efore the eastern fortresses. The allies had
learnt from Napoleon to invest or observe them and press on, a course
which their vast superiority of force rendered free from danger.
Schwarzenberg, on the 25th, had 150,000 men between Langres, Chaumont,
and Bar-sur-Aube; while Bluecher, with about half those numbers,
crossed the Marne at St. Dizier, and was drawing near to Brienne. In
front of them were the weak and disheartened corps of Marmont, Ney,
Victor, and Macdonald, mustering in all about 50,000 men. Desertions
to the allies were frequent, and Bluecher, wishing to show that the war
was practically over, dismissed both deserters and prisoners to their
homes.[401]

But the war was far from over: it had not yet begun. Hitherto Napoleon
had hurried on the preparations from Paris, but the urgency of the
danger now beckoned him eastwards. As before, he left the Empress as
Regent of France, but appointed King Joseph as Lieutenant-General of
France. On Sunday, January 23rd, he held the last reception. It was in
the large hall of the Tuileries, where the Parisian rabble had forced
Louis XVI. to don the _bonnet rouge_. Another dynasty was now
tottering to its fall; but none could have read its doom in the faces
of the obsequious courtiers, or of the officers of the Parisian
National Guards, who offered their homage to the heir of the
Revolution.

He came forward with the Empress and the King of Rome, a flaxen-haired
child of three winters, clad in the uniform of the National Guard.
Taking the boy by the hand into the midst of the circle, he spoke
these touching words: "Gentlemen,--I am about to set out for the army.
I intrust to you what I hold dearest in the world--my wife and my son.
Let there be no political divisions." He then carried him amidst his
dignitaries and officers, while sobs and shouts bespoke the warmth of
the feelings kindled by this scene. And never, surely, since the young
Maria Theresa appealed in person to the Hungarian magnates to defend
her against rapacious neighbours, had any monarch spoken so straight
to the hearts of his lieges. The secret of his success is not far to
seek. He had not commanded as Emperor: he had appealed as a father to
fathers and mothers.

It is painful to have to add that many who there swore to defend him
were even then beginning to plot his overthrow. Most painful of all is
it to remember that when, before dawn of the 25th, Marie Louise bade
him farewell, it was her last f