CHAPTER XXXIV.

Declaration of the Allies at Frankfort-Revolution of Holland-Liberation of the Pope and Ferdinand VII. Obstinacy of Napoleon-His Military Preparations— Dissolution of the Legislative Senate.

Of the events which crowded upon each other in the space of a few weeks after the overthrow of Leipsig, any one would in times less extraordinary have been sufficient to form an epoch in history. Having once reached the summit of his greatness, the long-favoured child of fortune was destined to sink even more rapidly than he had ascended. Every day added some new alliance to the camp of his foreign enemies; and every hour that passed brought with it clearer indications that the French nation (considered apart from the army) were weary utterly of the very names of War, and Ambition, and Napoleon.

The fabric of his German empire crumbled into nothing, as at the spell of a magician. Hanover returned to the dominion of its rightful sovereign immediately. Brunswick, Hesse, and the other states which had formed Jerome's kingdom of Westphalia, followed the same example. The Confederation of the Rhine was dissolved for ever; and the princes who had adhered to that league were permitted to expiate their, in most cases involuntary, error, by now bringing a year's revenue

and a double conscription to the banner of the Allies. Bernadotte turned from Leipsig to reduce the garrisons which Napoleon, in the rashness of his presumption, had disdained to call in, even when compelled to evacuate Dresden; and one by one they fell, though in most cases-particularly at Dantzic, Wirtemberg, and Hamburg-the resistance was obstinate and long. The Crown Prince-having witnessed the reduction of some of these fortresses, and entrusted the siege of the others to his lieutenants-invaded Denmark, and the government of that country perceived the necessity of acceding to the European alliance, by whatever fine its long adhesion to Napoleon might be expiated. The treaty was concluded at Kiel, on the 14th of January, 1814. Sweden yielded Pomerania to Denmark; Denmark gave up Norway to Sweden; and 10,000 Danish troops having joined his standard, Bernadotte then turned his face towards the Netherlands.

In Holland, no sooner had the story of Leipsig reached it than a complete, though bloodless, revolution was effected. The cry of orange boven, 66 up with the orange," burst simultaneously from every part of the country: the French governors, yielding to a power which they perceived the absurdity of attemping to resist, retired on the instant, and the long-exiled Statdholder, the Prince of Orange, returning in triumph from England, assumed the administration of affairs in November, 1813. A few French garrisons remained shut up in strong places, of which the most important was Bergen-op-Zoom; and Bernadotte now co-operated with the Russian corps of Witzengerode, the Prus

sians of Bulow, and a British force of 10,000, under Sir T. Graham,* with the view of completing the deliverance of Holland; which was ere long effected, with the exception of Bergen-opZoom, from whose walls the English were repulsed with dreadful slaughter.

On the side of Italy the aspect of affairs was almost as dark. General Hiller, having conducted an Austrian army through the Tyrol, as soon as the decision of his government was taken, had defeated Eugene Beauharnois, and driven him behind the Adige. The Croats, the Tyrolese, all the Illyrians were rising, and so far from giving aid in the defence of the French soil-it was manifest that the Viceroy could hardly hope to maintain himself much longer in Lombardy. An English naval force had already taken Trieste: the Adriatic was free; and, to complete Napoleon's perplexity as to this quarter, it was no longer a secret that Murat, his brother-in-law, his creature, was negotiating with Austria, and willing, provided Naples were guaranteed to him, to array the force of that state also on the side of the confederacy.

As little comfort could Buonaparte derive if he turned to the Pyrenees. He had sent Soult thither from Dresden, to retrieve if possible the fortunes of the army defeated in June at Vittoria; and that most able general, with considerable reinforcements, had entered Spain, and attempted to relieve the siege of Pamplona-of which strong place, as well as St. Sebastian, Lord Wellington

* Now Lord Lynedoch.

had resolved to be master before he should pass the French frontier with his victorious army. But Soult also had been twice defeated: the fortresses had fallen: except a detached, and now useless force under Suchet in Catalonia, there remained no longer a single French soldier in Spain. The Peninsula had at length been delivered by the genius of Wellington; and his army were cantoned within the territory of France ere the close of the campaign. Such were the tidings which reached Napoleon from his Italian and Spanish frontiers, at the very moment when it was necessary for him to make head against the Russians, the Austrians, and the Germans, chiefly armed and supplied at the expense of England, and now rapidly concentrating in three great masses on different points of the valley of the Rhine.

Nor were even these the worst tidings. Two parties, of which one had not of late years attracted much public notice, and the other had as long wanted efficient leaders, were well known ere now to be labouring throughout France, though not as yet in conjunction, for one common purpose the deposition of Buonaparte. The royalists had recovered a great share of their ancient influence in the society of Paris, even before the disasters of the Russian expedition. The exiled Bourbon had found means to distribute proclamations early in 1813: his agents had ever since been exerting themselves indefatigably, both in Paris and in the provinces, especially in those of the west. The Mayor of Bourdeaux (Lynch) was at the head of a loyal association, comprehending the chief inhabitants of that great city, and already

in communication with the Marquess of Wellington, who, however, felt it his duty to check them on this occasion, lest the progress of events should render their efforts fruitless to Louis, and fatal to themselves. La Roche Jacquelein (a name already so illustrious in La Vendée) had once more prepared that faithful province for insurrection. Saintonge had been organized by the Abbé Jaqualt; Perigord by Messieurs de la Roche Aymon; and in the countries about Nantes, Angers, and Orleans, great bands, consisting partly of Buonaparte's own refractory conscripts, were in training under the Counts De L'Orge, D'Antichamp, and Suzannet. The royalist gentlemen of Touraine, to the number of 1,000, were headed by the Duke of Duras; those of Brittainy were mustering around Count Vittray, and various chieftains of the old Chouans; and Cadoudal, brother to Georges, was among the peasantry of Varnes. These names, most of them well known in the early period of the Revolution, are of themselves sufficient to show how ineffectually the Buonapartean government had endeavoured, during thirteen years, to extinguish the old fire of loyalty. It had all the while glowed under the ashes, and was now ready to burst forth shining and bright. The Bourbon princes watched the course of events with eager hope. The Duke of Berri was already in Jersey, Monsieur (now Charles X.) in the Netherlands, and the Duke D'Angouleme about to make his appearance at the head-quarters of Wellington, in Bearn, the cradle of his race. The republicans, meanwhile,-those

enthusiasts of the Revolution who had in the beginning considered Buonaparte's consulate as a