimate distinctly at what price he was now willing to purchase peace. Napoleon replied, by granting Caulaincourt full powers to do every thing necessary "to keep the negotiation alive, and save the capital." But the duke of Vicenza durst not act immediately on a document so loosely worded, and sent back once more to beg for a specific detail of the emperor's purposes. Napoleon