the Marne. On the other hand, Schwartzenberg had detected,
almost as soon as it took place, his march on Sezanne, and instantly
resumed the offensive. Oudinot and Girard had been forced to give way
before the immeasurably superior numbers of the Grand Army. They had
been defeated with great slaughter at Bar on the Aube; and the Austrian
was once more at Troyes. The Allies were, therefore, to all appearance,
in full march upon Paris, both by the valley of the Marne, and by that
of the Seine, at the moment when Napoleon had thought to paralyse all
their movements by taking up a position between them at Rheims.

He still counted largely on the magic of his name; and even now he had
hardly over-reckoned. When Schwartzenberg understood that Napoleon was
at Rheims, the old terror returned, and the Austrian instantly proposed
to fall back from Troyes. But there was by this time, in the camp of the
allied powers, one who, though not a soldier, appreciated, far better
than all those about him, that had grown grey in arms, the circumstances
of the time, and the conduct which these demanded. Lord Castlereagh took
upon himself the responsibility of signifying that the Grand Army might
retire if the sovereigns pleased, but that if such a movement took
place, the subsidies of England must be considered as at an end. This
bold word determined the debate. Schwartzenberg's columns instantly
resumed their march down the Seine.

Napoleon, meanwhile, had been struggling with himself; whatever line of
action he might adopt was at best hazardous in the extreme. Should he
hasten after Blucher on the Marne, what was to prevent Schwartzenberg
from reaching Paris, ere the Silesian army, already victorious at Laon,
could be once more brought to action by an inferior force? Should he
throw himself on the march of Schwartzenberg, would not the fiery
Prussian be at the Tuileries, long before the Austrian could be checked
on the Seine? There remained a third course--namely, to push at once
into the country in the rear of the Grand Army; and to this there were
sundry inducements. By doing so, he might possibly--such were still the
Emperor's conceptions as to the influence of his name--strike the
advancing Allies, both the Austrian and the Prussian, with terror, and
paralyse their movements. Were they likely to persist in their _Hurrah
on Paris_ (at this period the Cossack vocabulary was in vogue), when
they knew Napoleon to be posting himself between