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my, which might expose Paris to attack, he wrote as follows:

"In accordance with the verbal instructions which I gave to you, and with the spirit of all my letters, you must not allow, happen what may, the empress and the king of Rome to fall into the hands of the enemy. The mancuvres which I am about to make may possibly prevent your hearing from me for several days. If the enemy should march on Paris with so strong a force as to render resistance impossible, send off towards the Loire the regent, my son, the great dignitaries, the ministers, the senators, the president of the council of state, the chief officers of the crown, and Baron de la Bouillerie with the money which is in my treasury."

The late movements of Napoleon against Blucher had resulted in nothing. But, meanwhile, Schwartzenberg, having recovered from his recent panic, was again in full march on Paris, taking the route down the valley of the Seine, and driving Macdonald and Oudinot before him. Against him Napoleon now again turned, leaving Marmont and Mortier on the Aisne, to hold Blucher in check.

On the 17th he marched from Reims, where he had been stationary for the four days preceding, and arriving at Epernay, detached Ney up the Marne to occupy Chalons. Continuing his

march southward, on the 20th he advanced on Arcis-sur-Aube, where he encountered the main body of Schwartzenberg's army, which his approach had drawn back from Troyes. A bloody battle ensued, in which Napoleon, with difficulty, and not without the most daring personal exposure, repelled the attack made upon him. Having been joined in the night by Macdonald and Oudinot, he turned back northeast, and advanced on Vitry, expecting to draw Schwartzenberg after him. He had sent orders, meanwhile, to Marmont and Mortier, to march upon Chalons and thence on Vitry, thus concentrating his force, but at the same time leaving the road to Paris open to Blucher as well as to Schwartzenberg.

Not able to enter Vitry, which was held by a strong hostile detachment, Napoleon proceeded to St. Dizier, higher up the Marne. He reached that place on the 23d, and was joined there by Caulincourt, his late representative at the congress of Chatillon, which had broken up on the 15th. Napoleon, pressed, as we have seen, by Joseph, had at last dispatched to Caulincourt an ambiguous sort of authority,

to consent to the "ancient limits," as proposed by the allies; but, before this document reached him, the congress had separated.

In the neighborhood of St. Dizier Napoleon spent five days, during which he made another ineffectual attempt to get possession of Vitry, and had several skirmishes with the division of Winzingerode, left to watch him; but, meanwhile, Schwartzenberg as well as Blucher were marching upon Paris, now open before them. On the 28th Napoleon resumed his march, still to the eastward; but, on reaching Bar-le-Duc, he became aware of the failure of his manœuvre to draw off the allied armies from Paris, and turning about, by a forced march of fifty miles in one day, he reached Troyes on the 29th. Thence, on the 30th, he started early in the morning with his guard, but soon left them, and in a light carriage, with Berthier and Caulincourt at his side, traveled in hot haste all night, and following a road south of that by which the enemy had advanced, reached the posthouse of La Cour de France, fourteen miles from Paris, at four o'clock in the morning of the 31st.

From the 22d to the 31st, no letters were received at Paris from Napoleon, and he had received none from that capital. Marmont and Mortier, in attempting to march on Chalons, had encountered the advance of the allies, and had been swept back toward Paris. The allies appearing in force in the vicinity of Paris, Joseph, on the 29th, in compliance with the orders of Napoleon, as to what was to be done in such an emergency, sent away the empress and her son, with an escort of troops, towards the Loire. The following letter, from Marie Louise to Joseph, describes the first stage of this journey:

"Rambouillet, March 29, 5 P. M. My dear Brother: I have this instant reached Rambouillet, very sad and much harassed. It would be very kind if you would let me know what is going on, and whether the enemy has advanced. I wait for your answer before I decide whether I ought to go further or to remain here. If I ought to move, I beg you to tell me what place you think would be best and safest for me. I earnestly wish that you would write to me to return to Paris; it is the thing of all others that would give me most pleasure. A thousand remembrances to the queen [Joseph's wife]. Pray believe in the sincere friendship with which I am your most affectionate sister."

The next day the allies assaulted the

heights which cover Paris on the east, and which were defended by the corps of Marmont and Mortier, and by the national guard of the city. On that morning, at eight o'olock, Joseph wrote from the heights of Montmartre the following letter to his wife:

"My dear friend: There has been firing for the last two hours; as yet nothing is serious, but we are only beginning the day. I think that, if your health will permit, you should set off with the children, Miot, Presle, and any other people whom you may like to take. If not, you must send on our children with Miot and Madame Dameri. Your sister's house is your best refuge; but I hope that you will be able to start."

As the fate of the day became evident, Joseph gave directions to the ministers, senators, and high dignitaries, to follow the empress-orders which a portion of them did not see fit to obey. He himself, about noonthe exterior range of heights being then in possession of the enemy-followed the empress towards Chartres, after which Marmont and Moncey signed a capitulation, having been authorized by Joseph to do so, by which the French regular troops were to retire unmolested, and the allies were to enter Paris on the morning of the 31st -that same morning that Napoleon, as we have seen, reached the post-house of La Cour. On arriving there, he encountered the cavalry of Mortier's corps retiring on Fontainebleau, and thus become aware of the actual state of affairs, he dispatched a note to Joseph (which is not given), enclosing one for the empress. This note reached Joseph at Chartres, and he replied to it the same afternoon, at 5 P. M., as follows:

"Sire: I wrote to you this morning, by a courier in disguise. I have your majesty's letter of this morning. I have sent on to the empress the one which was addressed to her, I shall set off this evening to follow the empress. She intended to proceed first to Tours. In obedience to your majesty's wishes, she will go to Blois, with all the members of the government. The ministers who are here, agree in thinking this course the best; they will start this evening. The empress and the king of Rome are well; I saw them this morning; they will reach Chateaudun this evening. The minister of war, of the administration of war, of finance, of the treasury, of the interior, and of marine affairs, are here. Your majesty must be already acquainted with all that has passed, from the marshals' reports and from what I told M. Déjean, your majesty's aide-decamp. The enemy's force was very large: the corps of the Dukes of Treviso and Ragusa [Mortier and Marmont] could not possibly make head against it."

Having dispatched Caulincourt to

Paris, to see if any terms could be made with the allies, Napoleon retired to Fontainebleau, whence, on the 2d of April, he wrote to Joseph as follows:

"I desired the grand marshal to write to you on the necessity of not crowding into Blois. Let the king of Westphalia [Jerome] go to Brittany or towards Bourges. I think that Madame [their mother] had better join her daughters [Eloise and Pauline] at Nice, and Queen Julie and your children proceed to Marseilles. The Princess of Neufchatel [Madame Bessieres] and the marshals' wives should go and live on their estates. It is natural that king Louis, who has always liked hot climates, should go to Montpelier. As few persons as possible should be on the Loire, and let every one settle himself quietly, without attracting attention. A large colony always excites a sensation in a neighborhood. The Provence road is now open-it may not remain so for one day. Among the other ministers you do not mention the minister of police. Has he reached you? I do not know whether the minister of war has his cipher. I have none with you, and as this is the case, I cannot write to you on important subjects. Advise everybody to observe the strictest economy."

Joseph answered this letter the next day.

"Blois, April 3, 1814. Sire: I have received your letter of the 2d. Mamma and Louis are ready to fulfill your wishes. Mamma is in want of money; six months of her pension is due. Neither has Jerome any money. My wife has no longer any friends at Marseilles. What occasions our train to appear so large is, the number of empty state carriages belonging to the court. I have received no letter from the grand marshal on this subject, nor on any other. The minister of police has returned hither from Tours. The council to-day was unanimous in its opinions and wishes. We are waiting for your majesty's decision as to the place of residence. May the fears which have been excited by the Duke of Vicenza's [Caulincourt's] report never be realized. [Caulincourt had returned on the 2d from his mission to Paris, with the report that the allies had refused to treat with Napoleon or any of his family.] The minister of war has no cipher with your majesty, nor have I. The ministers of the treasury and of finance know no longer how to discharge their duties. M. de la Bouillerie asks for orders to insure the safety of his convoy. One of his wagons, containing two millions, has reached Orleans-it was left in Paris when the empress went away. [The treasure in the custody of M. de la Bouillerie mysteriously disappeared. The Cossacks got some of it. Nobody knows what became of the rest. Might not Jerome be sent to command the army in Lyons ?"

Already, the results which Joseph had anticipated, from the occupation of Paris, had fully displayed themselves. On the 1st of April, Napoleon's senate, so long the passive instrument of his will, had been got together, and had appointed a provisional government, at the head of which was Talleyrand, who

thus verified all the suspicions of Napoleon. The next day they agreed to a decree, declaring that, by reason of his tyranny and misgovernment, of which several instances were set out, Napoleon had forfeited for himself and family the imperial crown of France. On the 3d of April, the legislative body, which, previous to the campaign, Napoleon had broken up, because it had presumed to give him unpalatable advice, was got together, and confirmed the decree of forfeiture. On the 4th, finding that the marshals were no longer disposed to obey him-indeed, with Ney at their head, they demanded that he should abdicate-Napoleon signed an abdication in favor of his son, with the empress as regent. The allies, however, refused to come into this arrangement, demanding, instead, his unconditional abdication.

Joseph, meanwhile, was urgent with the empress, who, with the fugitive imperial court and ministry, was still at Blois, to retire further south, out of the way of the enemy. This she refused to do, and on the 9th, under the escort of a Russian officer, who came to Blois, no doubt by an understanding on her part, she set out with her infant son to join her father, the Emperor of Austria, at Dijon-for he had not gone with the two other sovereigns to Paris. Joseph, who followed the empress to Orleans, wrote from that city, on the 10th, as follows:

"Sire: I wrote you yesterday that we should be here to-day, and here we actually are. [The letter here referred to is not given. It would be highly curious, as it probably contained Joseph's account of the final breach between him and the empress.] General Schuwaloff, aide-de-camp to the Emperor of Russia, accompanied the empress.

"If what is reported should prove true, and the Bourbons should be called to the throne. I am most anxious not to be obliged to ask any. thing of them. I could not possibly live in France, nor could I take my wife and children to the island of Elba. If sad necessity should force your majesty thither, I will go to visit you, and to prove to you my attachment; but it will not be till I have placed my wife and children in safety on the continent.

"M. Faypoult [this was the agent sent to Murat] has just returned from Italy; the army there is in excellent order; the viceroy [Eu gene] is quietly at Mantua: the king of Naples prays for your success, if you desire universal peace, and the independence of Italy. A single effort might, perhaps, extricate France from the abyss into which she is falling. An immediate decision, with regard both to military affairs and to politics, may, Во perhaps, repair all in favor of your son. bold enough to try. Save the state from im

minent danger, by getting rid of princes who will revive old hatreds and inflict a fresh injury upon the country, by internal disturbances, brought on by the pride of the old nobility and the vanity of the new, and the character of the people raised by the revolution to a level at which we may lament that it was not left."

The very day that this letter was written, Napoleon, convinced that his case was hopeless, had consented to an unconditional abdication. The treaty of Fontainebleau, signed the next day, granted to the Bonapartes such terms as no other dethroned family ever obtained-to Napoleon, Elba, during his life, with the title of emperor; to his wife and son, Parma, Placentia, and Guastilla, as an hereditary sovereignty, with the title of prince; to his mother, brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, the title of princes, and, in addition to their large private properties, French stocks, producing a net annual sum of two and and a half millions of francs, to be distributed among them so as to give to Madame Mère an income from this source alone of 300,000 francs, and a like income to the Princesses Eloise and Pauline; to Joseph and his wife an income of 500,000 francs; the same to Jerome and his wife; to Hortense and her children an income of 400,000 francs; and one of 200,000 francs to her husband Louis, who lived separately from her. Eugene was to have a suitable establishment out of France. The annual income of Josephine was reduced from five millions to one million francs, which must have made her feel very poor, as, with the former sum, she was always in debt. She had fled from Paris at the same time with Marie Louise, and had taken refuge in Navarre, where she had an estate; but, on the invitation of the Emperor Alexander, she returned to her seat at Malmaison, near Paris, where she died before the end of the year. Her daughter Hortense was also permitted to live at Paris, where she at once began to intrigue for Napoleon's

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poleon's second reign, to his old position of a member of the new legislative body, and he made great efforts, after the battle of Waterloo, to retain the crown of France in the family. Thiers accuses him of caprice in his relations to his brother; but the principle upon which he acted is obvious. He was willing to cooperate with Napoleon in exalting the family, though not willing, like Joseph, to play the part of a mere tool. As to his youthful republicanism, that had subsided into a preference for limited monarchy, as the best form of government.

The second abdication of Napoleon drove Joseph to seek refuge in America, where the sons of Murat soon followed him. Jerome was allowed by the Emperor of Austria to reside at Trieste. The rest of the family, through the favor of the Pope, established themselves at Rome. Even at St. Helena, Napoleon still considered himself the head of the family, whom, even after his death, they were all bound to obey. On his death-bed, his mind was occupied with projects for their ulterior aggrandizement. He undertook to regulate both their residence and their marriages; and upon these subjects gave some curious directions to General Bertrand, who, on reaching Europe, hastened to communicate them to Joseph, in a letter dated October, 1821. This letter is published in the tenth volume of the Mémoires du Roi Joseph, and we cannot better conclude this article than by giving the substance of the curious directions of Napoleon recorded in it.

He desired that his nieces should marry into Roman families, especially such as had furnished popes. The recent marriage of one of Lucien's daughters with a Swede, he very much disapproved. His nieces might wash the feet of the Pope, but not of the queen of Sweden, nor of any other temporal prince. The members of his family might also intermarry among themselves. They might speedily have a pope, cardinals, and legates among their number, and might thus come to exercise a great influence in Europe, and even in France. Such intermarriages as he proposed would interest a number of powerful families in propagating the glory of his name, and would attach a powerful theocracy to the interests and

honor of the Bonaparte family. His mother (whose economy had made her very rich) ought to promise an outfit of 300,000 francs to each of her grandchildren, who would establish themselves at Rome. She could not employ her fortune better, and Pauline (who had no children) and Cardinal Fesch ought to do the same with theirs. The members of his family ought not to establish themselves except in a theo cracy like Rome, or in a republic like Switzerland, having strength enough to maintain its neutrality. By connecting themselves with the oligarchy of Berne, for instance, or some other of the powerful cantons, they might secure themselves independence. If Jerome, because his wife was a Protestant, did not wish to go to Rome, he might establish himself in Switzerland. He might carry five or six millions with him, and nobody would know but that it was forty. His money would make him welcome, and he would be independent. He ought to get himself inscribed among the nobles, and connect his children with the powerful families. Berne was preferable, because it was the principal canton. As Rome was too near Naples to be safe for queen Caroline, she also might establish herself in Switzerland, but in a different canton. Joseph, being in America, might prefer to remain there, and would naturally like to have his daughters near him. was, however, nobody there but merchants, except, indeed, a few families, as the Washingtons and Jeffersons. He might have a President of the United States in his family. It was republic well enough in its way; however, he prefered Rome for Joseph, and, for the reasons already mentioned, he ought to establish himself there with his daughters; or, if there were objections to Rome, then in Switzerland in preference to America. The Bonaparte family thus established in Switzerland and the Roman States, a score or two of marriages would make them masters of those two countries.

There

Such were the schemes with which Napoleon-his ruling passion strong in death-occupied his last moments. He anticipated also some possible great destiny for his son; but the reestablishment of the family on the imperial throne of France he seems not to have dreamed of.

WE

THE SMALL GERMAN UNIVERSITY TOWN.

ERE you ever there, Mr. Howitt? I have the greatest doubt about it. You might have passed through Aeselen, in the Schnellpost, but you never spent a day, a week, a month there; or perhaps, for the first time in your life, your quiet, equable mind, ever prone to find the good better, and the bad not so bad," would have been roused. As Defoe, by his Robinson Crusoe, did as much in his century to induce travel as steam power has facilitated it in our times, so have you, friend William Howitt, by your book of German student life, done much to tempt me to plunge into the hidden arcana of the German schools of lore.

Aeselen! what a dear little place it was? (I can say so now that I am away from it; for had I, whilst an inhabitant, given it this endearing diminutive, in ten minutes' time Aeselen would have risen in arms and driven me out.) Little place! forsooth! Was it not the second town in the Grossherzogthum after the capital! And the capital, had it not long, grass-grown streets, and a column erected to a former Grossherzog, a wonder of the world--a wonder, from the fact that nobody ever knew what great act or deed the deceased Grossherzog ever did to have had such an ugly column built for him. But Aeselen boasted of a university, a clubhouse, and Herr Professor Von Stickstoff, and some one hundred and fifty native students (every one of them wearing great, massive silver spectacles) beside, some forty foreign scholars. How snugly the town nestled in a hollow; how quiet and placid it looked; who could imagine the fire and lava that seethed and bubbled there, or the heaps of ashes the inhabitants were ever piling on each other's devoted heads?

I believe it to be a solemn truth, that the simple fact of every window, of every house in the town being provided with little looking-glasses (arranged on the best of optical principles), did more to disturb its peace than any other scientific phenomena in the world's record. "Give me a lever, and a point d'appui," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world;" give me, I say, reflect

ing double mirrors to the windows of a small German town, and I will sow rage and fury, worse than did the mythological broad-cast of dragon teeth.

Aeselen was within a stone's throw of ever so many countries. Did you walk of a pleasant afternoon past some green fields, and a hill or so, you were in Prussia; retrace your footsteps a mile, you were in the kingdom of Strongbeer; and from the rookery on top of the old town-house, I could enchant my eyes with the sight of some dozen kingdoms, empires, and Herzogthums.

Aeselen had one grand street; here lived the full professor, the upper salt inspector, the market inspector; into this straggled some three or four other streets. Here dwelt the under professors and lower dignitaries; and, lastly, filling up the interstices, were narrow alleys, devoted to the professors' assistants, the booksellers, pipe and tobacco venders, and the students' kneip, or beerhouses. The students lived everywhere, according to their circumstances, some in poor, miserable dens, others, more fortunate as to worldly goods, in the professors' houses; the professors' wives generally combining the accomplishment of knowing how to turn a gulden or so to the best advantage.

:

Three great buildings were there, in Aeselen the town-house, Professor Von Stickstoff's house, and the clubhouse.

The club-house! Second temple of Janus, instigator of peace and war! What a blessing it was for the town; how they required it as an excitant. Three parties disputed supremacy there, the Löffels, the Gabels, and the Messers; they were the Faubourgs St. Germain, St. Honoré, and St. Denis.

The Löffels had seven "vons," the head professors, their fat wives and daughters; the Gabels marshaled under their banners but one "von" (his title town tattle disputed), the under professors; and lastly came the Messers, the burghers of the town. At an annual club-ball each one found his rank; to have danced with a Löffel was to be cut by the Gabels; to have gone back to the Gabels was to be cut by the

*The spoons, the forks, and the knives.

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