Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/219

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IX.] THE GREAT REVOLUTION. 195 frontier, leaving all his baggage, and the war soon raged round St^_Sebastian and Pampelima. In quite another part oi Europe, on the coast of Dalmatia, English, Russians, and Montenegrins were allied agiinst France, and Cattaro was taken by the men of the Black Mountain. In Germany the whole land rose against the French ; Holland threw off the yoke, and Murat went back to Naples, hoping to secure himself by a separate peace. All that was left for Napoleon was to gather his forces to defend France itself. He restored the pope to Rome, and sent Ferdinand VII. back to Spain, so as to have no foreign ground on his hand. But already his own legisla- tive body was beginning to use free language before him, the Bretons and Vendeans were preparing to rise against him, and the Bourbon princes were drawing near. Charles, Cou)U of Arfois, brother of Lewis XVI., was in Flanders, and of his two sons, the Duke of Angoicleme was with the Peninsular army, and the Ditke of Berry in Jersey. The allies again offered peace on condition of France being cut short within its own boundaries as they stood before 1792 ; but Buonaparte again refused. On the ist ol January, 1814, the Prussians and Russians crossed the Rhine, the Austrians advanced on the Swiss border, the Swedes were in Flanders, and the English had passed the Pyrenees. Yet Napoleon had not lost hope, and this last campaign against the allies was as brilliant as any ot the former ones. After losing a battle at La Rothiere on the Seine, he suddenly turned northwards against Blucher, who had been ordered to march on Paris by the Marne, and defeated his army three times within eight days in the neighbourhood of Montmirail ; then hastening back to the Seine, he met and defeated the Austrians at Mon- te-reau. But in the meantime Wellington had routed Soult at Orthez, and at Bordeaux the Duke of Angouleme was welcomed with eager enthusiasm. France was ex- hausted, and all Europe, eager to revenge the wrongs she had inflicted, was pouring in multitudes upon her. After following Blucher northwards, and being defeated by him at Laon, Napoleon at last determined to throw himself on to the rear of the allies instead of resisting them in front, hoping by this means to make them retreat, in order that they might not be cut off from Germany and destroyed by a rising of all the French people behind them. But the allies moved straight upon the capital. The cannon were heard at Paris, and Maria Louisa and O 7