On that day Napoleon, when delayed at La Ferte, conceived the daring idea of rushing on the morrow after Bluecher, who was “very embarrassed in the mire,” and then of carrying the war into Lorraine, rescuing the garrisons of Verdun, Toul, and Metz, and rousing the peasantry of the east of France against the invaders.  It mattered not that Schwarzenberg had dealt Oudinot and Gerard a severe check at Bar-sur-Aube, as soon as Napoleon’s back was turned.  That cautious leader would be certain, he thought, to beat a retreat towards the Rhine as soon as his rear was threatened; and Napoleon pictured France rising as in 1793, shaking off her invaders and dictating a glorious peace.

Far different was the actual situation.  Bluecher was not to be caught; a sharp frost on the 3rd improved the roads; and his complete junction with the northern army was facilitated by the surrender of Soissons on that same afternoon.  This fourth-rate fortress was ill-prepared to withstand an attack; and, after a short bombardment by Winzingerode, two allied officers made their way to the Governor, praised his bravery, pointed out the uselessness of further resistance, and offered to allow the garrison to march out with the honours of war and rejoin the Emperor, where they could fight to more advantage.  The Governor, who bore the ill-starred name of Moreau, finally gave way, and his troops, nearly all Poles, marched out at 4 p.m., furious at his “treason”; for the distant thunder of Marmont’s cannon was already heard on the side of Oulchy.  Rumour said that they were the Emperor’s cannon, but rumour lied.  At dawn Napoleon’s troops had begun to cross the temporary bridge over the Marne, thirty-five miles away; but by great exertions his outposts on that evening reached Rocourt, only some twenty miles south of Soissons.[423]

The fact deserves notice:  for it disposes of the strange statement of Thiers that the surrender of Soissons was, next to Waterloo, the most fatal event in the annals of France.  The gifted historian, as also, to some extent, M. Houssaye, assumed that, had Soissons held out, Bluecher and Buelow could not have united their forces.  But Buelow had not relied solely on the bridge at Soissons for the union of the armies; on the 2nd he had thrown a bridge over the Aisne at Vailly, some distance above that city, and another on the third near to its eastern suburb.[424] It is clear, then, that the two armies, numbering in all over 100,000 men, could have joined long before Napoleon, Marmont, and Mortier were in a position to attack.  Before the Emperor heard of the surrender, he had marched to Fismes, and had detached Corbineau to occupy Rheims, evidently with the aim of cutting Bluecher’s communications with Schwarzenberg, and opening up the way to Verdun and Metz.