the impetuosity of the barbarian.  Marlborough and Wellington often triumphed over great odds and turned the course of history.  But their star had never set so low as that of Napoleon’s after La Rothiere, and never did it rush to the zenith with a splendour like that which blinded the trained hosts of Bluecher and Schwarzenberg.  Whatever the mistakes of these leaders, and they were great, there is something that defies analysis in Napoleon’s sudden transformation of his beaten dispirited band into a triumphant array before which four times their numbers sought refuge in retreat.  But it is just this transcendent quality that adds a charm to the character and career of Napoleon.  Where analysis fails, there genius begins.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE FIRST ABDICATION

It now remained to be seen whether Napoleon would make a wise use of his successes.  While the Grand Army drew in its columns behind the sheltering line of the Seine at Troyes, the French Emperor strove to reap in diplomacy the fruits of his military prowess.  In brief, he sought to detach Austria from the Coalition.  From Nogent he wrote, on February 21st, to the Emperor Francis, dwelling on the impolicy of Austria continuing the war.  Why should she subordinate her policy to that of England and to the personal animosities of the Czar?  Why should she see her former Belgian provinces handed over to a Protestant Dutch Prince about to be allied with the House of Brunswick by marriage?  France would never give up Belgium; and he, as French Emperor, would never sign a peace that would drive her from the Rhine and exclude her from the circle of the Great Powers.  But if Austria really wished for the equilibrium of Europe, he (Napoleon) was ready to forget the past and make peace on the basis of the Frankfurt terms.[415]

Had these offers been rather less exacting, and reached the allied headquarters a week earlier, they might have led to the break up of the Coalition.  For the political situation of the allies had been even more precarious than that of their armies.  The pretensions of the Czar had excited indignation and alarm.  Swayed to and fro between the counsels of his old tutor, Laharpe, now again at his side, and his own autocratic instincts, he declared that he would push on to Paris, consult the will of the French people by a plebiscite, and abide by its decision, even if it gave a new lease of power to Napoleon.  But side by side with this democratic proposal came another of a more despotic type, that the military Governor of Paris must be a Russian officer.