veteran troops Napoleon and his genius might have again turned the scale
of fortune. But Napoleon reckoned on the nation, and he was wrong, for
the nation was tired of him. His cause had ceased to be the cause of
France.

The latter days of March were filled up by a series of calamities to
Napoleon. On the 23d the rear-guard of the French army suffered
considerable loss. To hear of attacks on his rear-guard must indeed have
been mortifying to Napoleon, whose advanced guards had been so long
accustomed to open the path of victory! Prince Schwartzenberg soon
passed the Aube and marched upon Vitry and Chalons. Napoleon, counting
on the possibility of defending Paris, threw himself, with the velocity
of the eagle, on Schwartzenberg's rear by passing by Doulevant and Bar-
sur-Aube. He pushed forward his advanced guards to Chaumont, and there
saw the Austrian army make a movement which he took to be a retreat; but
it was no such thing. The movement was directed on Paris, while Blucher,
who had re-occupied Chalons-sur-Maine, marched to meet Prince
Schwartzenberg, and Napoleon, thinking to cut off their retreat, was
himself cut off from the possibility of returning to Paris. Everything
then depended on the defence of Paris, or, to speak more correctly, it
seemed possible, by sacrificing the capital, to prolong for a few days
the existence of the phantom of the Empire which was rapidly vanishing.
On the 26th was fought the battle of Fere Champenoise, where, valour
yielding to numbers, Marshals Marmont and Mortier were obliged to retire
upon Sezanne after sustaining considerable loss.

It was on the 26th of March, and I beg the reader to bear this date in
mind, that Napoleon suffered a loss which, in the circumstances in which
he stood, was irreparable. At the battle of Fere Champenoise the Allies
captured a convoy consisting of nearly all the remaining ammunition and