The causes of the disagreement between Napoleon and the Emperor Alexander dated back to the Treaty of Tilsit. At that time, though personally full of enthusiasm for the French conqueror, Alexander looked with suspicion on the formation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw as a possible first step towards the restoration of Poland. Napoleon pointed out to him that he could obtain compensation in the direction of Sweden and of Turkey—a suggestion which led to the conquest of Finland and eventually of Bessarabia. Though Alexander carried out the projects proposed to him, he continued to resent the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and still more the maintenance of French troops in that quarter. At the Congress of Erfurt Napoleon to some degree allayed the suspicions of his ally, but on his return to Russia there can be no doubt that Alexander looked upon himself as duped and badly treated. The war of 1809 widened the breach. Napoleon complained that the Russian troops promised for his assistance had not acted with vigour, and Alexander regarded with open discontent the cession of part of Austrian Galicia to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The dethronement of the Duke of Oldenburg, who had married Alexander’s favourite sister, the Grand Duchess Catherine, and the absorption of his Duchy into the French Empire, in 1810, was another and more personal cause of disagreement. The delay in granting a Russian grand duchess to him in marriage was looked on by Napoleon as a personal slight, and his interference in Spain appeared to the Russian Emperor a sign that Napoleon could maltreat even his most faithful ally. The carrying out of the Continental Blockade embittered the situation. Napoleon complained that the Russians did not adhere loyally to the arrangement for the exclusion of English commerce. Alexander on his side complained that his country was being ruined by the blockade, while the French Emperor granted many licences to Frenchmen to trade with England.

To these political reasons must be added the personal characters of the two emperors. Napoleon, though he had spoken at Tilsit of dividing Europe between France and Russia, began, as his power increased, to devise schemes for securing the Empire of Europe for himself and the exclusion of Russia from any share. Instead of restoring the Empires of the East and West, Napoleon arrogated to himself the position of ruler of Europe, and spoke of thrusting Russia back into Asia. In these views he was encouraged by many of those surrounding him. His marshals, finding no profits to be got from Spain, looked forward to enriching themselves in Russia. His statesmen, either from motives of their own or to please his personal wishes, declared that France could not be safe until Russia was crushed. Alexander on his side was surrounded by bitter enemies of Napoleon. His ministers never wearied of emphasizing the ruin caused to Russia by the Continental Blockade. The King of Prussia, whom he had made his personal friend, pleaded for the complete restoration of his dominions. His family, and especially his mother, regarded Napoleon as the enemy of the human race; English agents were perpetually inciting the Russians to declare for commercial freedom; and three of the most accomplished and most able statesmen in Europe constantly urged him to war with France, namely, Stein, whom Napoleon had ordered the King of Prussia to dismiss; Pozzo di Borgo, a Corsican, who had known Napoleon in his youth, and who hated him as a personal enemy; and Nesselrode, a skilled diplomatist and an intimate friend of Metternich.

These various causes, both political and personal, might not then have led to war had it not been for the direct intervention of the English by means of the new Prince Royal of Sweden, Bernadotte. Lord Castlereagh, in January 1812, returned to office. He advocated the carrying on of the war against Napoleon, not only by reinforcing Wellington in the Peninsula, but by subsidizing the monarchs of the Continent. He therefore despatched three diplomatists to the three chief courts of the Continent, to endeavour to form a fresh coalition against Napoleon. These were his brother, Sir Charles Stewart, ambassador to Berlin, Lord Aberdeen to Vienna, and Lord Cathcart to St. Petersburg. Lord Cathcart was a distinguished military officer, and strenuously urged Alexander to declare war, and he brought with him several English officers to assist in reorganizing the Russian army, of whom the best known is Sir Robert Wilson. But it was rather through Sweden than directly that Castlereagh influenced the Emperor Alexander. Bernadotte, on being elected Prince Royal, had applied to Sweden the Continental Blockade against England, but he soon perceived how ruinous that policy was to his new country, and inclined to make some arrangement with England. Being unable to break with Napoleon by himself, Bernadotte acted as the intermediary between England and Russia, and in April 1812 signed a secret treaty with Alexander at Abo, by which Sweden renounced all claims on Finland on condition that Russia should promise Norway in its stead. Both England and Russia approved of this scheme. Frederick VI. of Denmark, who had succeeded his father, Christian VII., in 1808, had, after the capture of the Danish fleet in 1807, formed a most intimate alliance with Napoleon, and Alexander at Abo held out to Bernadotte, not only a hope that he might have the whole of Denmark as a result of successful war against the French, but even an expectation that he might eventually receive the throne of France as a reward for his services. Not less important than the English intervention in Sweden was the effect of English influence in Turkey; for it was through English mediation that the Treaty of Bucharest was signed in May 1812, which allowed the Emperor of Russia to concentrate all his military power against Napoleon.

Between France and Russia there remained, however, Austria, Poland, and Prussia. Though Napoleon’s direct domain extended to LÜbeck along the coast, he had not ventured to annex Germany proper, which lies between the Elbe and the Rhine, or to accept the title of German Emperor, in addition to that of the Emperor of the French and King of Italy, as had been suggested by the Prince Primate, Dalberg. Yet Germany proper, owing to his creation of the Confederation of the Rhine and the Kingdom of Westphalia, was so thoroughly under his influence that, from a military point of view, it might be regarded as part of his Empire. Austria, Poland, and Prussia were, however, more independent, and his first effort, when he decided to attack Russia, was to secure their active co-operation. The Emperor Francis, since the campaign of Wagram, had abandoned the idea of resistance. He feared and disliked the Russians; Napoleon was his son-in-law, and he did not intend to oppose his wishes. He therefore promised willingly enough that an Austrian army should invade Russia to the south of the direct French invasion. In the Grand Duchy of Warsaw the Poles cared little for their Grand Duke, the King of Saxony; they looked to Napoleon for the restoration of their complete independence, and delighted in the thought of striking a blow at their old foes, the Russians. In Prussia the position was more complicated. Reduced as the kingdom was, the reforms of Stein and Scharnhorst had created a national feeling, which could not as yet be utilised in attacks on the French soldiers who occupied the Prussian fortresses. Stein himself had been driven from Prussia by Napoleon’s orders, but a successor, Hardenberg, completed his work. It is significant that when Hardenberg was reappointed State Chancellor in 1810, he did not undertake the Foreign Office, as he had done in 1806, but the ministries of the Finance and the Interior. It was Hardenberg who in 1810 made the nobles subject to taxation, and brought Stein’s promised Representative Assemblies into partial use; who, on 23rd January 1811, suppressed the Teutonic Order, and made its possessions part of the national domain; and who, on 11th September 1811, achieved the logical result of Stein’s edict abolishing serfdom by granting the peasants power to become absolute proprietors of two-thirds of their holdings on surrendering the other third to the lords in full recognition of all feudal dues and servitudes.

Hardenberg’s most ardent coadjutor was William von Humboldt. As Stein and Hardenberg had done the work of the French Revolution in Prussia by abolishing feudalism and securing equality before the law, so William von Humboldt established a national system of education in many respects similar to Napoleon’s creation in France, and reformed the whole department of public instruction. At the head of the system was founded the University of Berlin. Prussia had deeply felt the loss of the University of Halle when that city was separated from Prussia by the Treaty of Tilsit. KÖnigsberg, though made famous by Kant, was too distant from the centre of the reduced kingdom to fill its place, and the new national spirit was concentrated in the new University of Berlin. Learned men came from all parts of Germany. Savigny, Fichte, Wolf, Buttmann, Boeckh, Schleiermacher, and Niebuhr all enrolled themselves as professors; and Germany, not merely Prussia, found a worthy representative in the world of thought.

In the resurrection of Prussia King Frederick William III. merely acquiesced in the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg. But his former leaning to neutrality had given place to a desire for revenge on the French. In July 1810 he lost his patriotic wife, Queen Louise, and her death only exasperated his feelings. Nevertheless, he refused to declare himself on the side of Russia in 1812. The Emperor Alexander announced his policy of allowing the French to invade, and his intention of thus drawing Napoleon far from his base, and Frederick William felt that he was not strong enough to openly oppose the French Emperor. He was even constrained by the occupation of his fortresses to go further, and, on 24th February 1812, he signed an offensive and defensive alliance with Napoleon. By this treaty Prussia was not only to feed the French armies passing through her dominions to invade Russia, but to send an army of 30,000 men to act with them. Alexander was not displeased by this behaviour. He knew that Prussia could not help itself; he felt a sincere friendship for the hapless king; he understood that beneath the surface, not only Prussia, but all Germany was boiling with indignation against the French; and in 1812, when war was at hand, he summoned the inspirer of German national feeling, the great Prussian minister, Stein, from his exile in Austria to become his adviser and coadjutor in his German policy.

Without any actual declaration of war, Russia entered into negotiations with England, and Napoleon assembled a vast army on the banks of the Vistula. In May 1812 he entered Germany to take the command, and at Dresden had interviews with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria. Of the 325,000 men with whom he crossed the river NiÉmen and invaded Russia only 155,000 were French; the remainder were foreign contingents. He detached to his left Marshal Macdonald, with the Prussian contingent and some Westphalians and Poles, to attack Riga and advance on St. Petersburg, with the hope of joining Bernadotte and the Swedes; he was supported on his right by the Austrian subsidiary force, and with the centre of his army he advanced in person into Lithuania. That province being occupied, Napoleon crossed the Dnieper, and on the 18th of August he took Smolensk, in spite of the efforts of a Russian army of 80,000 men to cover the city. On his extreme right the Austrian army, under Prince Schwartzenberg, was checked by the arrival of the Russian army, set free by the Peace of Bucharest. The Russian generals, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, in the centre, steadily retreated.

This military policy soon reduced the efficiency and numbers of the French army; for it was drawn further from its base into a barren country, in which it was harassed by peasants and guerillas, and it was necessary to leave large divisions to protect the communications. The Emperor Alexander had approved of this policy, and as the Russian army retired the people abandoned their villages, as the Portuguese had done during the invasion of MassÉna in 1810. But the Russian soldiers grumbled at this politic retreat, and the Emperor Alexander resolved to strike one blow for his capital. Barclay de Tolly was replaced by Kutuzov, and the Russian army suddenly halted on the banks of the MoskovÁ. On the 7th of September a most terrible battle was fought there, which is known as the battle of Borodino. The Russians are said to have lost 50,000 men, including General Bagration, and it is certain that the French lost more than 30,000. Nevertheless, the French loss was proportionately the most; for Napoleon was far away from any reinforcements, whereas the Russians were fighting in their fatherland. On the 14th of September the French army occupied Moscow. On the 16th, either by accident or on purpose, fire broke out in the Russian capital. It raged for three days and three nights, and more than three-fifths of the city was utterly destroyed. The Emperor Alexander then entered into negotiations with Napoleon, and, whether he intended it or not, he kept the French Emperor from moving until too late for his safety. It was not until the 15th of October that Napoleon saw that negotiating was waste of time, and started from Moscow. The winter was an early one. Snow fell heavily. When Smolensk was reached, it was found that all the provisions stored there had been destroyed. The retreating army, now in a state of disorganisation, was hunted through the country, not only by the Russian soldiers, but by the peasantry returning to their homes. Marshal Ney covered the retreat, and won on this occasion his title of ‘the bravest of the brave.’ Napoleon, on being informed that a conspiracy against him, headed by General Malet, had been discovered in Paris, left the retreating army early in December. After his departure the cold increased. The retreat became a rout; Murat, who succeeded to the command, could not keep the army together; and but very few of the 155,000 Frenchmen who had invaded Russia recrossed the river NiÉmen.

While Napoleon was wrecking one army in Russia, Wellington was defeating another French army in Spain. Marmont, who had succeeded MassÉna, failed to prevent the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo in January, or that of Badajoz in April, and after a long course of intricate manoeuvres, gave Wellington the opportunity to attack and defeat him at the battle of Salamanca, July 22, 1812. The victory was complete. Joseph Bonaparte evacuated Madrid, and withdrawing all his troops from Andalusia fell back behind the Ebro. Wellington occupied Madrid on August 12, and then with his main army advanced on Burgos. Burgos, however, resisted all his assaults. The Anglo-Portuguese army had to retire once more into Portugal, and Joseph Bonaparte for the last time returned to his capital. While this campaign was being fought Lord William Bentinck, who commanded the English garrison in Sicily, was requested to send troops to the eastern coast of Spain to effect a diversion. But the operations were badly combined; Sir John Murray was driven from before Tarragona; and at a subsequent date Lord William Bentinck himself failed to make an impression on Suchet’s army at Alicante. The victory of Salamanca was a proof of the insecure foundation on which the throne of Joseph Bonaparte rested. Owing to it alone he had to leave Madrid, and evacuate the whole of southern Spain; the military policy of the English ministers was justified; and though Salamanca cannot be compared with the disasters in Russia, it yet had its effect in showing the increasing weakness of the French military power.

The retreat of the French and their passage of the NiÉmen enabled Prussia to throw off the mask of alliance with France. The Prussian contingent, amounting to 18,000 men, had been placed under the command of Marshal Macdonald, and was occupied in the siege of Riga. Napoleon had hoped that this detached army upon his left would be joined by Bernadotte at the head of the Swedes. But Bernadotte, as has been seen, had forgotten his French nationality in accepting the position of heir to the Swedish throne. His first idea was to make himself popular in Sweden by securing the conquest of Norway to take the place of Finland, and behind it lay the hope of possibly succeeding Napoleon himself. In his original communications with the Emperor Alexander, he had demanded the assistance of a Russian army for the conquest of Norway as the price of his adhesion to the coalition against Napoleon. When Alexander would not make a definite promise, Bernadotte applied to his former sovereign in June 1812, and promised to assist in the French invasion of Russia, if Napoleon would guarantee to him the possession of Norway. But the French Emperor would make no compact with his former marshal, and hoped that he would lend his assistance to the occupation of St. Petersburg in return for vague promises. Bernadotte therefore remained neutral, and Macdonald, without the expected help from Sweden, could get no further than Riga. The retreat of the main French army from Moscow made it necessary for Macdonald likewise to fall back, and in the course of his retreat the Prussian contingent, under the command of General York, deserted, and that general signed the Convention of Tauroggen, on 30th December 1812, by which he abandoned France without definitely declaring himself upon the side of Russia. Macdonald, with his Westphalians and Poles, managed to leave Russia in safety, and to join the remnants of the main army. But the desertion of York was a symptom of what was to follow. Stein summoned the Estates of East Prussia at KÖnigsberg; the Prussians rose en masse, and the French army, pursued by the Russian troops and these new enemies, retreated behind the Vistula.

Frederick William of Prussia at last threw off the mask, and, on the 7th of February 1813, he called out the reserve which had been formed by the skilful military policy of Scharnhorst, and ordered the Landwehr and the Landsturm to join the colours; on 27th February he signed the Treaty of Kalisch with Russia, promising alliance; on 16th March he declared war against France; and he joined the headquarters of his friend Alexander, and lived in his company until the termination of the war. Prussian enthusiasm grew to its height; the reserves fell in from every city and district, and the broken French army, which was now left under the command of EugÈne de Beauharnais, retreated first behind the Oder and then behind the Elbe, leaving powerful garrisons in Dantzic, Stettin, and the chief Prussian fortresses. The Russians of the army of the right pursued vigorously, and after driving the French from Berlin, the Russian generals, Chernishev and Tetterborn, took Hamburg. The resurrection of Prussia and the rapid retreat of the French caused Bernadotte to declare himself openly on the side of the allies, and he crossed the Baltic and entered Germany at the head of a Swedish army of 12,000 men. The King of Prussia’s declaration of war with France was received with enthusiasm. Two separate Prussian armies were formed, the first under BÜlow to act with the Swedes, and the Russian army of the right, and to defend Berlin, the other under BlÜcher in Silesia to co-operate with the second invading army of the left from Russia. The command in chief of this latter army was, after the death of Kutuzov in May, conferred on Barclay de Tolly, while Wittgenstein commanded the Russian contingent.

In the spring of 1813 Napoleon started for Germany to face the new coalition. His Westphalian, Bavarian, and Saxon allies were still true to him and increased their contingents. He called to his assistance the old soldiers who were employed in the garrisons of Holland and Northern Germany, and he raised a large number of fresh conscripts, who, in spite of their youth and inexperience, were at once directed upon Germany. At the head of 250,000 men, eventually increased to 300,000, he invaded Saxony. He defeated Wittgenstein at Lutzen or Gross GÖrschen on the 2d of May, at which battle his friend, Marshal BessiÈres was killed, and Scharnhorst was mortally wounded, and reoccupied Saxony. He defeated the whole of the allied army of Silesia at Bautzen on the 20th of May, and established his headquarters at Dresden. Meanwhile Vandamme had recaptured Hamburg, and, after placing it in a state of defence, joined the Emperor in Saxony. After these vigorous blows both sides desired a rest, and on the 3d of June the Armistice of Pleswitz was signed, and it was agreed that a congress should be held at Prague to consider if terms of peace could not be arranged. The important point to be decided at Prague was the position to be adopted by Austria; and both sides prepared to offer a high price for her active assistance, for her intervention would probably settle the result of the war. Napoleon trusted that his father-in-law, the Emperor Francis, would not abandon him, and counted upon the assistance of an Austrian army. He relied also upon the hereditary hatred of Austria for Prussia, and promised his father-in-law, as the price of his active assistance, not only the restoration of the Illyrian provinces, but of the whole of Silesia, which Frederick the Great had torn from Maria Theresa. Napoleon was even sanguine enough to count upon the former friendship which the Emperor Alexander had felt for him, and he hoped that the invasion of Russia would be forgiven if he guaranteed the possession of the whole of Poland. The country which would be sacrificed by these arrangements was Prussia. Napoleon projected the entire extinction of the Prussian kingdom, and suggested that the kingdom of Westphalia should be extended to the Oder. That he should venture to offer such terms showed how entirely Napoleon misunderstood his position. The Emperor Francis, although his daughter was Napoleon’s wife, could not forget the humiliations that Austria had undergone, and allowed his feelings as an Austrian to outweigh his sentiments as a father. The Emperor Alexander had been entirely cured by the invasion of Russia of his former infatuation, and now distrusted the French Emperor as much as he had formerly believed in him; he had struck up an intimacy with the King of Prussia, and had promised him his restoration to the whole of his dominions.

Meanwhile the rulers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia signed a treaty at Reichenbach on 17th June 1813, by which Austria assumed the position of a mediator and promised to declare war against France, if the conditions of peace, which she should offer, were rejected. In return for this attitude, Austria was given a free hand to negotiate with the South German States, and the idea of rousing a national German feeling against France, which was strongly advocated by Stein, was abandoned. Metternich had no liking for the national idea; it seemed to him to bear the imprint of the spirit of the French Revolution, and could only end in disaster to Austria. The rising of Prussia had indeed been a success, but if it spread through Germany, it might end in a united Germany with Prussia at its head, and the consequent depreciation of the Austrian power. The example of Spain, which Stein and patriotic Germans pointed to, seemed to cut in two ways; if, on the one hand, it had raised a people in arms against Napoleon, on the other it had encouraged revolutionary ideas. Both the Emperor Alexander and King Frederick William felt the weight of these arguments, and the conception of the war changed from a national uprising to a coalition of the usual type. Under these circumstances, Napoleon’s propositions were ignored, and proposals were made to him on the other hand that he should be content with the natural limits of France, namely, the Rhine and the Alps; that he should restore the Bourbons to Spain and the independence of Holland; that he should abandon his position as head of the Confederation of the Rhine and allow the Pope to return to Rome. Murat was to remain at Naples, and Jerome on the throne of Westphalia, and the terms offered were by no means unfavourable to France, though perhaps hardly justified by the military position of the allies. Metternich, who perceived that Austria held the key to the position, brought these terms to Napoleon’s headquarters at Dresden, and informed the Emperor that if they were not accepted, Austria would join the coalition against him.

Napoleon refused with scorn; Castlereagh, through the English ambassador, Lord Aberdeen, promised large subsidies to Austria; and on the 1st of August 1813, the Emperor of Austria promised definitely to join the allies with 200,000 men if Napoleon refused to accept the terms offered to him. The Congress met at Prague. Caulaincourt, the French plenipotentiary, stated that he had no power to accept the terms offered by Francis, and Austria, on the 12th of August, declared war against France. On the 14th of August, when it was too late, Napoleon declared his acceptance of the terms, and received the answer that the whole matter must be referred to the allied monarchs. War in fact was inevitable, and the Armistice of Pleswitz was at an end.

The intervention of Austria not only deprived Napoleon of an expected ally, but endangered his military position in Saxony, as a strong Austrian army was being concentrated in Bohemia under the command of Prince Charles von Schwartzenberg. Nevertheless the French Emperor refused to retire, and prepared at the head of 300,000 men to make face against the allies in spite of their great superiority in number. The plan of campaign of the allies was drawn up by Moreau, who had been induced to leave America and give the advantage of his advice to the Czar of Russia. There was also upon the staff of the Russian army one of the ablest strategists in Europe who, like Moreau, had formerly been an officer in the French army, General Jomini. The plan was to direct an army from the north, of Prussians, Russians and Swedes, under BÜlow, Chernishev, and Bernadotte, an army from the east of Russians, called the Army of Poland, which was being formed under Benningsen, an army from Silesia, of Prussians under BlÜcher, and Russians under Wittgenstein, and finally an army of Austrians under Schwartzenberg, assisted by the Russian main army of Barclay de Tolly, and the Russian Imperial Guard under the Grand Duke Constantine, upon Dresden. But Napoleon with his accustomed rapidity of action determined to strike first, and he detached three corps under Oudinot, Macdonald and Vandamme, against Bernadotte, BlÜcher, and Schwartzenberg; Benningsen was too far in the rear to be dangerous. Oudinot and Macdonald were defeated by Bernadotte and BlÜcher at Gross-Beeren and the Katzbach respectively, on the 23d and 25th of August, and Schwartzenberg, instead of waiting for the other armies, attacked the French centre at Dresden. On the 26th and 27th of August a terrible battle was fought, in which Moreau was mortally wounded. Napoleon was successful, but he suffered severe losses which he was unable to repair. Three days later he received the news that Vandamme’s army, which had penetrated into Bohemia to cut off Schwartzenberg’s communications, had been forced to capitulate at Kulm to the Russians under Barclay de Tolly. The battle of Dresden proved to the allies that it was impossible for one of their armies to overthrow Napoleon unassisted, and they therefore recurred to their original plan. Napoleon once more endeavoured to break from his defensive position and struck at Berlin; but Marshal Ney was defeated by Bernadotte and BÜlow at Dennewitz, on 6th September, and he had to wait while the ring formed round him. The Emperor’s losses during the first part of this campaign had been immense. He had lost over 10,000 men by the capitulation of Kulm; his young soldiers had been decimated at the Katzbach and Dennewitz; and the troops of the German contingents deserted en masse. In fact when the operations of the allies were completed and their armies had concentrated around Leipzig, to which place he had withdrawn, he had not more than 160,000 men, whose confidence was shaken by repeated defeats, to oppose to more than double that number.

After the battle of Dresden, the army of Schwartzenberg retired into Bohemia, and the allied monarchs determined to define their position as to the future. The enormous armies they were concentrating made them feel sure of success, if they held together. On 9th September the important Treaty of TÖplitz was signed. By this treaty it was agreed that Prussia and Austria should be restored as nearly as possible to the limits they had held in 1805, that the Confederation of the Rhine should be dissolved, and that entire independence should be granted to the states of southern and western Germany. This decision overcame the lingering hesitation of the south German monarchs, who had feared retaliation from the allies for their consistent adhesion to Napoleon. Of these states, Bavaria was the chief, and on 8th October the Treaty of Ried was signed between Austria and Bavaria, by which Bavaria promised the aid of 36,000 men in return for complete indemnity and the recognition of complete sovereignty in her dominions. Then the allies in their full strength attacked Napoleon. For three days, from the 16th to the 19th of October, the terrible battle of Leipzig was fought. The result was a foregone conclusion, and even without the desertion of the Saxons in the course of the battle, the ruin of the French army was certain. Napoleon’s forces were not only defeated, they were destroyed, and in the utmost disorder the routed French divisions fled in a state of disorganisation across Germany. At this moment Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, whom Napoleon had made a king, declared against him as he had promised, and not only withdrew the Bavarian contingent, but endeavoured to check the French retreat. At the battle of Hanau on October the 30th, however, the remnant of the French army broke through the Bavarians, and it eventually found safety behind the Rhine.

The battle of Leipzig was followed by a general rising throughout central Europe against the French. The secret societies which had been formed to promote the idea of the freedom of Germany acted in every direction. Many isolated regiments of the French army were cut off and the French garrisons in the various German cities were closely besieged. The benefits which had been conferred by French administration were forgotten and the people thought only of the humiliation of the French occupation. Nor was this spirit confined to Germany. The Dutch rose in rebellion, and declared in all the chief cities of Holland for the Prince of Orange. That prince at once left England and set himself at the head of the insurgents, and Lord Castlereagh a few months later sent to his assistance an English force under the command of Sir Thomas Graham to reduce the few Dutch fortresses still occupied by French garrisons. In Italy also an almost universal insurrection broke out against the French domination. Lord William Bentinck, who commanded the English army which occupied Sicily, sailed to Genoa with a powerful force and encouraged the insurgents in that quarter. Meanwhile an Austrian army under General Hiller invaded Italy from the north-east and defeated EugÈne de Beauharnais at Valsarno on the 26th of October. Against this unanimity of national opposition Napoleon could make but little headway; the French people were tired of the conscription; they had not approved of the invasion of Russia; and were indisposed at the moment of crisis to support the Emperor.

While the French armies were suffering the succession of disasters which expelled them from Germany, a similar series of catastrophes occurred in Spain. Wellington broke up from his quarters in the summer of 1813, and marching in a north-easterly direction attempted to cut off all communication between France and Madrid. This movement completely overthrew the French domination in Spain. Joseph Bonaparte with all the troops he could collect fled from Madrid. He was unable to defend himself behind the Ebro as in 1812, for the positions on that river had been skilfully turned. Wellington eventually came up with the French army at Vittoria. There Marshal Jourdan, who commanded for King Joseph, endeavoured to resist, but he was completely defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese army on the 21st of June 1813. This victory drove the French back into France, for Suchet was likewise obliged to abandon his conquests in Valencia, and to retire into the mountains of Arragon and Catalonia. The victory in the field was followed as in Germany by a burst of national enthusiasm. The Spanish guerillas destroyed every isolated French post, and even managed to place some serviceable divisions at the disposition of Wellington. The English general took up a position on the French frontier between Pampeluna and San Sebastian, blockading the former and besieging the latter place. To face him Soult was sent to the south-west of France to defend the frontier. On the 31st of August San Sebastian was stormed; Pampeluna speedily fell; and Wellington was able to establish a new base of operations, and to invade France. On the 10th of November the Anglo-Portuguese army drove Soult from his positions on the Nivelle, and after the battles of the Nive or Saint Pierre from the 9th to the 13th of December Wellington invested Bayonne.

These repeated disasters in different quarters induced Napoleon to consider the advisability of concluding a peace. He was now only too ready to accept the terms offered to him at the Congress of Prague. The allies were by no means so united as they seemed. The Austrian Minister Metternich, in particular, was not desirous of destroying the power of France. England had no wish to come to any conclusion which should disproportionately increase the strength of Russia, and the aim of all the allied monarchs was to allow France to develop in her own way as long as she withdrew her pretensions to interfere in Europe. Metternich’s proposals, in November 1813, were that France should preserve her natural limits of the Rhine and the Alps, but should restore all former rulers in Holland, Italy, and Spain. Napoleon gave evidence of his desire for peace at this period by the dismissal of his Foreign Secretary, Maret, Duc de Bassano, and the appointment of Caulaincourt, Duc de Vicenza, who was known to be in favour of peace and was also a personal friend of the Emperor Alexander, at whose Court he had been ambassador during the palmy days of the alliance between France and Russia. The terms of peace offered by Metternich, which are known as the Proposals of Frankfort, at which city the allied monarchs were residing, were confided to M. de Saint-Aignan, a French diplomatist who had been taken prisoner during the advance of the allies and who was the brother-in-law of Caulaincourt. The proposals were definitely acceded to by Lord Aberdeen on the part of England and by Hardenberg on the part of Prussia. The favourable nature of them was dictated by the fear entertained by the allied monarchs that France would rise in her might as she had done in 1793 if her borders were invaded. For this reason the allies remained for some weeks upon the right bank of the Rhine, concentrating their forces and hesitating to advance. Napoleon, however, could not understand that he was beaten. Instead of replying at once to the Proposals of Frankfort, which were dated the 9th of November, it was not until late in December that he instructed Caulaincourt to go to the allied quarters and discuss them. His instructions to Caulaincourt showed how little he appreciated the position of affairs. He demanded that, in addition to the natural limits of France, he should hold the cities of Wesel, Cassel opposite Mayence, and Kehl opposite Strasbourg on the right bank of the Rhine, which fairly signified that he did not abandon his projects on Germany. He further demanded that a kingdom should be formed for his brother Jerome in Germany, and for EugÈne de Beauharnais in Italy. Before these counter-propositions reached the headquarters of the allied monarchs, they had resolved to invade France, and the opportunity was gone for ever for France to attain her natural limits under the sanction of Europe.

The attitude of the allies, as indicated in the Proposals of Frankfort, was mainly dictated by Metternich, who did not desire to see his Emperor’s son-in-law dethroned or to see France greatly weakened. But the Emperor Alexander and his friend, the King of Prussia, soon repented of the assent they had given to Metternich’s ideas. Alexander desired to invade France as a reply to the invasion of Russia in 1812, and hoped to occupy Paris as Napoleon had occupied Moscow. The King of Prussia, and still more his generals and ministers, had felt most keenly the humiliating condition to which Prussia had been degraded, and desired to wreak their vengeance on France. It was therefore agreed that since the Proposals of Frankfort had not been promptly accepted, the result of a successful invasion of France should be the return of that country into the limits she possessed at the beginning of the wars of the Revolution. The attitude of Russia and Prussia was that adopted by England. Lord Castlereagh heard with dismay, that it was intended to allow France the limits of the Rhine, for by that concession she would hold Belgium and Antwerp, which it had been the consistent policy of all English Ministers for many generations to keep independent of France. The barrier treaties of former days, and the wars against Louis XIV. had been sustained for the purpose of keeping France out of the Belgian Netherlands, and the English cabinet resolved to continue this classic policy. For this purpose, Lord Castlereagh was in person despatched to the headquarters of the allied monarchs, with the greatest powers ever granted to a British statesman. He was given ‘full powers to negotiate and conclude of his own authority, and without further consultation with the government, all conventions or treaties, either for the prosecution of war or for the restoration of peace.’[12]

Lord Castlereagh sailed from Harwich on the 31st of December 1813, on which day BlÜcher with the main Prussian army, known as the Army of Silesia, crossed the Rhine in three columns at Coblentz, Mannheim, and Mayence. BlÜcher was supported by three Russian corps d’armÉe, but it was further south that the main Russian army in conjunction with the Austrians invaded France under the command of Schwartzenberg. It was not without some difficulty that the Emperor Alexander was induced to consent to the violation of the neutrality of Switzerland. But the military arguments put forward by his generals overcame his scruples. By marching through Switzerland, Schwartzenberg’s army was enabled to turn the mountains of the Jura, and to leave the French fortresses on the Rhine, behind him. This invasion on two distinct lines gave Napoleon the opportunity of carrying out one of the military manoeuvres of which he was most fond. He concentrated between the two invading armies a force of between 50,000 and 70,000 men. This was a terrible falling off from the vast armies with which he had invaded Russia in 1812, and fought the allies in Saxony in 1813; it was a falling off not only in numbers, but in military efficiency, for with the exception of the remnant of the Guard, he had only under his command some regiments of conscripts and national guards untrained to war. At this period Napoleon bitterly repented the mistake he had made, in leaving over 150,000 veteran soldiers as garrisons in the various fortresses in Europe. The presence of these men would very likely have turned the scale. He had left, for instance, 12,000 men in Hamburg under the command of Marshal Davout, 16,000 in Magdeburg, 8000 in Dantzic, and large garrisons in other distant cities, such as Stettin. These fortresses were blockaded by local militia; their occupation did not withdraw many regular troops from the allied armies, while it fatally weakened the resources of France.

Nevertheless, with his boy conscripts and his Guard, Napoleon fought one of his greatest campaigns. BlÜcher foolishly scattered his troops, after his entry into Champagne. Napoleon quickly took advantage of his mistake. He cut up division after division of BlÜcher’s army at Brienne, Champaubert, Montmirail, and Vauchamps, between the 29th of January and the 14th of February, and then turning against Schwartzenberg, who had also scattered his forces, he defeated a Russian division at Nangis, and an Austrian division at Montereau on the 17th and 18th of February. These rapid blows startled and disconcerted the allies. BlÜcher’s army was practically destroyed; Schwartzenberg fell back, and asked for an armistice; and proposals were made for the evacuation of France. It was only the constancy of the Emperor Alexander and the determination of Lord Castlereagh which induced the allies to persist. Two corps d’armÉe, one of Prussians under BÜlow, the other of Russians under Wintzingerode, were on Lord Castlereagh’s sole authority detached from Bernadotte’s army and ordered to reinforce BlÜcher. Meanwhile, Alexander insisted that Schwartzenberg should concentrate instead of retiring. In reality, Napoleon’s successes were more fatal to himself than to the allies, for they induced him to break off the negotiations at the Congress of ChÂtillon.

While the first campaign of 1814 was being fought out in France, the movement against Napoleon was becoming general. Bernadotte had after the victory of Leipzig been placed in command of the army in northern Germany. Full of the idea which had been suggested to him by the Emperor Alexander in 1812, that he might succeed Napoleon on the throne of France, Bernadotte did not wish to appear before his own countrymen in the light of an invader. He had occupied himself for some weeks after the battle of Leipzig with blockading Davout in Hamburg, and fighting the Danes in Holstein. Even if he could not obtain the throne of France, he was quite resolved to win Norway, and for this purpose he attacked the Danes, and after some fighting, compelled Frederick VI. of Denmark to sign the Treaty of Kiel on 14th January 1814, by which Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden, in exchange for Swedish Pomerania. Bernadotte even went so far as to negotiate with Davout, to whom he promised a free passage to France with all his troops as the price of the surrender of Hamburg. But the Emperor Alexander would not submit to this, and Bernadotte was imperiously ordered only to leave a blockading force before Hamburg, and to advance to the French frontier.

It was at this juncture that Bernadotte was deprived of his two finest corps d’armÉe, which were ordered up to the assistance of BlÜcher. But in addition to the danger threatened by Bernadotte’s army, Napoleon also met with serious opposition in the Netherlands. The Dutch people declared for the Prince of Orange, and Holland was quickly lost. A force under the command of the Prince marched into Belgium, and besieged Antwerp, which was defended by the former member of the Committee of Public Safety, Carnot, who, though neglected by Napoleon in the days of his greatness, had come to the help of France in the time of her distress. To assist the Prince an English division under Sir Thomas Graham had, as has been said, been despatched to Holland. Graham failed to take Bergen-op-Zoom on the 20th of February, but his presence in the Netherlands not only encouraged the Dutch, but prevented Napoleon from obtaining help from that quarter.

In the south, Marshal Augereau, whom the Emperor had placed in command at Lyons, was, as he himself said, no longer the Augereau of Castiglione. He had been directed to make a diversion against the Austrian left as it entered France with some conscripts and troops drawn from the former Army of Spain, but he remained inactive, and his operations were of no assistance to the Emperor. In the south-west corner of France, Soult was unable to do more than make head against Wellington and the Anglo-Portuguese army. After the battles of the Nive or of Saint Pierre, Bayonne was completely invested, and Wellington, leaving the left of his army to carry on the siege, marched eastwards against Soult. That marshal had been weakened by the detachments he had been ordered to send to Augereau, and to Napoleon himself. Nevertheless, he made a gallant stand at Orthez on the 27th of February, but was defeated and forced to fall back further into France.

In Italy the Viceroy, EugÈne de Beauharnais, who in the retreat from Russia had given evidence that he was a general of the very first order, offered a gallant resistance to the Austrians under General Hiller. But the defection of the King of Bavaria, his father-in-law, opened the passes of the Tyrol to the Austrians, and EugÈne de Beauharnais was then compelled to retreat. At the commencement of 1814, Metternich entered into negotiations with Murat, the King of Naples. Through the influence of his wife, Caroline Murat, sister of Napoleon, with whom Metternich had been in most intimate relations when he was ambassador at Paris, Murat, in the hope of preserving his kingdom, issued a violent proclamation against his benefactor, Napoleon, and advanced to the banks of the Po, at the head of a Neapolitan army of 80,000 men. This movement caused EugÈne de Beauharnais, whose fidelity to his stepfather shines out in bright contrast to the treachery of Murat, to fall back still further. He defeated the Austrians under Marshal Bellegarde on the Mincio on the 8th of February, but was unable to follow up his success owing to the position of Murat. In his rear, Lord William Bentinck had landed at Genoa and issued a proclamation promising independence to that city, and the support of England in securing the independence and unity of Italy. Napoleon at one time thought of calling EugÈne de Beauharnais to his side, but his rapid victories over the isolated corps d’armÉe of the allies in February caused him to abandon this wise project.

It has been said that one effect of Napoleon’s victories was to break up the Congress of ChÂtillon. It had been suggested that a congress should meet at Mannheim at the time of the Proposals of Frankfort, but Napoleon’s delay prevented it from assembling until after the invasion of France was an accomplished fact. The success of this invasion altered the attitude of the allies towards France. They saw that the French nation was not going to arise in its might as it had done in 1793. They heard through sure hands that the people were almost in open rebellion against the Emperor. The Legislative Body had dared to oppose his wishes. Everywhere the conscription was evaded, and there was a muttered feeling throughout France that the country had had enough of war and that it was time that the blood-tax on the French youth should cease. Even the army itself was beginning to despair. The Emperor had lost his prestige in Russia and at Leipzig. His soldiers were not the veterans of his former wars; his generals and his marshals began to murmur and to fear that a war À outrance would end in their personal ruin. Under these circumstances the Congress of ChÂtillon met on the 3d of February 1814. The French plenipotentiary was Caulaincourt, the most upright of Napoleon’s statesmen. The other powers nominated, not their chief ministers, Metternich, Nesselrode, Hardenberg, and Castlereagh, although they were all at headquarters, but subordinate diplomatists, namely, Count Philip Stadion, the predecessor of Metternich, for Austria, William von Humboldt for Prussia, Razumovski for Russia, and Lord Cathcart, Lord Aberdeen, and Sir Charles Stewart for England.

At ChÂtillon very different conditions from the Proposals of Frankfort were offered. The main stipulation was that France should return to her limits before the Revolution. England haughtily declared that the naval question with regard to the rights of neutrals was not to be mentioned, and everything was made subject to the great question of the French limits. Caulaincourt disputed the proposals on the ground that it was unfair that France should be reduced to the limits she had held in 1789 while the other powers had been so vastly increased by the rearrangement of Germany and the partition of Poland. Nevertheless he was most anxious that Napoleon should accept these proposals. He granted that they were worse than the Proposals of Frankfort, but argued that if the war continued they were likely to be worse still. Napoleon, however, looked upon the Congress as an opportunity for gaining time. He believed that by his military successes he would avert the disasters which threatened him, and on the day of the battle of Montereau, the 18th of February, he wrote that he was only willing to agree to a peace on the basis of the Frankfort Proposals, and in his own handwriting he added to his despatch to Caulaincourt, ‘Sign nothing.’[13] It is worthy of note that in the Proposals of ChÂtillon nothing was said about Napoleon himself. The Emperor Francis assumed that his son-in-law would remain upon the throne of France, and Lord Castlereagh expressed no view to the contrary. But the English Minister was absolutely determined not to yield to Napoleon’s demand for the natural limits of France. England was the paymaster of the coalition, and Castlereagh having just promised £10,000,000 to pay the military expenses of 1814 felt that he had the right to insist on his demand. Napoleon in after years declared that his persistence in retaining Belgium was the reason for his refusal to accede to the Proposals of ChÂtillon. ‘Antwerp,’ he said to Las Cases, ‘was to me a province in itself; it was the principal cause of my exile to Saint Helena, for it was the required cession of that fortress which made me refuse the terms offered at ChÂtillon. If they would have left it to me peace would have been concluded.’[14] Metternich wrote to Caulaincourt pressing the acceptance of the Proposals of ChÂtillon, but Napoleon obstinately refused, and the Congress had practically failed by the beginning of March, though it did not actually break up until the 19th of that month.

The fact that the French nation did not rise in arms against the invaders has been mentioned as the primary cause for the difference between the terms offered at Frankfort and at ChÂtillon. Nothing proves more completely how thoroughly Napoleon had extinguished the spirit of the Revolution than the lukewarmness with which his call to arms was received in 1814. In 1793 the invasion of France had caused a frenzy of patriotism. The people had submitted to the Reign of Terror, because it meant a strong government which could expel the English, Prussians, and Austrians. France was at that time hemmed in by difficulties infinitely greater than those which she had to face in 1814. Then she had no great general. In 1814 she possessed one of the greatest generals the world has ever seen. In 1793 she was torn by civil war in La VendÉe and by brigands in every sparsely populated district. In 1814 she had enjoyed fifteen years of internal tranquillity. In 1793 her finances were utterly disordered, her industries were destroyed, and the whole country a prey to anarchy. In 1814 she had been for years the chief nation in Europe, and the wealth of other countries had been drained to enrich her. But the difference was that in 1793 and the succeeding years the French people felt that they were fighting to ward off the interference of foreign nations in their internal affairs, whereas in 1814 they were called on to defend the power of a single man who had infringed the rights and the freedom of other nations. By his bureaucratic system Napoleon had crushed out the power of popular initiative which had been the strength of the Republic; by his suppression of individual liberty he had made the majority of the French people disaffected to his Empire.

There must be considered also the exhaustion of actual physical resources. In the campaigns of 1812 and 1813, it is estimated that nearly 750,000 Frenchmen were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Before that time the Grand Army had been slowly destroyed on many a field of battle, and there simply were not sufficient men of military instinct and physical strength to fill the ranks. In 1813 Napoleon enrolled the conscripts whose turn would have come in 1815—mere boys of sixteen, who had melted away after the battle of Leipzig—and the men he called to the ranks in 1814 were those who had been passed over by the conscription in previous years, and were too long inured to civil life to be willing to serve as soldiers.

To the feeling that resistance to the invaders was not a national duty, must be added a general indisposition to support the Empire. The opinions which had found vent during the French Revolution had not been extinguished by the Empire; they had only been suppressed; and all the educated part of the nation was united in desiring representative institutions so as to exercise a share in directing the policy of the government. This opinion showed itself in the Legislative Body which was summoned in December 1813. Napoleon had announced that his cause was the cause of France; but in return the leaders of the Legislative Body only begged him to make peace. A paragraph was inserted in the report of the Legislative Body upon the Proposals of Frankfort, which contains the following words: ‘It belongs to the Government according to the Constitution to propose the most effectual means to repel the enemy and secure peace. These means will only be effectual if the French people are convinced that their blood will be shed only to defend the country and our protective laws. It appears, therefore, indispensable that at the same time that His Majesty shall propose the most prompt and efficacious measures for the safety of the State, the Government should be besought to maintain the entire and constant execution of the laws which guarantee to the French people the rights of liberty, security, and property, and to the nation the complete enjoyment of its political rights. That guarantee appears the most effectual means for restoring to the French people the energy necessary for their defence in the present crisis.’ Napoleon was much irritated by this attack on his arbitrary authority, and although this paragraph was expunged from the report by 254 votes to 223 he nevertheless dissolved the Legislative Body in a rage.

Neither at the Congress of ChÂtillon nor in the Legislative Body was a single word said about restoring the Bourbons. They had lost all credit during their exile. The French people did not want them. The allied powers did not care about them. By Lord Castlereagh’s orders Wellington received the Duc d’AngoulÊme, son of the Comte d’Artois, in his camp in the south of France, but he distinctly refused to recognise him in any way whatever. The English general went further and issued a proclamation in which he declared that the war was being waged for security to Europe, not for a change of dynasty in France, and that no interference was either intended or would be permitted in the free decision of the French people with regard to their internal government. When the Duc d’AngoulÊme was favourably received in Bordeaux and the Mayor of that city hoisted the white flag, Wellington wrote to the Bourbon prince defining his attitude and censuring the assertion in the Duke’s proclamation, that he was supported by England.

In spite of his real weakness Napoleon was so infatuated by his successes in February 1814 that, as has been said, the Congress came to an end, but he was not far wrong in his estimation of the effect of his victories upon the allied monarchs. So profoundly was Schwartzenberg terrified by the destruction of BlÜcher’s army and the victories of Nangis and Montereau that he wished to retreat from France. Differences between the powers at this juncture threatened to break up the coalition, and it was only the determination of Lord Castlereagh that kept them together. The English minister on the 1st of March 1814 concluded the secret Treaty of Chaumont. By this treaty the relations of the allied monarchs to each other on several points were defined, and though many fresh causes of dissension arose at a later date, it was the Treaty of Chaumont which kept the powers together until the overthrow of Napoleon, and which laid the basis of the final settlement at Vienna. By this treaty the four great powers, England, Russia, Austria and Prussia, bound themselves, if France refused to return within her ancient limits, to form an offensive and defensive alliance. Each member of the coalition was to maintain 150,000 men in the field, and England bound herself, in addition to paying her own contingent and maintaining her navy, to contribute a subsidy of £5,000,000 a year to be divided equally amongst the other three contracting parties. As England by this arrangement offered more than twice as much as any other country, Castlereagh practically became the master of the coalition. After peace was concluded each of the powers was to furnish a contingent of 60,000 men if any one of them were attacked. The resettlement of Europe was to be arranged on the following bases: that the German Empire should be restored as a federal union; that Holland and Belgium should be united into a monarchy under the House of Orange; that Spain should be restored to its ancient sovereign; that Italy should be divided into independent states; and that Switzerland should be guaranteed as independent and neutral by all the great powers.

The result of the Treaty of Chaumont was to stiffen the attitude of the allies in France. All thought of retreat was abandoned and both the Austrians under Schwartzenberg, and the Army of Silesia under BlÜcher recommenced their advance upon Paris. Napoleon pursued the tactics which had been crowned with success in the month of February, and prepared to strike at each of the invading armies in turn. His first movement as before was against BlÜcher. The Army of Silesia had been reduced by the actions of Champaubert, Montmirail, etc., from 60,000 to 30,000 men, but it was now increased to more than its former number by the arrival of Saint Priest’s Russians and of the two corps of BÜlow and Wintzingerode which had been detached from Bernadotte by Lord Castlereagh. Napoleon was not aware of the extent of these reinforcements, and he therefore with his army of barely 30,000 men ventured to attack BlÜcher. On the 7th and 9th of March, the severe actions of Craonne and Laon were fought. Neither side won victories, but Napoleon failed to repeat his former successes, which was tantamount to a defeat. After the battle of Laon both BlÜcher and Napoleon reviewed the armies at their disposal, and the disparity of their strength is shown by the fact that whereas BlÜcher reviewed 109,000 men, Napoleon found that including all reinforcements, he had but 46,000. Having failed to check the Prussians, Napoleon turned to attack Schwartzenberg’s army. On the 20th of March he fought an action at Arcis-sur-Aube, in which the Russians repulsed the French attack. The Emperor then resolved on a final effort. He determined to attack the lines of communication of the invaders, and marched towards the Vosges Mountains. But the invaders were in too strong force to be terrified by this manoeuvre. A few divisions only were left to watch him, and the main armies continued their advance on Paris. On March the 30th, Schwartzenberg and BlÜcher arrived in front of the French capital. They had under their command about 200,000 men, whereas Marshals Marmont and Mortier, who had been charged with the defence of Paris, could not get under arms more than 28,000 including the National Guard. In spite of this enormous difference of strength the two marshals took up a position and prepared to defend Paris. But after the most obstinate resistance the allies carried the French position after ten hours’ fighting on the 30th of March, and on the following day the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia entered Paris. Napoleon rapidly followed the allied army, but the occupation of Paris was fatal to his cause. He was ready to continue the war, but his marshals were not. On the 4th of April Ney, Macdonald, Oudinot, and Lefebvre had an interview with the Emperor, and told him that the army would fight no more. Napoleon was obliged to give heed to their remonstrances, and he sent Ney, Macdonald, and Caulaincourt to make what arrangements might be possible with the allied monarchs.

On entering Paris the Emperor Alexander and King Frederick William proceeded at once to the residence of Talleyrand. That astute statesman quickly decided upon a definite policy. He understood that the allies had hitherto treated with Napoleon, and that they were not favourably disposed to the Bourbons. He knew that the French nation did not desire the return of the former dynasty. But he felt that the only method which would enable France to take up a logical position on the Continent was by the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. If Louis XVIII. were accepted as King of France, it would be a contradiction in terms to their professed belief in hereditary rights, and their hatred for the results of the Revolution, for the allied monarchs to attack the unity of France. For this reason Talleyrand persuaded Alexander that it would be inadmissible either to accept the government of the Empress Marie Louise in the name of her son, the King of Rome, or still less to recognise Alexander’s candidate, Bernadotte. In his own words to the Emperor: ‘Any attempt to create a Regency or to appoint Bernadotte is a mere intrigue; nothing remains but Bonaparte or the Bourbons.’ Alexander then declared that he would no longer treat with Napoleon, and Talleyrand as Vice-Arch-Chancellor of the Empire summoned the Senate to meet upon the 1st of April.

The Senate at once elected a Provisional Government consisting of Talleyrand as President and the Comte de Bournonville, former War Minister of the Republic, the Comte de Jaucourt, a former leader of the Legislative Assembly, the AbbÉ de Montesquiou, a former leader of the Constituent Assembly, and the Duc de Dalberg, nephew of the Prince Primate of Germany. The Senate then resolved that, whatever government should be adopted, the sale of the national and ecclesiastical estates in the days of the Revolution should be ratified, the liberty of worship and of the press established, and a general amnesty declared. On the following day the Emperor Alexander addressed the Senate. He said: ‘It is neither ambition nor the love of conquest which has led me hither; my armies have only entered France to repel unjust aggressions. Your Emperor carried war into the heart of my dominions when I only wished for peace. I am a friend of the French People; I impute their faults to their chief alone; I am here with the most friendly intentions; I wish only to protect your deliberations. You are charged with one of the most glorious missions which generous men can discharge,—that of securing the happiness of a great people, in giving France institutions, at once strong and liberal, with which she cannot dispense in the advanced state of civilisation to which she has attained.’ Alexander in conclusion, as a sign of his goodwill, declared that he would release the 150,000 French prisoners of war then in Russia.

That evening the Senate solemnly declared Napoleon to be no longer Emperor, and formed a Provisional Ministry, including Comte Beugnot, Minister of the Interior, Baron Louis, Minister of Finance, and General Dupont, who had been disgraced for the Capitulation of Baylen, Minister for War. Matters had reached this stage when Napoleon’s emissaries Ney, Macdonald, and Caulaincourt, arrived at the headquarters of the allied monarchs. These faithful adherents proposed that Napoleon should abdicate in favour of his infant son. This offer, which would have been gladly received some days before, was now rejected, owing to the influence of Talleyrand, and on April the 6th, when Napoleon received the news of this rejection, he unconditionally abdicated at Fontainebleau. This step was made necessary by the fact that the faithful marshals could not even speak in the name of the whole army on behalf of Napoleon. Marshal Marmont, who had distinguished himself in the great battle before Paris, had made separate terms for himself and placed his army at the disposal of the allies. The desertion of Marmont deprived Napoleon of the greater part of the forces on which he relied, and rendered his unconditional abdication necessary.

The abdication of Napoleon was followed by the arrival of Lord Castlereagh in Paris. The English minister had since the breaking up of the Congress of ChÂtillon remained at the headquarters of the Emperor of Austria at Dijon. It was there that he had entered into intimate relations with Metternich, relations which were to lead to most important results. On the 11th of April 1814, the Provisional Treaty of Paris was signed. It was essentially a treaty between the Emperor Napoleon, through his plenipotentiaries, and the allied monarchs. It was not a treaty with France, for Louis XVIII. had not arrived from England, or been recognised as king, and the Provisional Government could only enter into provisional arrangements. By this treaty, which was signed by Caulaincourt, Macdonald, Ney, Metternich, Nesselrode, Hardenberg, and Castlereagh, Napoleon renounced for himself and his descendants the Empire of France and the Kingdom of Italy. He was, however, to retain the title of Emperor; the island of Elba was erected into an independent principality for him, and an income of £180,000 a year was granted to him. The duchies of Parma and Piacenza were secured in full sovereignty to the Empress Marie Louise, and after her decease to the King of Rome, and the divorced Empress Josephine was given an annuity of £40,000 a year. On the day before this treaty was signed, April 10th, 1814, the Battle of Toulouse was fought. Wellington after his victory of Orthez had rapidly followed Soult into the heart of Southern France. When he attacked the French positions in front of Toulouse, he was ignorant of the great events which had been passing at Paris and at Fontainebleau, and it was only after his entrance into the city that he perceived the white cockade was being worn.

On the 20th of April 1814, Napoleon bade farewell to the Guard at Fontainebleau, and started for Elba, and on the 24th his successor, Louis XVIII., who had not entered France since his escape in 1791, landed at Calais. The new King was eminently fitted by his natural character, which had been matured by his long exile, for a constitutional monarch, but unfortunately he was surrounded by men who had shared his exile, and who did not share his placable disposition. On the 2d of May, when he had reached the neighbourhood of Paris, Louis XVIII. published what is known as the Declaration of St. Ouen. In this declaration, he promised a constitution to the French people, which should provide among other things for a representative government with two chambers, complete liberty of worship and the press, the right of the representatives to grant taxation, the inviolability of all property, including national and ecclesiastical estates, which had been sold during the Revolution, the responsibility of the ministers, irremoveability of the judges, and complete equality before the law. On the following day, he entered Paris amid general rejoicings, for the French people had forgotten their grievances of olden time in the memory of their more recent sufferings in the latter years of Napoleon. He was not in any way treated with by the Provisional Government; his return was tacitly accepted as inevitable; and he returned to the Tuileries as of divine right, without any bargain being made with him.

The first important duty which fell to Louis XVIII. was the signature of a definitive treaty of peace with the allies. The evacuation of French territory by the invaders had been arranged with the Provisional Government on the 23d of April, and the foreign troops were already beginning to retire. By the definitive Treaty of Paris, which was negotiated by Talleyrand on behalf of Louis XVIII., it was agreed that France should return to her limits of 1792. By this arrangement, the early annexations of the Revolution before the outbreak of war were secured to France. These additions included Avignon and the County of the Venaissin, which had formerly belonged to the Pope, and several districts in Alsace, of which the most noteworthy were the Principality of MontbÉliard formerly the property of the King of WÜrtemberg, and the Republic of Mulhouse. France also received ChambÉry, and part of Savoy, with certain rectifications of the frontier in the neighbourhood of Geneva, and on the north-eastern border. All the former French colonies, except the islands of the Mauritius, Tobago, and Saint Lucia, were restored to France. With regard to other countries, it was agreed, as had been laid down in the Treaty of Chaumont, that Germany was to become a Confederacy instead of an Empire, that Holland and Belgium were to be united, that Italy was to be divided into independent states, and that the independence of Switzerland was to be guaranteed by all the great powers. At the same time that this treaty was signed, a secret treaty was agreed to between the four invading powers, without consulting France. This secret treaty dealt largely with the future apportionment of the territories on the left bank of the Rhine which had been administered by France ever since 1794. It was roughly agreed that these provinces should be annexed to Prussia, and it was further laid down, that Austria should possess the whole of Lombardy, and that Genoa should be united to Sardinia. The details of this arrangement, and the many other questions which were certain to arise were adjourned, and it was settled that they should be considered at a great congress which was to meet at Vienna.

The two nations which had done the most to overthrow the excessive power of Napoleon were England and Russia, and the two men most conspicuously concerned were the Emperor Alexander and Lord Castlereagh. The two rival German powers, Austria and Prussia, naturally inclined to different sides. Prussia was the declared ally of Russia; the Emperor Alexander and the King Frederick William had formed one of the romantic personal friendships which Alexander loved; and the Russian and Prussian ministers were in perfect accord in desiring to punish France and her allies, and to aggrandise themselves. Austria on the other hand naturally inclined to support England. Both feared the increasing preponderance of Russia; both felt that enough had been done in deposing Napoleon, and did not desire to wreak vengeance on France; both were inclined to be moderate in their demands. This rivalry between Russia with Prussia, and Austria with England had appeared in its incipient stages before the Treaty of Chaumont, and it was to rise to its height during the Congress of Vienna. The return of the Bourbons to France was to have an important result on the rivalry between the allies, and it is a significant proof of the inherent power of France, and of the greatness of the ascendency which she had won, that she was enabled at Vienna to act the most decisive part. The overthrow of Napoleon had not really weakened France; she had lost her natural territorial limits of the Rhine and the Alps which she might have obtained but for the stubbornness of Napoleon; nevertheless, she was still strong enough to be feared, and in the day of her greatest disaster she was able to exert a greater influence in the affairs of Europe than she had ever done since the time of Louis xiv.