In truth, Napoleon was now about to stake everything on a plan from which other leaders would have recoiled, but which, in his eyes, promised a signal triumph.  This was to rally the French garrisons in Lorraine and throw himself on Schwarzenberg’s rear.  It was, indeed, his only remaining chance.  With his band of barely 40,000 men, kept up to that number by the arrival of levies that impaired its solidity, he could scarcely hope to beat back the dense masses now marshalled behind the Aube, the Seine, and the Marne.

A glance at the map will show that behind those rivers the allies could creep up within striking distance of Paris, while from his position north of the Aube he could attack them only by crossing one or other of those great streams, the bridges of which were in their hands.  He still held the central position; but it was robbed of its value if he could not attack.  Warfare for him was little else than the art of swift and decisive attack; or, as he tersely phrased it, “The art of war is to march twelve leagues, fight a battle, and march twelve more in pursuit.”  As this was now impossible against the fronts and flanks of the allies, it only remained to threaten the rear of the army which was most likely to be intimidated by such a manoeuvre.  And this was clearly the army led by Schwarzenberg.  From Bluecher and Buelow naught but defiance to the death was to be expected, and their rear was supported by the Dutch strongholds.

But the Austrians had shown themselves as soft in their strategy as in their diplomacy.  Everyone at the allied headquarters knew that Schwarzenberg was unequal to the load of responsibility thrust on him, that the incursion of a band of Alsatian peasants on his convoys made him nervous, and that he would not move on Paris as long as his “communications were exposed to a movement by Chalons and Vitry."[436] What an effect, then, would be produced on that timid commander by an “Imperial Vendee” in Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comte!

And such a rising might then have become fierce and widespread.  The east and centre were the strongholds of French democracy, as they had been the hotbed of feudal and monarchical abuses; and at this very time the Bourbon princes declared themselves at Nancy and Bordeaux.  The tactless Comte d’Artois was at Nancy, striving to whip up royalist feeling in Lorraine, and his eldest son, the Duc d’Angouleme, entered Bordeaux with the British red-coats (March 12th).

To explain how this last event was possible we must retrace our steps.  After Soult was driven by Wellington from the mountains at the back of the town of Orthez, he drew back his shattered troops over the River Adour, and then turned sharply to the east in order to join hands with Suchet’s corps.  This move, excellent as it was in a military sense, left Bordeaux open to the British; and Wellington forthwith sent Beresford northwards with 12,000 troops to occupy that great city.  He met with a warm greeting