On March 1st Castlereagh, greatly perturbed because it now looked as though the Coalition might break up, assembled another Conference at Chaumont. There on the 9th it was definitely agreed that Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria should bind themselves by a solemn treaty not to negotiate separately with France for peace.
Meanwhile, Blucher, with nearly fifty thousand men, had resumed the offensive. Napoleon, believing the army of his most inveterate enemy to be broken, received this news with consternation, but swiftly despatched Ney and Victor to fall on the veteran's rear. Blucher wisely retired northward, crossed the Marne and destroyed its bridges behind him. Having delayed the enemy in this way probably saved him from defeat, as Marmont was hotly pursuing him, Napoleon preparing to turn his right flank and his men were utterly exhausted by marching night and day through snowstorms and on roads made slippery by ice.
On March 2nd, having got across the river to La Ferte, the Emperor resumed his pursuit of Blucher, in the optimistic belief that he could drive his enemies back into Lorraine, then rescue the garrisons that had been cut off in Verdun, Toul and Metz, which would have greatly added to his strength.
But by then Blucher had reached the neighbourhood of Soissons and on the banks of the Aisne joined up with
Biilow, who was able to furnish supplies for the veteran's famished men and add forty-two thousand troops to their numbers. Next day Soissons surrendered.
The Emperor, still intent on relieving his beleagured garrisons, pressed on across the Aisne and forced Blucher to retire on Laon. There the veteran learned that Napoleon was approaching Craonne. Near that town rises a long, narrow plateau. Blucher ordered his Russian corps to occupy it and, on March 7 th, there ensued one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
Five times the gallant Ney scaled the slope at the head of his men, only to be driven back by the defenders. Napoleon then used his cavalry for a sixth assault. Blucher meanwhile had attempted to outflank the French, but the manoeuvre failed, upon which he ordered a general retreat to Laon. The casualties on both sides were very heavy. Grouchy, six other French Generals and Marshal Victor were among the wounded.
In this campaign the Emperor was greatly handicapped by the absence of many of his most able Marshals: St. Cyr was a prisoner, Davout was shut up in Hamburg, Suchet was grimly hanging on to Catalonia, Augereau was defending Lyons, and Soult, who had recently suffered another severe defeat by Wellington at Orthez, was far away in the south. Of those with Napoleon: Ney, Oudinot, Mortier, Macdonald and Marmont, only the latter had come off best when left to engage the enemy without support, and even his corps was surprised and badly cut up in a night attack shortly after the Emperor, having on the 9th and 10th failed to dislodge Blucher from the stronghold of Laon, was forced to withdraw by the news that Schwarzenberg was advancing on Paris.
The Emperor's force had been reduced to twenty thousand men, while Schwarzenberg had one hundred thousand. Yet such was Napoleon's prestige that, on learning that he had reached the Aube the Austrian, fearing an attack on his flank, hesitated to advance further or turn upon the wizard warrior. This delay gave Napoleon time to call up the corps of Macdonald and Oudinot. The fighting around Arcis-sur-Aube lasted two days and became ferocious. The Emperor rode about among his troops to urge them on. To the horror of those about him a shell burst just in front of his horse and, for a moment, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. But he emerged unhurt, mounted another horse and continued to direct the battle.
But God was indeed 'on the side of the big battalions'. By the 20th he was forced to fall back northward toward Sezanne. Still convinced that he could relieve his garrisons in the east—where the French peasantry had raised armed bands of irregulars to help defend their beloved France by harassing the enemy's supply routes—he hurried his army toward Vitry; but on the 23rd Cossacks captured one of his couriers carrying a letter to Marie Louise. In it he said, ‘I have decided to march toward the Marne in order to draw the enemy's army further from Paris and got nearer my fortresses. This evening I shall be at St. Dizier.'
Made aware of the Emperor's plans, Blucher marched south and joined up again with Schwarzenberg. At the Czar's insistence it was decided that, instead of following Napoleon, they should renew the advance on Paris. The greatly weakened corps of Marmont and Mortier were all that barred the way to the capital. They fought well with great gallantry, but were brushed aside and the advance on the capital continued.
When the ordinary citizens of Paris became aware that the enemy was within a few miles of the city they were amazed and horror-stricken. For over twenty years they had become accustomed to celebrating France's victories. Their armies had marched triumphantly into Milan, Vienna, Rome, Naples, Lisbon, Venice, Madrid, Berlin and even Moscow. It had been unthinkable to them that a day could come when barbarian Cossacks and jack-booted Prussians would, shoulder them off the pavements in the streets of Paris. Yet all the woe that could be inflicted by an enemy army of occupation could be only days away.
The better informed, Talleyrand and Roger among them, far from being surprised by the Allies' breakthrough, found it difficult to understand how even the genius of Napoleon had prevented it from happening long before. It was nine weeks since he had left Paris and for the past six they had been waiting impatiently to hear that his army, less than a third the size of that of the Allies, had been completely defeated.
During these weeks of waiting the question uppermost in their minds had been what would happen in France after Napoleon had been vanquished. Through his secret sources Talleyrand knew the divergent views of the Allies. All of them were agreed that the Emperor must be deposed and France reduced to her old frontiers before the Revolution, but there their agreement ended.
Castlereagh was for giving the French liberal terms so that their good will/vvould result in a treaty of commerce with Britain, similar to that which had been signed with King Louis XVI in 1787, and that they should be allowed to choose their own future form of government by a plebiscite.
The Czar also was not harshly inclined toward the French people. He was averse to a Republic, yet did not favour the return of the Bourbons. He would have preferred a limited monarchy under a new dynasty, and he had been heard to mention Bernadotte for that r61e.
Frederick William agreed with the Czar about a limited monarchy; but the Prussians generally were filled with hatred for the French and wished to impose upon them the harshest terms possible.
Austria wanted to leave France strong and, as Marie Louise was die Emperor Francis's daughter, he proposed that she be made Regent for her little son, the King of Rome.
Lastly, from January onward the Senate had at last thrown off its long subservience to Napoleon. A large majority in it wished to see the end of him, and many of the older members who had been Jacobins, eagerly hoped for the return of a Republic.
Talleyrand and Roger had discussed the question exhaustively. For many years they had agreed that the only hope of a lasting peace in Europe lay in a treaty of friendship between France and England, They therefore favoured a strong France. Both were for a limited monarchy as the most stable form of government, foreseeing that a return to a Republic would lead to dissension and, if the extremists got the upper hand, the possible repetition of '93, with another reign of terror. Talleyrand was confident that, given the power he hoped to have, he could restrain the hotheads in the Senate and he aimed to bring about the restoration of the Bourbons.