lay in its outspoken requests that
peace should be concluded on the basis of the natural frontiers, that
the rigours of the conscription should be abated, and that the laws
which guaranteed the free exercise of political rights should be
maintained intact. The Emperor was deeply incensed, and, despite the
advice of his Ministers, determined to dissolve the Chamber forthwith
(December 31st). Not content with this exercise of arbitrary power, he
subjected its members to a barrack-like rebuke at the official
reception on New Year's Day.--He had convoked them to do good, and
they had done evil. Two battles lost in Champagne would not have been
so harmful as their last action. What was their mandate compared with
his? France had twice chosen _him_ by some millions of votes: while
_they_ were nominated only by a few hundreds apiece. They had flung
mud at him: but he was a man who might be slain, never dishonoured. He
would fight for the nation, hurl back the foe, and conclude an
honourable peace. Then, for their shame, he would print and circulate
their report.--Such was the gist of this diatribe, which he shot forth
in strident tones and with flashing eyes. He had the copies of the
report destroyed, and dismissed the deputies to their homes throughout
France.

The country, in the main, took his side; and doubtless the national
instinct was sound; for the allies had crossed the Rhine, and France
once more was in danger. As in 1793, when the nation welcomed the
triumph of the dare-devil Jacobins over the respectable parliamentary
Girondins, as promising a vigorous rule and the expulsion of the
monarchical invaders, so now the soldiers and peasants, if not the
middle classes, rejoiced at the discomfiture of the talkers by the one
necessary man of action. The general feeling was pithily expressed by
an old peasant: "It's no longer a question of Bonaparte. Our soil is
invaded: let us go and fight."

This was the feeling which the Emperor ruthlessly exploited. He
decreed the enrolment of a great force of National Guards, exacted
further levies for the regular army, and ordered a _levee en masse_
for the eastern Departments. The difficulties in his way were
enormous. But he flung himself at the task with incomparable _verve_.
Soldiers were wanting: youths were dragged forth, even from the
royalist districts of the extreme north and west and south. Money was
wanting: it was extorted from all quarters, and Napoleon not only
lavis