TWO:Before Buonaparte, therefore, could proceed to Spain, he determined to meet the Czar at Erfurth, in Germany, by their open union to overawe that country, and to bind Alexander more firmly to his interest by granting him ampler consent to his designs on Turkey and on Finland. The meeting took place on the 27th of September, and terminated on the 17th of October. Both Emperors returned in appearance more friendly and united than ever, but each in secret distrusting his ally. Buonaparte, who was now intending in earnest to divorce Josephine, and marry a daughter of a royal house, by whom he might have issue, and thus league himself with the old dynasties, made a proposal for one of the Russian archduchesses, which was evaded by Alexander, on the plea of the difference of religion. Such a plea did not deceive the keen sagacity of Buonaparte; he felt it to result from a contempt of his plebeian origin, and a belief in the instability of his giddy elevation; and he did not forget it. To impress on Europe, however, the idea of the intimate union of the Czar and Buonaparte, they addressed, before leaving Erfurth, a joint letter to the King of Great Britain, proposing a general peace. To this letter Canning answered to the Ministers of Russia and France, that Swedenagainst whom the Czar had commenced his war of usurpationSpain, Portugal, and Sicily, must be included in any negotiations. The French and Russian Ministers, on the contrary, proposed a peace on the principle of every one retaining what they had got. This, Canning replied, would never be consented to; and the two emperors knew that very well, but the letter had served Buonaparte's purpose. It enabled him to tell France and the world how much he was disposed to peace, and how obstinate was Britain; it served to make the world believe in the close intimacy of the Czar and himself. He now hurried back to France, and, opening the session of the Corps Lgislatif, on the 25th of October, he announced that he was going to Spain to drive the "English leopards"for such he always absurdly persisted in calling the lions in the royal arms of Great Britainout of both Spain and Portugal. On the 27th he set out.
THREE:[405]Immediately after this engagement Blucher was joined by part of the grand army, under the Prince of Würtemberg; he therefore determined to attack Napoleon, and on the 1st of February drew out his forces. Napoleon would have declined the engagement; but he had the deep river Aube in his rear, and only the bridge of Lesmont by which to pass it. He preferred, on this account, to risk the battle, rather than retreat in such circumstances. Blucher attacked at once from the villages of La Rothire, Dienville, and Chaumont. The battle was severely contested for the whole day, the Prince of Würtemberg greatly distinguishing himself in it. In the end Buonaparte was wholly defeated, lost four thousand prisoners and seventy-three guns, and must have been captured himself, had not the Austrians, by surprising slowness, allowed him to escape over the bridge. He then retreated towards Troyes, where he was joined by his Imperial Guard; but his losses had been very heavy. Had Blucher and Schwarzenberg, who had now met, marched on united, they must have been in Paris in a very short time; but, with the German fatality of dividing, they had no sooner experienced the benefit of a powerful union than they called a council at the chateau of Brienne, and agreed to separate again. Blucher, joining to his own the divisions of Yorck and Kleist, proceeded towards Paris by the Marne, and Prince Schwarzenberg followed the course of the Seine.
THREE:The supplies for the present year were voted to the amount of fifty million one hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds. No new taxes were to be levied, but there was to be a loan of eight million pounds. This money was distributed as follows: twenty-five million pounds to the land service and ordnance, twenty million pounds to[600] the navy, a subsidy to Portugal of nine hundred and eighty-eight thousand pounds, and to Sicily of four hundred thousand pounds.Kutusoff had made a dexterous march and encamped at Taroutino, a strong position near Kaluga, between Moscow and Poland, so as to be able to cut off the retreat of the French into the fertile plains of Poland, and to cover Kaluga and Tula, the great Russian manufactory of arms and artillery. Buonaparte sent Murat with the cavalry to watch the camp of Kutusoff, and the King of Naples established himself in front of the Russian lines. Murat entered into a sort of armistice with Kutusoff whilst waiting for the reply from Alexander, in the hope that thus they should obtain supplies from the peasants; but neither food nor firing was obtainable except by fighting for it, nor was the armistice at all observed, except just in the centre, where Murat lay. From every quarter Cossacks continued to collect to the Russian armystrange, wild figures, on small, wild-looking horses with long manes and tails, evidently drawn from the very extremities of the empire. All Russia was assembling to the grand destruction of the invaders. Behind the camp the French could hear the continued platoon-firing, indicating the perpetual drilling of the peasantry that was going on. Other bodies of peasants formed themselves into troops of guerillas, under the chiefs of their neighbourhood. The whole of the Russian population since the burning of Moscow had become grimly embittered, and had taken arms to have a share in the mighty revenge that was coming. And now, as the sudden descent of winter was at hand, the same men who had pretended to admire the soldier-like figure and gallantry of Muratwho galloped about in all his military finery in front of the Russian campbegan to ask the officers if they had made a paction with winter. "Stay another fortnight," they said, "and your nails will drop off, and your fingers from your hands, like rotten boughs from a tree." Others asked if they had no food, nor water, nor wood, nor ground to bury them in France, that they had come so far?
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