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 waggons, 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 re-appear 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 22nd 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 Tuileries. 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 afterwards 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.
Napoleon spent part of the 24th of January in reviewing troops in the courtyard of the Tuileries, 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 his gates, and with difficulty escaped to the rear through a postern—actually 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 himself was 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; Lefebre Desnouettes died; and there was considerable slaughter on both sides; but the affair had no result of importance. Blucher retired but a little further 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 amidst the scenes of his own earliest recollections—of the days in which he had never dreamt of empire!
On the first 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 3rd, 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 headquarters 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 everything 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 had his headquarters at Nogent, on the Seine, some leagues below Troyes, when the despatch reached him, on the evening of the 8th of February; and his counsellors unanimously urged him to make use of this, probably last, opportunity. They at length prevailed on him to agree to abandon Belgium, the left of the Rhine, Italy, and Piedmont. But in the night after the consultation, and before the ultimatum received his signature, Napoleon received information which quite altered his views. He learned that Blucher, instead of continuing his march down the Aube, and in communication with Schwartzenberg on the Seine, had transferred his whole army to the Marne, and was now advancing towards Paris by the Montmirail road. That the Allies, after experiencing the effects of disunion at Brienne, and those of conjunction at La Rothiere, should have almost in the moment of victory again resolved on separating their forces, is a circumstance which no writer has as yet explained in any satisfactory manner. The blunder was great; yet in the end its consequences were disastrous, not to those who committed, but to him whose eagle-eye detected it, and who could not resist the temptation which it presented, to make one warlike effort more. Buonaparte, in a word, refused to sign the despatch on the morning of the 9th; and having left Bourmont at Nogent, with a small force to defend the bridge over the Seine, and Oudinot with another, for the same purpose, at the next bridge in descending the river, namely, that of Bray, immediately commenced his march with the main body of his army upon Sezanne.
It was the depth of winter—the cross-roads on which they moved were in the most frightful condition, insomuch that had not the zealous Mayor of Barbonne collected 500 horses, and come to their assistance, they must have been forced to leave all their artillery in a slough near that town; yet this determined band marched nearly forty miles ere they halted with the dark. Next morning they proceeded with equal alacrity, and at length debouched on the road by which Blucher's army was advancing, at Champaubert. Alsusieff and the central division were passing, when Napoleon unexpectedly appeared at this point, and were altogether unable to resist his onset. They dispersed in confusion with great loss, and fled towards the Marne. Meantime the van of the same army, commanded by Sacken, who were advancing on La Ferté, and the division of D'York, already in sight of Meaux, turned on hearing the cannonade of Champaubert, and countermarched with the view of supporting Alsusieff. They shared the fate of the centre, and having been severely handled at Montmirail, escaped across the Marne at Chateau-Tierry; thus leaving Blucher and the rear division alone to abide the attack of Napoleon's entire force between the Marne and the Aube. The Prussian marshal, advancing rapidly in consequence of the firing of these battles, found himself all at once in presence of an army flushed with victory, vastly superior in numbers, and well provided with cavalry, of which he had almost none. He retired in alternate squares, sustaining all day the charges of the French, with much loss of life, but with no disorder; and at length cut his way, at Etoges, through a column of heavy horse, sent round to intercept him, and drawn up on the causeway. Blucher himself was, in the course of this day, obliged to fight hand to hand like a private soldier. His retreat was masterly, and he finally crossed the Marne at Chalons.
Such was Napoleon's celebrated "Expedition of the Marne." In five days his arms had been three times successful. He had shattered and dispersed (as he thought effectually) the Silesian army, and above all, recovered the spirits of his own soldiery. A column of 7000 Prussian prisoners, with a considerable number of guns and standards, at length satisfied the Parisians that Victory had not entirely forsworn her old favourite. Thus far all was well; and had Napoleon, from the field which thus raised the courage of his troops, and revived the confidence of his capital, despatched authority to Caulaincourt to conclude the treaty on the terms before described—the victor of Montmirail might have kept the throne of France. But his own presumption was rekindled by the same success which dazzled inferior eyes—and Napoleon wrote on the instant to his representative at Chatillon, that he might now assume "an attitude less humble." This error proved fatal.
Scarcely had the Parisians seen the prisoners from Montmirail marched along their boulevards, before they heard that the Cossacks were in possession of Fontainebleau. Napoleon had left, as was mentioned, small divisions of his army to guard the bridges over the Seine at Nogent and Bray. The enemy, however, soon discovered that the Emperor and his chief force were no longer in that quarter, and—while he was beating Alsusieff, Sacken, and Blucher—had made good the passage of the Seine, at three different points, at Nogent, at Bray, and still further down, at Montereau, driving the discomfited guardians of these important places before them. Schwartzenberg had already his headquarters at Nangis, and was obviously resolved to reach Paris, if possible, while Napoleon was on the Marne. The light troops of the grand allied army were scattering confusion on both sides of the Seine—and one party of them were so near the capital as Fontainebleau.
Buonaparte instantly committed to Marmont and Mortier the care of watching the Chalons road and the remains of Blucher's army, and marched with his main body on Meaux, where he received (15th February) the welcome reinforcement of 20,000 veterans from Spain, commanded by Grouchy. On the 16th, Victor and Oudinot were engaged with the van of Schwartzenberg, on the plains of Guignes, when the Emperor arrived to their assistance. The enemy immediately drew back, and concentrated his strength at Nangis. Napoleon attacked that position on the morning of the 17th, and with such effect, that the allies retreated after considerable loss, though not in disorder, on the bridges in their rear.
They halted, however, at Montereau, and Victor, who commanded the pursuers on that route, failed in dislodging them. Napoleon resented this as a heinous error, and coming up on the morning of the 18th, rebuked him in terms of violent wrath, and formally dismissed him from the service. The Marshal, tears streaming down his face, declared that though he had ceased to be an officer, he must still be a soldier, and would serve once more in the ranks, from which he had originally risen. The old man's son-in-law, General Chateau, had been slain the same morning. Napoleon extended his hand to him, and said he could not give him back the command of his corps d'armée, which had already been assigned to another, but that he was welcome to place himself at the head of a brigade of the guard. The attack then commenced with fury, and the bridge and town of Montereau were carried. The defence was, however, long and stern, and Napoleon was seen pointing cannon with his own hand, under the heaviest of the fire. The artillerymen, delighted with witnessing this resumption of his ancient trade, were, nevertheless, alarmed at the exposure of his person, and entreated him to withdraw. He persisted in his work, answering gaily, "My children! the bullet that shall kill me is not yet cast." Pursuing his advantage, Napoleon saw the grand army continue their retreat in the direction of Troyes, and on the morning of the 22nd arrived before Mery.
The astonishment of the Emperor was great, when he found this town occupied, not by a feeble rear-guard of Schwartzenberg, but by a powerful division of Russians, commanded by Sacken, and, therefore, belonging to the apparently indestructible army of Blucher. These unexpected enemies were charged in the streets, and at length retired out of the town (which was burnt to the ground in the struggle) and thence beyond the Aube—which, in that quarter, runs nearly parallel with, and at no great distance from, the Seine. The Emperor then halted, and spent the night in a wheelwright's cottage at Chatres.
All this while the semblance, at least, of negotiation had been kept up at Chatillon. Caulaincourt, receiving no answer to that important despatch which reached Buonaparte (as has been mentioned) at Nogent, on the 8th of February proceeded to act on the instructions dated at Troyes, on the 3rd; and, in effect, accepted the basis of the Allies. When Schwartzenberg was attacked at Nangis on the 17th, he had just received the intelligence of Caulaincourt's having signed the preliminary articles; and he, therefore, sent a messenger to ask why the Emperor, if aware of his ambassador's act, persisted in hostilities? Napoleon had ere then, as we have seen, desired Caulaincourt to assume "a less humble attitude," and instead of ratifying, as he was bound on every principle of honour and law to do, the signature which his ambassador had had full powers to affix, he returned no answer whatever to Schwartzenberg, but despatched a private letter to the Emperor of Austria, once more endeavouring to seduce him from the European league. The Emperor's reply to this despatch reached Napoleon at this hovel in Chatres: it announced his resolution on no account to abandon the general cause; but, at the same time, intimated that Francis lent no support to the Bourbonists (who were now arming in Franche-Comté around Monsieur), and urged Napoleon to avert by concession, ere it was yet too late, total ruin from himself and his House. Buonaparte, flushed with a succession of victories, was in no temper to listen to such advice, and the Austrian envoy left his headquarters with a note, signifying that now he would not even consent to a day's armistice, unless the Allies would fall back so as to leave Antwerp in their front.
The same evening there came news from Paris, which might have been expected to disturb the pride of these imaginations. The Council of State had discussed deliberately the proposals of the Allied Powers, and, with only one dissenting voice, now entreated the Emperor to accept them. They announced to him that—while he had been driving the Austrians up the Seine—the Army of the North, the third great force of the Allies, had at length effected their juncture with Blucher; who was now, therefore, at the head of a much greater army than he had as yet commanded, and was manifestly resolved to descend directly on Paris from Chalons. Napoleon was urged anew by those about his person, to send to Chatillon and accept the basis to which Caulaincourt had agreed. He answered that he had sworn at his coronation to preserve the territory of the Republic entire, and that he could not sign this treaty without violating his oath!—and dismissed his counsellors, saying haughtily, "If I am to be scourged, let the whip at least come on me of necessity, and not through any voluntary stooping of my own."
Instead, therefore, of sending messengers of peace to Chatillon, Napoleon now thought only of the means of at once holding Schwartzenberg in check on the Seine, and returning once more to confront Blucher on the Marne. He pushed on, however, as far as Troyes, in the expectation of still terrifying the allied princes into some compromise. In this city he found that certain gentlemen had openly assumed the white cockade, the mark of the Bourbonists, during its occupation by the enemy, though without any countenance from the sovereigns. One of these gentlemen was so unfortunate as to fall into his hands, and was immediately executed.
The Emperor in vain expected new proposals from Chatillon; none such reached him at Troyes—and he recurred to his scheme of a second "Expedition of the Marne." He desired Oudinot and Macdonald, with their divisions, to manœuvre in the direction of Schwartzenberg: and these generals commanded their troops to shout "vive l'Empereur" whenever they were within hearing of the enemy, which for a little time kept up the notion that Napoleon himself was still advancing on the road to Bar. Meanwhile he was once more marching rapidly across the country to Sezanne; at which point he received intelligence that Mortier and Marmont had been driven from Ferté-sous-Jouarre by Blucher, and were in full retreat to Meaux. Meaux he considered as almost a suburb of Paris, and quickened his speed accordingly. Hurrying on, at Ferté-Goucher, he was at once met and overtaken by evil tidings. Schwartzenberg, having discovered the Emperor's absence, had immediately resumed the offensive, defeated Oudinot and Macdonald at Bar, and driven them before him as far as Troyes; and Augereau, who commanded in the neighbourhood of Lyons, announced the arrival of a new and great army of the Allies in that quarter. Napoleon resumed, however, his march, and having been detained some time at Ferté, in consequence of the destruction of the bridge, took the direction of Chateau-Thierry and Soissons, while Mortier and Marmont received his orders to resume the offensive in front of Meaux. He hoped, in this manner, to throw himself on the flank of Blucher's march, as he had done before at Champaubert. But the Prussian received intelligence this time of his approach; and, drawing his troops together, retired to Soissons in perfect order.
Napoleon proceeded with alacrity in the direction of Soissons, not doubting that the French garrison entrusted with the care of that town, and its bridge over the Marne, were still in possession of it, and eager, therefore, to force Blucher into action with this formidable obstacle in his rear. But Soissons had been taken by a Russian corps, retaken by a French one, and fallen once more into the hands of the enemy, ere the Emperor came in sight of it. The Muscovite Black Eagle, floating on the towers, gave him the first intimation of this misfortune. He assaulted the place impetuously: the Russians repelled the attack; and Napoleon, learning that Blucher had filed his main body through the town, and posted himself behind the Marne, marched up the left bank of that river, and crossed it also at Bery.
A few leagues in front of this place, on the heights of Craonne, two Russian corps, those of Sacken and Witzingerode, were already in position; and the Emperor lost no time in charging them there, in the hope of destroying them ere they could unite with Blucher. The battle of Craonne began at eleven a.m. on the 7th of March, and lasted till four in the afternoon. The Russians had down to this hour withstood the utmost exertions of Ney on their right, of Victor on their left, and of Napoleon himself on their centre. The loss in slain and wounded had been about equal on both sides; no cannon, and hardly a prisoner, had been taken. The Emperor, enraged with this obstinate resistance, was preparing for a final effort, when suddenly the Russians began to retreat. He followed them; but they withdrew with the deliberation and impunity of a parade. They had been ordered to fall back on the plateau of Laon, in order to form there on the same line with Blucher, who was once more in presence, and eager to concentrate all his force for a decisive conflict.
It took place on the 9th. Napoleon found his enemy strongly posted along an elevated ridge, covered with wood, and further protected in front by a succession of terrace-walls, the enclosures of vineyards. There was a heavy mist on the lower ground, and the French were advancing up the hill ere their movement was discovered. They were met by a storm of cannonade which utterly broke their centre. On either flank of the enemy's position they then charged in succession, and with like results. On all points they were repelled, except only at the village of Athies, where Marmont had obtained some advantage. Night interrupted the contest, and the armies bivouacked in full view of each other. The Allies, in consequence of their well-covered position, had suffered comparatively little; of the French some thousands had died—and all in vain. Napoleon was, however, resolved to renew the attack, and mounted his horse accordingly at four in the morning of the 10th. At that moment news came that Marmont's corps had just been assaulted at Athies, and so thoroughly discomfited that they were now flying in confusion towards Corbery. Notwithstanding this ominous opening, the battle in front of Laon was continued all the day. But the tide of fortune had turned, and could not be resisted. On the 11th, Napoleon commenced his retreat, having lost thirty cannon and ten thousand men.
Soissons had been evacuated by the Allies when concentrating themselves for the battle of Laon. Napoleon threw himself, therefore, into that town, and was making his best efforts to strengthen it, in expectation of the Prussian advance, when once more a messenger of evil tidings reached him. A detached Russian corps, commanded by St. Priest, a French emigrant, had seized Rheims by a coup-de-main. The possession of this city (as a glance at any good map will show) could hardly fail to re-establish Blucher's communications with Schwartzenberg—and Napoleon instantly marched thither in person, leaving Marmont to hold out as well as he could at Soissons, in case that should be the direction of Blucher's march. Buonaparte, moving with his usual rapidity, came unexpected on Rheims, and took the place by assault at midnight. St. Priest had fallen; and the bulletin announced that he met his fate by a ball from the same cannon which killed Moreau. If it were so, no one could have ascertained the fact; but Napoleon's imagination was always ready to welcome a tale that savoured of fatality.
From Rheims, where he remained for three days to refresh his unfortunate followers, he despatched at length full powers to Caulaincourt to conclude any treaty, which should secure the immediate evacuation of the old French territory, and a mutual restoration of prisoners. Maret, (Duke of Bassano,) however, wrote—by the same messenger—at much greater length; informing the plenipotentiary that the Emperor would refuse to ratify any treaty whatever—if, in the interim, events should have taken a turn in his favour. It is to be doubted whether Caulaincourt would have ventured to act, on instructions thus qualified, with the decision which the emergency required. But he was not put to the proof. The Allies had determined to negotiate no more, ere the despatch of Rheims reached him.
Throughout this crisis of his history, it is impossible to survey the rapid energy of Napoleon—his alert transitions from enemy to enemy, his fearless assaults on vastly superior numbers, his unwearied resolution, and exhaustless invention—without the highest admiration which can attend on a master of warfare. But it is equally impossible to suppress astonishment and indignation in following, or rather attempting to follow, the threads of obstinacy, duplicity, pride, and perfidy, which, during the same period, complicated, without strengthening, the tissue of his negotiations. It is only when we fix our eyes on the battles and marches of this wonderful campaign, that we can hesitate to echo the adage:—Whom God hath doomed to destruction, he first deprives of reason.
To complete our notion of the energies of Napoleon—he had all through this, the most extraordinary of his campaigns, continued to conduct, from his perpetually changing headquarters, the civil business of his empire. He occupied himself largely with such matters during his stay at Rheims; but it was there that the last despatches from the home-department at Paris were destined to reach him; and, before he could return his answer, there came couriers upon couriers—with tidings which would have unmanned any other mind, and which filled his with perplexity. On the one side, Blucher had profited by his departure, crushed down the feeble opposition of the corps left at Soissons, and repassed the Marne. On the other hand, Schwartzenberg had detected, almost as soon as it took place, his march on Sezanne, and instantly resumed the offensive. Oudinot and Girard had been forced to give way before the immeasurably superior numbers of the Grand Army. They had been defeated with great slaughter at Bar on the Aube; and the Austrian was once more at Troyes. The Allies were, therefore, to all appearance, in full march upon Paris, both by the valley of the Marne, and by that of the Seine, at the moment when Napoleon had thought to paralyse all their movements by taking up a position between them at Rheims.
He still counted largely on the magic of his name; and even now he had hardly over-reckoned. When Schwartzenberg understood that Napoleon was at Rheims, the old terror returned, and the Austrian instantly proposed to fall back from Troyes. But there was by this time, in the camp of the allied powers, one who, though not a soldier, appreciated, far better than all those about him, that had grown grey in arms, the circumstances of the time, and the conduct which these demanded. Lord Castlereagh took upon himself the responsibility of signifying that the Grand Army might retire if the sovereigns pleased, but that if such a movement took place, the subsidies of England must be considered as at an end. This bold word determined the debate. Schwartzenberg's columns instantly resumed their march down the Seine.
Napoleon, meanwhile, had been struggling with himself; whatever line of action he might adopt was at best hazardous in the extreme. Should he hasten after Blucher on the Marne, what was to prevent Schwartzenberg from reaching Paris, ere the Silesian army, already victorious at Laon, could be once more brought to action by an inferior force? Should he throw himself on the march of Schwartzenberg, would not the fiery Prussian be at the Tuileries, long before the Austrian could be checked on the Seine? There remained a third course—namely, to push at once into the country in the rear of the Grand Army; and to this there were sundry inducements. By doing so, he might possibly—such were still the Emperor's conceptions as to the influence of his name—strike the advancing Allies, both the Austrian and the Prussian, with terror, and paralyse their movements. Were they likely to persist in their Hurrah on Paris (at this period the Cossack vocabulary was in vogue), when they knew Napoleon to be posting himself between them and their own resources, and at the same time relieving and rallying around him all the garrisons of the great fortresses of the Rhine? Would not such conduct be considered as entirely out of the question by superstitious adherents to the ancient technicalities of war? Would not Schwartzenberg at least abandon the advance and turn to follow him, who still fancied that no one could dream of conquering France without having ruined Napoleon? But—even supposing that the allied powers should resist all these suggestions and proceed upon the capital—would not that great city, with Marmont and Mortier, and the national guard, be able to hold the enemy at bay for some considerable space; and, during that space, could the Emperor fail to release his garrisons on the Rhine, and so place himself once more at the head of an army capable, under his unrivalled guidance, of relieving France and ruining her invaders, by a great battle under the walls of Paris?
It must be added, in reference to Napoleon's choice among these difficulties, that ere now the continuance of the warfare had much exacerbated the feelings of the peasantry, who, for the most part, regarded its commencement with indifference. The perpetual marches and counter-marches of the armies, the assaults and burnings of towns and villages, the fierce demeanour of the justly embittered Prussians, and the native barbarism of the Russians, had spread devastation and horror through some of the fairest provinces of France. The desolation was such that wolves and other beasts of prey appeared, in numbers which recalled the ages of the unbroken forest, amidst the vineyards and gardens of Champagne. All who could command the means of flight had escaped; of those that remained there were few who had not, during three months, suffered painful privations, seen their cottages occupied by savage strangers, and their streams running red with the blood of their countrymen. The consequence was that the peasantry on the theatre of the war, and behind it, were now in a state of high excitement. Might not the Emperor, by throwing himself and his sorely diminished, but still formidable, band of veterans among them, give the finishing impulse, and realise at length his fond hope of a national insurrection?
While Napoleon was thus tossed in anxiety by what means to avert, if it were yet possible, from Paris, the visitation of those mighty armies, against whom energies, such as he alone possessed, had been exerted in vain—the capital showed small symptoms of sympathising with him. The newspapers had announced nothing but victories; but the truth could not fail to penetrate in spite of all this treachery. The streets were daily traversed by new crowds of provincialists, driven or terrified from their dwellings. Every hospital, and many public buildings besides, were crammed with wounded soldiers; and the number of dead bodies, continually floating down the Seine was so great, that the meanest of the populace durst no longer make use of the water. As one conclusive token of the universal distrust, it may be mentioned that, whereas in usual times the amount of taxes paid daily into the exchequer at Paris is about £3000, the average, after the 1st of March, did not exceed £15. It was Savary's business to despatch a full account of the state of the city every night to headquarters;—and he did not hesitate to inform the Emperor that the machinery of government was clogged in every wheel, and that the necessity of purchasing peace, by abandoning him, was the common burden of conversation.
Meantime, to swell the cup of his anxieties, there reached him new intelligence of the most alarming character from the south-western provinces, invaded by Lord Wellington. That victorious general had driven Soult before him through the Pays de Gaves (the tract of strong country broken by the torrents descending from the Pyrenees); defeated him in another great battle at Orthes; and was now pursuing him in the direction of Toulouse. Nor was even this the worst: the English had been received more like friends than enemies by the French; their camp was far better served with provisions than that of Soult; and lastly, Bourdeaux had risen openly in the cause of Louis. The white flag was floating on every tower of the third city in France, and the Duke D'Angouleme was administering all the offices of government, in the midst of a population who had welcomed him with the enthusiasm of old loyalty.
It was amidst such circumstances that Napoleon at length decided on throwing himself on the rear of the Allies. They were for some time quite uncertain of his movements after he quitted Rheims, until an intercepted letter to Maria Louisa informed them that he was at St. Dizier.
Napoleon continued for several days to manœuvre on the country beyond St. Dizier. Having thus seized the roads by which the Grand Army had advanced, he took prisoners many persons of distinction on their way to its headquarters—and at one time the Emperor of Austria himself escaped most narrowly a party of French hussars. Meanwhile petty skirmishes were ever and anon occurring between Napoleon's rear-guard and Austrians, whom he took for the van-guard of Schwartzenberg. They were, however, detached troops, chiefly horse, left expressly to hang on his march, and cheat him into this belief. The Grand Army was proceeding rapidly down the Seine; while Blucher, having repeatedly beaten Marmont and Mortier, was already within sight of Meaux.
It has been mentioned that Napoleon, ere he commenced his campaign, directed some fortifications to be thrown up on the side of Paris nearest to the invading armies. His brother Joseph, however, was, as Spain had witnessed, neither an active nor a skilful soldier; and the civil government of this tempestuous capital appears to have been more than enough to employ what energies he possessed. The outworks executed during the campaign were few and inconsiderable; and to occupy them, there were now but 8000 fresh regulars, the discomfited divisions of Marmont and Mortier, and the National Guard of the metropolis. This last corps had 30,000 names on its roll: but such had been the manifestations of public feeling, that the Emperor's lieutenants had not dared to furnish more than a third of these with firearms: the others had only pikes: and every hour increased the doubts of the Regency-council whether any considerable portion of these men—who were chiefly, in fact, the shopkeepers of Paris—would consent to shed their blood in this cause.
Meanwhile the royalists within the city had been watching the progress of events with eagerness and exultation. Talleyrand was ere now in close communication with them, and employing all the resources of his talents to prevail on them to couple their demand for the heir of the Bourbons, with such assertions of their belief that that dynasty ought never to be re-established otherwise than on a constitutional basis, as might draw over to their side the more moderate of the republicans. Nor had these efforts been unsuccessful. Various deputations from the royalists had found their way to the headquarters, both of Blucher and Schwartzenberg, before the middle of March, and expressed sentiments of this nature. As yet, however, none of the Allies had ventured to encourage directly the hopes of the Bourbon party. They persisted in asserting their resolution to let the French nation judge for themselves under what government they should live; and to take no part in their civil feuds. Talleyrand himself was in correspondence with the Czar; but, in his letters, he, as far as is known, confined himself to urging the advance of the armies. A billet from him was delivered to Alexander just before the final rush on Paris begun: it was in these words—"You venture nothing, when you may safely venture everything—venture once more."
De Pradt, and many other of those statesmen whom Napoleon, in latter days, had disgraced or disobliged, were, ere this time, labouring diligently in the same service. It must be admitted that he, like the falling Persian, was
but he had brought himself to this extremity by his scorn of their counsels; nor even at the eleventh hour did his proud heart dream of recalling confidence, by the confession of error.
On the 26th of March, the distant roaring of artillery was heard at intervals on the boulevards of Paris; and the alarm began to be violent. On the 27th (Sunday) Joseph Buonaparte held a review in the Place Carousel; and the day being fine, and the uniforms mostly new, the confidence of the spectators rose, and the newspapers expressed their wishes that the enemy could but behold what forces were ready to meet and destroy them. That same evening the Allies passed the Marne at various points; at three in the morning of the 28th, they took Meaux; and at daybreak, "the terrified population of the country between Meaux and Paris came pouring into the capital," says an eye-witness, "with their aged, infirm, children, cats, dogs, live-stock, corn, hay, and household goods of every description. The boulevards were crowded with waggons, carts, and carriages thus laden, to which cattle were tied, and the whole surrounded with women." The regular troops now marched out of the town, leaving all the barriers in charge of the National Guard. The confusion that prevailed everywhere was indescribable.
On the 29th, the Empress, her son, and most of the members of the Council of State, set off, attended by 700 soldiers, for Rambouillet—from which they continued their journey to Blois—and in their train went fifteen waggons laden with plate and coin from the vaults of the Tuileries. The spectators looked on their departure in gloomy silence: and King Joseph published the following proclamation; "Citizens of Paris! A hostile column has descended on Meaux. It advances; but the Emperor follows close behind, at the head of a victorious army. The Council of Regency has provided for the safety of the Empress and the King of Rome. I remain with you. Let us arm ourselves to defend this city, its monuments, its riches, our wives, our children—all that is dear to us. Let this vast capital become a camp for some moments; and let the enemy find his shame under the walls which he hopes to overleap in triumph. The Emperor marches to our succour. Second him by a short and vigorous resistance, and preserve the honour of France." No feeling favourable to Napoleon was stirred by this appeal. The boulevards continued to be thronged with multitudes of people; but the most part received the proclamation with indifference—not a few with murmurs. Some officers urged Savary to have the streets unpaved, and persuade the people to arm themselves with the stones, and prepare for a defence such as that of Zaragossa. He answered, shaking his head, "the thing cannot be done."
All day, waggons of biscuit and ammunition were rolling through the town; wounded soldiers came limping to the barriers; and the Seine heaved thicker and thicker with the carcases of horses and men. That night, for once, the theatres were deserted.
On the 30th, the Allies fought and won the final battle. The French occupied the whole range of heights from the Marne at Charenton, to the Seine beyond St. Denis; and the Austrians began the attack about eleven o'clock, towards the former of these points, while nearly in the midst between them, a charge was made by the Russians on Pantin and Belleville. The Prussians, who were posted over against the heights of Montmartre, did not come into action so early in the day. The French troops of the line were stationed everywhere in the front, and commanded by Marmont and Mortier. Those battalions of the National Guard, whose spirit could be trusted, and who were adequately armed, took their orders from Moncey, and formed a second line of defence. The scholars of the Polytechnic School volunteered to serve at the great guns, and the artillery was, though not numerous, well arranged, and in gallant hands.
The French defence, in spite of all the previous disasters, and of the enormous superiority of the enemy's numbers, was most brave: but by two o'clock the Allies had completely beaten them at all points, except only at Montmartre, where they were rapidly making progress. Marmont then sent several aides-de-camp to request an armistice, and offer a capitulation. One only of his messengers appears to have reached the headquarters of the sovereigns—and both the Czar and King of Prussia immediately professed their willingness to spare the city, provided the regular troops would evacuate it. Blucher, meanwhile, continued pressing on at Montmartre, and shortly after four, the victory being completed in that direction, the French cannon were turned on the city, and shot and shells began to spread destruction within its walls. The capitulation was drawn up at five o'clock, close to the barrier St. Denis.
King Joseph showed himself on horseback among the troops early in the morning; but was not visible after the attack began. At one o'clock he received a message from Marmont, requesting reinforcements. "Where am I to find them?" answered he—"is your horse a good one?" The aide-de-camp answered in the affirmative. "Then follow me," said Joseph; and without further ceremony began his journey to Blois.[66]
We must now turn to Napoleon. It was not until the 27th that he distinctly ascertained the fact of both the allied armies having marched directly on Paris. He instantly resolved to hasten after them, in hopes to arrive on their rear, ere yet they had mastered the heights of Montmartre; nor did his troops refuse to rush forward once more at his bidding. He had to go round by Doulevent and Troyes, because the direct route was utterly wasted, and could not furnish food for his men. At Doulevent he received a billet from La Vallette, his Post-Master General, in these terms: "The partisans of the stranger are making head, seconded by secret intrigues. The presence of the Emperor is indispensable—if he desires to prevent his capital from being delivered to the enemy. There is not a moment to be lost." Urging his advance accordingly with renewed eagerness—Buonaparte reached Troyes on the night of the 29th—his men having marched fifteen leagues since the daybreak. On the 30th, Macdonald in vain attempted to convince him that the fate of Paris must have been decided ere he could reach it, and advised him to march without further delay so as to form a conjunction with Augereau. "In that case," said the marshal, "we may unite and repose our troops, and yet give the enemy battle on a chosen field. If Providence has decreed our last hour, we shall, at least, die with honour, instead of being dispersed, pillaged, and slaughtered by Cossacks." Napoleon was deaf to all such counsel. He continued to advance. Finding the road beyond Troyes quite clear, he threw himself into a postchaise, and travelled on before his army at full speed, with hardly any attendance. At Villeneuve L'Archeveque he mounted on horseback, and galloping without a pause, reached Fontainebleau late in the night. He there ordered a carriage, and taking Caulaincourt and Berthier into it, drove on towards Paris. Nothing could shake his belief that he was yet in time—until, while he was changing horses at La Cour de France, but a few miles from Paris, General Belliard came up, at the head of a column of cavalry—weary and dejected men, marching towards Fontainebleau, in consequence of the provisions of Marmont's capitulation, from the fatal field of Montmartre.
Even then Napoleon refused to halt. Leaping from his carriage, he began: "What means this? Why here with your cavalry, Belliard? And where are the enemy? Where are my wife and my boy? Where Marmont? Where Mortier?" Belliard walking by his side, told him the events of the day. He called out for his carriage—and insisted on continuing his journey. The general in vain informed him that there was no longer an army in Paris; that the regulars were all coming behind, and that neither they nor he himself, having left the city in consequence of a convention, could possibly return to it. The Emperor still demanded his carriage, and bade Belliard turn with the cavalry and follow him. "Come," said he, "we must to Paris—nothing goes aright when I am away—they do nothing but blunder." He strode on, crying, "You should have held out longer—you should have raised Paris—they cannot like the Cossacks—they would surely have defended their walls—Go! go! I see every one has lost his senses. This comes of employing fools and cowards." With such exclamations Buonaparte hurried onwards, dragging Belliard with him, until they were met, a mile from La Cour de France, by the first of the retreating infantry. Their commander, General Curial, gave the same answers as Belliard. "In proceeding to Paris," said he, "you rush on death or captivity." Perceiving at length that the hand of necessity was on him, the Emperor then abandoned his design. He sank at once into perfect composure; gave orders that the troops, as they arrived, should draw up behind the little river Essonne; despatched Caulaincourt to Paris, with authority to accept whatever terms the Allied Sovereigns might be pleased to offer; and turned again towards Fontainebleau.
It was still dark when Napoleon reached once more that venerable castle. He retired to rest immediately; not, however, in any of the state-rooms which he had been accustomed to occupy, but in a smaller apartment, in a different and more sequestered part of the building.
The Duke of Vicenza reached the Czar's quarters at Pantin early in the morning of the 31st, while he was yet asleep; and recognised, amidst the crowd in the ante-chamber, a deputation from the municipality of Paris, who were waiting to present the keys of the city, and invoke the protection of the conqueror. As soon as Alexander awoke, these functionaries were admitted to his presence, and experienced a most courteous reception. The Czar repeated his favourite expression, that he had but one enemy in France: and promised that the capital, and all within it, should be treated with perfect consideration. Caulaincourt then found his way to Alexander—but he was dismissed immediately. The countenance of the envoy announced, as he came out, that he considered the fate of his master as decided; nor, if he had preserved any hope, could it have failed to expire when he learned that Alexander had already sent to Talleyrand, requesting him on no account to quit the capital, and proposing to take up his own residence in his hotel. Nesselrode, the Russian minister, who received the municipal deputation ere the Czar awoke, entered freely into conversation with the gentleman at their head, M. Laborde. That person, being questioned as to the state of public feeling, answered that there were three parties: the army, who still adhered to Buonaparte; the republicans, who wished for his deposition, but would not object to the King of Rome being recognised as Emperor, provided a liberal constitution were established, and the regency placed in fit hands; and finally, the old nobility and the saloons of Paris, who were united in desiring the restoration of the Bourbons. "But at the Prince of Benevento's," said Laborde, "the Emperor will best acquire a knowledge of all this—it is there that our chief statesmen assemble habitually." This conversation is supposed to have fixed Alexander's choice of a residence; and as we have already seen that Talleyrand was ere now committed in the cause of Louis, the result of this choice may be anticipated.
The history of what La Vallette had called "the secret intrigues with the stranger" has not yet been cleared up—nor is it likely to be so for some time. If there was one of the Allied Princes on whose disposition to spare himself, or at least his family, Napoleon might have been supposed to count,—it must have been the Emperor of Austria; and yet, at daybreak this very morning, a proclamation was tossed in thousands over the barriers of Paris, in which several phrases occurred, not to be reconciled with any other notion than that he and all the Allies agreed in favouring the restoration of the Bourbons, ere any part of their forces entered the capital. This document spoke of the anxiety of "the sovereigns" to see the establishment of "a salutary authority in France": of the opportunity offered to the Parisians of "accelerating the peace of the world"; of the "conduct of Bordeaux" as affording "an example of the method in which foreign war and civil discord might find a common termination"; it concluded thus: "It is in these sentiments that Europe in arms before your walls addresses herself to you. Hasten then to respond to the confidence which she reposes in your love for your country, and in your wisdom;" and was signed "Schwartzenberg, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies."
There was a circumstance of another kind which assisted in stimulating the hopes and swelling the adherents of the royal cause. The Allies had, in the early part of the campaign, experienced evil from the multiplicity of uniforms worn among the troops of so many nations and tongues, and the likeness which some of the dresses, the German especially, bore to those of the French. The invading soldiers had latterly adopted the practice of binding pieces of white linen round their left arms; and this token, though possibly meant only to enable the strangers to recognise each other, was not likely to be observed with indifference by the Parisians, among whom the Bourbonists had already begun to wear openly the white cockade.
Finally, a vivid sensation was excited in Paris at this critical moment by the publication of Chateaubriand's celebrated tract, entitled "Of Buonaparte and of the Bourbons." The first symptom of freedom in the long enslaved press of Paris was not likely, whatever it might be, to meet with an unfriendly reception; but this effusion of one of the most popular writers of the time (though composed in a style not suited to sober English tastes) was admirably adapted to produce a powerful effect, at such a moment of doubt and hesitation, on the people to whom it was addressed.
The agents of Buonaparte had not been idle during the 30th: they had appealed to the passions of those wretched classes of society who had been the willing instruments of all the horrible violence of the revolution, and among whom the name of Bourbon was still detested; nor without considerable effect. The crowds of filthy outcasts who emerged from their lanes and cellars, and thronged some of the public places during the battle, were regarded with equal alarm by all the decent part of the population, however divided in political sentiments. But the battle ended ere they could be brought to venture on any combined movement; and when the defeated soldiery began to file in silence and dejection through the streets, the mob lost courage, and retreated also in dismay to the obscure abodes of their misery and vice.
The royalists welcomed with exultation the dawn of the 31st. Together with the proclamation of Schwartzenberg, they circulated one of Monsieur, and another of Louis XVIII. himself; and some of the leading gentlemen of the party, the Montmorencys, the Noailles, the Rohans, the Rochefoucalds, the Polignacs, the Chateaubriands, were early on horseback in the streets; which they paraded without interruption from any, either of the civil authorities, or of the National Guard, decorated with the symbols of their cause, and appealing with eloquence to the feelings of the onlookers. As yet, however, they were only listened to. The mass of the people were altogether uncertain what the end was to be: and, in the language of the chief orator himself, M. Sosthenes de Rochefoucald, "the silence was most dismal." At noon the first of the Allied troops began to pass the barrier and enter the city. The royalist cavaliers met them; but though many officers observing the white cockade exclaimed "la belle decoration!" the generals refused to say anything which might commit their sovereigns. Some ladies of rank, however, now appeared to take their part in the scene; and when these fair hands were seen tearing their dresses to make white cockades, the flame of their enthusiasm began to spread. Various pickets of the National Guard had plucked the tricolor badge from their caps, and assumed the white, ere many of the Allies passed the gates.
At noon, as has been mentioned, this triumphal procession began, and it lasted for several hours. The show was splendid; 50,000 troops, horse, foot, and artillery, all in the highest order and condition, marched along the boulevards; and in the midst appeared the youthful Czar and the King of Prussia, followed by a dazzling suite of princes, ambassadors, and generals. The crowd was so great that their motion, always slow, was sometimes suspended. The courteous looks and manners of all the strangers—but especially the affable and condescending air of Alexander, were observed at first with surprise; as the cavalcade passed on, and the crowd thickened, the feelings of the populace rose from wonder to delight, and ended in contagious and irresistible rapture. No sovereigns entering their native capitals were ever received with more enthusiastic plaudits; and still, at every step, the shouts of Vive L'Empereur Alexandre!—Vive le Roi de Prusse! were more and more loudly mingled with the long-forgotten echoes of Vive le Roi!—Vive Louis XVIII.—Vivent les Bourbons!
The monarchs at last halted, dismissed their soldiers to quarters in the city, saw Platoff and his Cossacks establish their bivouack in the Champs Elysées, and retired to the residences prepared for them; that of Alexander being, as we have mentioned above, in the hotel of Talleyrand.
While the Czar was discussing with this wily veteran, and a few other French statesmen of the first class, summoned at his request, the state of public opinion, and the strength of the contending parties—the population of Paris continued lost in surprise and admiration, at the sudden march of events, the altogether unexpected amount of the troops of the Allies—(for they that had figured in the triumphal procession were, it now appeared, from the occupation of all the environs, but a fragment of the whole)—and above all, perhaps—such is the theatric taste of this people—the countless varieties of lineament and costume observable among the warlike bands lounging and parading about their streets and gardens. The capital wore the semblance of some enormous masquerade. Circassian noblemen in complete mail, and wild Bashkirs with bows and arrows, were there. All ages, as well as countries, seemed to have sent their representatives to stalk as victors amidst the nation which but yesterday had claimed glory above the dreams of antiquity, and the undisputed mastery of the European world.
The council at the hotel of Talleyrand did not protract its sitting. Alexander and Frederick William, urged by all their assessors to re-establish the House of Bourbon, still hesitated. "It is but a few days ago," said the Czar, "since a column of 5 or 6000 new troops suffered themselves to be cut in pieces before my eyes, when a single cry of Vive le Roi would have saved them." De Pradt answered, "Such things will go as long as you continue to treat with Buonaparte—even although at this moment he has a halter round his neck." The Czar did not understand this last illusion; it was explained to him that the Parisians were busy in pulling down Napoleon's statue from the top of the great pillar in the Place Vendome. Talleyrand now suggested that the Conservative Senate should be convoked, and required to nominate a provisional government, the members of which should have power to arrange a constitution. And to this the sovereigns assented. Alexander signed forthwith a proclamation asserting the resolution of the Allies to "treat no more with Napoleon Buonaparte, or any of his family." Talleyrand had a printer in waiting, and the document was immediately published, with this significant affix, "Michaud, Printer to the King." If any doubt could have remained after this, it must be supposed to have ceased at nine the same evening, when the royalist gentry once more assembled, sent a second deputation to Alexander, and were (the Czar himself having retired to rest) received, and answered in these words, by his minister Nesselrode:—"I have just left the Emperor, and it is in his name that I speak. Return to your assembly, and announce to all the French, that, touched with the cries he has heard this morning, and the wishes since so earnestly expressed to him, his Majesty is about to restore the crown to him to whom alone it belongs. Louis XVIII. will immediately ascend his throne."
And yet it is by no means clear that even at the time when this apparently most solemn declaration was uttered, the resolution of the Allies had been unalterably taken. Nesselrode personally inclined to a regency, and preserving the crown to the King of Rome; nor is it to be doubted that that scheme, if at all practicable, would have been preferred by the Emperor of Austria. But the Frenchmen who had once committed themselves against Napoleon could not be persuaded but that his influence would revive, to their own ruin, under any Buonapartean administration; and the events of the two succeeding days were decisive. The Municipal Council met, and proclaimed that the throne was empty. This bold act is supposed to have determined the Conservative Senate. On the 1st of April that body also assembled, and named a provisional government, with Talleyrand for its head. The deposition of Napoleon was forthwith put to the vote, and carried without even one dissentient voice. On the 2nd the Legislative Senate, angrily dispersed in January, were in like manner convoked; and they too ratified the decrees proposed by the Conservative. On the 3rd the senatus-consultum was published, and myriads of hands were busy in every corner of the city pulling down the statues and pictures, and effacing the arms and initials of Napoleon. Meantime the Allied Princes appointed military governors of Paris, were visible daily at processions and festivals, and received, night after night, in the theatres, the tumultuous applause of the most inconstant of peoples.
It was in the night between the 2nd and the 3rd that Caulaincourt returned from his mission to Fontainebleau, and informed Napoleon of the events which he had witnessed; he added, that the Allies had not yet, in his opinion, made up their minds to resist the scheme of a regency, but that he was commissioned to say nothing could be arranged, as to ulterior questions, until he, the Emperor, had formally abdicated his throne. The Marshals assembled at Fontainebleau seem, on hearing this intelligence, to have resolved unanimously that they would take no further part in the war; but Napoleon himself was not yet prepared to give up all without a struggle. The next day, the 4th of April, he reviewed some of his troops, harangued them on "the treasonable proceedings in the capital," announced his intention of instantly marching thither, and was answered by enthusiastic shouts of "Paris! Paris!" He, on this, conceiving himself to be secure of the attachment of his soldiery, gave orders for advancing headquarters to Essonne. With the troops which had filed through Paris, under Marmont's convention, and those which had followed himself from Troyes, nearly 50,000 men were once more assembled around Fontainebleau; and with such support Napoleon was not yet so humbled as to fear hazarding a blow, despite all the numerical superiority of the Allies.
When, however, he retired to the chateau, after the review, he was followed by his Marshals, and respectfully, but firmly, informed, that if he refused to negotiate on the basis of his personal abdication, and persisted in risking an attack on Paris, they would not accompany him. He paused for a moment in silence—and a long debate ensued. The statements and arguments which he heard finally prevailed; and Napoleon drew up, and signed, in language worthy of the solemn occasion, this act:—