The armies of Austria and Prussia at length halted on the Rhine.  To the Germans of every age this great river has been the object of an affection and reverence scarcely inferior to that with which an Egyptian contemplates the Nile, or the Indian his Ganges.  When these brave bands having achieved the rescue of their native soil, came in sight of this its ancient landmark, the burden of an hundred songs, they knelt, and shouted the Rhine! the Rhine! as with the heart and voice of one man.  They that were behind rushed on, hearing the cry, in expectation of another battle.

[Footnote 63:  Hoffman’s Account of his own Life.]

[Footnote 64:  Blucher was created Prince of Wahlstadt.]

CHAPTER XXXIV

     Declaration of the Allies at Frankfort—­Revolution of
     Holland—­Liberation of the Pope and Ferdinand VII.—­Obstinacy of
     Napoleon—­His Military Preparations—­Dissolution of the Legislative
     Senate.

Of the events which crowded upon each other in the space of a few weeks after the overthrow of Leipsig, any one would in times less extraordinary have been sufficient to form an epoch in history.  Having once reached the summit of his greatness, the long-favoured child of fortune was destined to sink even more rapidly than he had ascended.  Every day added some new alliance to the camp of his foreign enemies; and every hour that passed brought with it clearer indications that the French nation (considered apart from the army) were weary utterly of the very names of War, and Ambition, and Napoleon.

The fabric of his German empire crumbled into nothing, as at the spell of a magician.  Hanover returned to the dominion of its rightful sovereign immediately.  Brunswick, Hesse, and the other states which had formed Jerome’s kingdom of Westphalia, followed the same example.  The Confederation of the Rhine was dissolved for ever; and the princes who had adhered to that league were permitted to expiate their, in most cases involuntary, error, by now bringing a year’s revenue and a double conscription to the banner of the Allies.  Bernadotte turned from Leipsig to reduce the garrisons which Napoleon, in the rashness of his presumption, had disdained to call in, even when compelled to evacuate Dresden; and one by one they fell, though in most cases—­particularly at Dantzick, Wirtemberg, and Hamburg—­the resistance was obstinate and long.  The Crown Prince—­having witnessed the reduction of some of these fortresses, and entrusted the siege of the others to his lieutenants—­invaded Denmark, and the government of that country perceived the necessity of acceding to the European alliance, by whatever fine its long adhesion to Napoleon might be expiated.  The treaty was concluded at Kiel, on the 14th of January, 1814.  Sweden yielded Pomerania to Denmark; Denmark gave up Norway to Sweden; and 10,000 Danish troops having joined his standard, Bernadotte then turned his face towards the Netherlands.