disregard the order. Probably there was some understanding
between them. And thus, after steering past many a rock, the patient
schemer at last helped Europe to shipwreck that mighty adventurer when
but a league or two from port.

But all was not over yet. Napoleon had fallen back on Fontainebleau,
in front of which town he was assembling a force of nearly 60,000 men.
Marie Louise, with the Ministers, was at Blois, and desired to make
her way to the side of her consort. Had she done so, and had her
father been present at Paris, a very interesting and delicate
situation would have been the result; and we may fancy that it would
have needed all Metternich's finesse and Castlereagh's common sense to
keep the three monarchs united. But Francis was still at Dijon; and
Metternich and Castlereagh did not reach Paris until April 10th; so
that everything in these important days was decided by the Czar and
Talleyrand, both of them irreconcilable foes of Napoleon. It was in
vain that Caulaincourt (April 1st) begged the Czar to grant peace to
Napoleon on the basis of the old frontiers. "Peace with him would only
be a truce," was the reply.

The victor did not repulse the idea of a Regency so absolutely, and
the faithful Minister at once hurried to Fontainebleau to persuade his
master to abdicate in favour of his son. Napoleon repulsed the offer
with disdain: rather than _that_, he would once more try the hazards
of war. He knew that the Old and the Young Guard, still nearly 9,000
strong in all, burned to revenge the insult to French pride; and at
the close of a review held on the 3rd in the great court of the
palace, they shouted, "To Paris!" and swore to bury themselves under
its ruins. It needed not the acclaim of his veterans to prompt him to
the like resolve. When, on April 1st, he received a Verbal Note from
Alexander, stating that the allies would no longer treat with him,
except on his private and family concerns, he exclaimed to Marmont, at
the line of the Essonne, that he must fight, for it was a necessity of
his position. He also proposed to that Marshal to cross the Seine and
attack the allies, forgetting that the Marne, with its bridges held by
them, was in the way. Marmont, endowed with a keen and sardonic
intelligence, had already seen that his master was more and more the
victim of illusions, never crediting the existence of difficulties
that he did not actually witness. And when, on the 3rd, or perhaps
earlier, o