To complete our notion of the energies of Napoleon—­he had all through this, the most extraordinary of his campaigns, continued to conduct, from his perpetually changing headquarters, the civil business of his empire.  He occupied himself largely with such matters during his stay at Rheims; but it was there that the last despatches from the home-department at Paris were destined to reach him; and, before he could return his answer, there came couriers upon couriers—­with tidings which would have unmanned any other mind, and which filled his with perplexity.  On the one side, Blucher had profited by his departure, crushed down the feeble opposition of the corps left at Soissons, and repassed the Marne.  On the other hand, Schwartzenberg had detected, almost as soon as it took place, his march on Sezanne, and instantly resumed the offensive.  Oudinot and Girard had been forced to give way before the immeasurably superior numbers of the Grand Army.  They had been defeated with great slaughter at Bar on the Aube; and the Austrian was once more at Troyes.  The Allies were, therefore, to all appearance, in full march upon Paris, both by the valley of the Marne, and by that of the Seine, at the moment when Napoleon had thought to paralyse all their movements by taking up a position between them at Rheims.

He still counted largely on the magic of his name; and even now he had hardly over-reckoned.  When Schwartzenberg understood that Napoleon was at Rheims, the old terror returned, and the Austrian instantly proposed to fall back from Troyes.  But there was by this time, in the camp of the allied powers, one who, though not a soldier, appreciated, far better than all those about him, that had grown grey in arms, the circumstances of the time, and the conduct which these demanded.  Lord Castlereagh took upon himself the responsibility of signifying that the Grand Army might retire if the sovereigns pleased, but that if such a movement took place, the subsidies of England must be considered as at an end.  This bold word determined the debate.  Schwartzenberg’s columns instantly resumed their march down the Seine.

Napoleon, meanwhile, had been struggling with himself; whatever line of action he might adopt was at best hazardous in the extreme.  Should he hasten after Blucher on the Marne, what was to prevent Schwartzenberg from reaching Paris, ere the Silesian army, already victorious at Laon, could be once more brought to action by an inferior force?  Should he throw himself on the march of Schwartzenberg, would not the fiery Prussian be at the Tuileries, long before the Austrian could be checked on the Seine?  There remained a third course—­namely, to push at once into the country in the rear of the Grand Army; and to this there were sundry inducements.  By doing so, he might possibly—­such were still the Emperor’s conceptions as to the influence of his name—­strike the advancing Allies, both the Austrian and the Prussian, with terror, and