at force proceeded with surprising
swiftness; and, in order to lull his foes into confidence, the Emperor
delayed his departure from Paris to the last moment possible. As dawn
was flushing the eastern sky, on June 12th, he left his couch, after
four hours' sleep, entered his landau, and speedily left his
slumbering capital behind. In twelve hours he was at Laon. There he
found that Grouchy's four cavalry brigades were not sharing in the
general advance owing to Soult's neglect to send the necessary orders.
The horsemen were at once hurried on, several regiments covering
twenty leagues at a stretch and exhausting their steeds. On the 14th
the army was well in hand around Beaumont, within striking distance of
the Prussian vanguard, from which it was separated by a screen of
dense woods. There the Emperor mounted his charger and rode along the
ranks, raising such a storm of cheers that he vainly called out: "Not
so loud, my children, the enemy will hear you." There, too, on this
anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, he inspired his men by a
stirring appeal on behalf of the independence of Poles, Italians, the
smaller German States, and, above all, of France herself. "For every
Frenchman of spirit the time has come to conquer or die."

What, meanwhile, was the position of the allies? An Austro-Sardinian
force threatened the south-east of France. Mighty armies of 170,000
Russians and 250,000 Austrians were rolling slowly on towards Lorraine
and Alsace respectively; 120,000 Prussians, under Bluecher, were
cantoned between Liege and Charleroi; while Wellington's composite
array of British, German, and Dutch-Belgian troops, about 100,000
strong, lay between Brussels and Mons.[473] The original plan of these
two famous leaders was to push on rapidly into France; but the
cautious influences of the Military Council sitting at Vienna
prevailed, and it was finally decided not to open the campaign until
the Austrians and Russians should approach the frontiers of France.
Even as late as June 15th we find Wellington writing to the Czar in
terms that assume a co-operation of all the allies in simultaneous
moves towards Paris--movements which Schwarzenberg had led him to
expect _would begin about the 20th of June_.[474]

From this prolonged and methodical warfare Europe was saved by
Napoleon's vigorous offensive. His political instincts impelled him to
strike at Brussels, where he hoped that the populace would declare for
union with Fr