it was a budget of official news from Paris to Napoleon, describing the exhaustion of the finances, the discontent of the populace, and the sensation caused by Wellington’s successes and the capture of Bordeaux.  These glad tidings inspired Alexander with a far more incisive plan—­to march on Paris.  This suggestion had been pressed on him on the 17th by Baron de Vitrolles, a French royalist agent, at the close of a long interview; and now its advantages were obvious.  Accordingly, at Sommepuis, on the 24th, he convoked his generals, Barclay, Volkonski, Toll, and Diebitsch, to seek their advice.  Barclay was for following Napoleon, but the two last voted for the advance to Paris, Toll maintaining that only 10,000 horsemen need be left behind to screen their movements.  The Czar signified his warm approval of this plan; a little later the King of Prussia gave his assent, and Schwarzenberg rather doubtfully deferred to their wishes.  Thus the result of Napoleon’s incursion on the rear of the allies signally belied his expectations.  Instead of compelling the enemy to beat a retreat on the Rhine, it left the road open to his capital.[443]

At dawn on the 25th, then, the allied Grand Army turned to the right-about, while Bluecher’s men marched joyfully on the parallel road from Chalons.  Near La Fere-Champenoise, on that day, a cloud of Russian and Austrian horse harassed Marmont’s and Mortier’s corps, and took 2,500 prisoners and fifty cannon.  Further to the north, Bluecher’s Cossacks swooped on a division of 4,500 men, mostly National Guards, that guarded a large convoy.  Stoutly the French formed in squares, and beat them off again and again.  Thereupon Colonel Hudson Lowe rode away southwards, to beg reinforcements from Wrede’s Bavarians.

They, too, failed to break that indomitable infantry.  The 180 wagons had to be left behind; but the recruits plodded on, and seemed likely to break through to Marmont, when the Czar came on the scene.  At once he ordered up artillery, riddled their ranks with grapeshot, and when their commander, Pacthod, still refused to surrender, threatened to overwhelm their battered squares by the cavalry of his Guard.  Pacthod thereupon ordered his square to surrender.  Another band also grounded arms; but the men in the last square fought on, reckless of life, and were beaten down by a whirlwind of sabring, stabbing horsemen, whose fury the generous Czar vainly strove to curb.  “I blushed for my very nature as a man,” wrote Colonel Lowe, “at witnessing this scene of carnage.”  The day was glorious for France, but it cost her, in all, more than 5,000 killed and wounded, 4,000 prisoners, and 80 cannon, besides the provisions and stores designed for Napoleon’s army.[444] Nothing but the wreck of Marmont’s and Mortier’s corps, about 12,000 men in all, now barred the road to Paris.  Meeting with no serious resistance, the allies crossed the Marne at Meaux, and on the 29th reached Bondy, within striking distance of the French capital.