756 BLtJCHER BLUDOFF eyes disabled Blucher, while Napoleon yet re- mained in a provocatory attitude, in the same position, which so far intimidated the men who now directed the operations that they not only stopped the advance of their own troops which had already begun, but allowed Napoleon to quietly retire at nightfall to Soissons. Still the battle of Laon had broken his forces, physically and morally. He tried in vain by the sudden capture on March 13 of Rheims, which had fallen into the hands of St. Priest, to restore himself. So fully was his situation now under- stood, that when he advanced on the 17th and 18th on Arcis-snr-Aube, against the main ar- my, Schwarzenberg himself dared to stand and accept battle, which lasted through the 20th and 21st. When Napoleon broke it off, the main army followed him up to Vitry, and united in his rear with the Silesian army. In his despair Napoleon took a last refuge in a retreat upon St. Dizier, pretending thus to endanger with his handful of men the enormous army of the allies, by cutting off its main line of communication and retreat between Langres and _Chaumont ; a movement replied to on the part of the allies by their onward march to Paris. On March 30 took place the battle before Paris, in which the Silesian army stormed Montmartre. Though Blucher had not recovered since the battle of Laon, he still ap- peared in the battle for a short time, on horse- back, with a shade over his eyes; but after the capitulation of Paris he laid down his command, the pretext being his sickness, and the real cause the clashing of his open-mouthed hatred against the French with the diplomatic attitude which the allied sovereigns thought fit to exhibit. Thus he entered Paris, March 81, in the ca- pacity of a private individual. During the whole campaign of 1814, he alone among the allied army represented the principle of the of- fensive. By the battle of La Rothiere he baf- fled the Ohatillon pacificators; by his resolution at Mery he saved the allies from a ruinous re- treat ; and by the battle of Laon he decided the first capitulation of Paris. After the first peace of Paris he accompanied the emperor Alexan- der and King Frederick William of Prussia on their visit to England, where he was f&ted as the hero of the day. All the military orders of Europe were showered upon him ; the king of Prussia created for him the order of the iron cross ; the prince regent of England gave him his portrait, and the university of Oxford the academical degree of LL. D. In 1815 he again decided the final campaign against Na- poleon. After the disastrous battle of Ligny, June 16, though now 73 years of age, he pre- vailed upon his routed army to form anew and march on the heels of their victor, so as to be able to appear in the evening of June 18 on the battlefield of Waterloo, an exploit unprece- dented in the history of war. (See WATERLOO.) His pursuit of the French fugitives from Water- loo to Paris possesses one parallel only, in Na- poleon's equally remarkable pursuit of the Prus- sians from Jena to Stettin. He now entered Paris at the head of his army, and even had Muffling, his quartermaster general, installed as the military governor general of Paris. He in- sisted upon Napoleon's being shot, the bridge of Jena blown up, and the restitution to their original owners of the treasures plundered by the French in the different capitals of Europe. The first wish was baffled by Wellington, and the second by the allied sovereigns, while the last was realized. He remained at Paris three months, very frequently attending the gam- bling tables for rouge-et-noir. On the anniver- sary of the battle on the Katzbach he paid a visit to Rostock, his native place, where the inhabitants united to raise a public monument in his honor. On the occurrence of his death, the whole Prussian army went into mourning for eight days. Le meux dialle, as he was nicknamed by Napoleon, " Marshal Forwards," as he was styled by the Russians of the Silesian army, was essentially a general of cavalry. In this specialty he excelled, because it required tactical acquirements only, but no strategical knowledge. Participating to the highest de- gree in the popular hatred against Napoleon and the French, he was popular with the mul- titude for his plebeian passions, his gross com- mon sense, the vulgarity of his manners, and the coarseness of his speech, to which, how- ever, he knew on fit occasions how to impart a touch of fiery eloquence. He was the model of a soldier. Setting an example as the bravest in battle and the most indefatigable in exer- tion ; exercising a fascinating influence on the common soldier ; joining to his rash bravery a sagacious appreciation of the ground, a quick resolution in difficult situations, stubbornness in defence equal to his energy in the attack, with sufficient intelligence to find for himself the right course in simpler combinations, and to rely upon Gneisenau in those which were more intricate, he was the true general for the military operations of 1813-'15, which bore the character half of regular and half of insurrec- tionary warfare. The biography of Blucher has been written by Varnhagen von Ense (Berlin, 1843), Bieske (1862), and Scherr (2 vols., Leip- sic, 1862). BLUDOFF, Dmitri JVikolayeritch, count, a Rus- sian statesman, born in Moscow in 1783, died in St. Petersburg, March 2, 1864. He studied at the university of Moscow, was long in the diplomatic service in London, Stockholm, and Vienna, and was afterward transferred to the domestic administration. At the advent of Nicholas he belonged, with Dashkoff and Uvaroff, to the triad which Karamzin, the Russian historian, recommended, at the re- quest of the new emperor, as the fittest men to carry out his reformatory ideas. Bludoff was appointed secretary of state, and in 1832 was transferred to the more important position of secretary of the interior. In 1839 he suc- ceeded Dashkoff as secretary of the department of justice, and subsequently became president
