XC. 1815. CHAP. ation, calling on the Italians to assert their independence, and to erase every vestige of foreign domination from their country. It obtained for him a few partisans among the students of Bologna; but the mass of the people evinced no disposition to join his standard. His force, however, was sufficiently formidable to obtain a victory over 10,000 Austrians, under general Bianchi, on the Panaro ; and he soon afterwards occupied Modena and Florence. Flushed with success, he rejected the advantageous offers made to him by Austria; in consequence of which that power declared war against him, and the British equipped an armament for the invasion of his territories. Having failed in a movement against the Austrians on the lower Po, he abandoned all his acquisitions in the north of Italy, and retreating with his dispirited army, imprudently determined to make a stand in the Roman territory. The Austrians, having received reinforcements, adopted a combined plan of operations against him. General Neipperg was instructed to make demonstrations for the purpose of detaining him in the north-east; while Bianchi, proceeding by forced marches to Foligno, intercepted his march toward his own kingdom; and Nugent, advancing from Florence, recovered Rome, and proceeded to Capua and Naples. Having in vain solicited an armistice, Murat, on the 3d of May, made a desperate attack on Bianchi, near Tolentino; but, notwithstanding the personal valour which he displayed, his troops gave way, and this defeat was soon followed by the total ruin of his army. After a disastrous retreat of ten days, in which he lost his artillery, ammunition, baggage, military chest, and royal treasure, he found on approaching Naples, that the inhabitants had declared for the king of Sicily wherever the Austrians appeared; that colonel Church, an English officer, was raising against him an army of his late subjects; that CHA P. XC. 1815. that both the Calabrias were in a state of insurrection; that the Lazzaroni of the capital had mutinied, and that an English fleet, escorting a Sicilian army, had appeared in the bay. Leaving his followers, who were now reduced to 4000 men, to make their way toward Capua, and obtain such terms as the victors would grant, he hastened to Naples, and entering the city after sunset with an escort of four lancers, arrived at the palace exhausted with fatigue. His first salutation to the queen was, "Madam, I have been unable to find death!" As there was no hope of redeeming his fortunes, and as his stay might compromise her safety and that of their family, he escaped in disguise with a few adherents to the isle of Ischia, and embarking Murat thence for France, landed on the 25th of May at Cannes. A courier was sent to court, to announce his arrival; but Bonaparte refused to see him in his distress, and would not permit him to come to Paris. Instead of sending consolation to his unfortunate relative, he is said to have asked with bitter scorn, whether Naples and France had made peace since their war of 1814. takes refuge Mai. THE assembly of the Champ de Mai was held on Champ de the 1st of June, in a temporary amphitheatre erected on the exercising ground in front of the Hospital of Invalids. It was not the wittena-gemote of a free and mighty people; but a shewy and gorgeous pageant. There was a stage upon which appeared Napoleon, Joseph, Lucien, and Jerome Bonaparte, dressed in the Roman costume, attended by cardinal Fesch and other courtiers. Subscriptions had already been collected for the additional act, and a report was made announcing its acceptance by 1,288,357, affirmative, against 4,207 negative votes. Napoleon took an oath to observe the constitutions of the empire, and to cause them to be observed; and this was followed by an oath of obedience to the constitution and fidelity to the emperor, pro HH 3 nounced 1815. CHAP. nounced by the arch-chancellor, and repeated by XC. the whole assembly. Napoleon then descended from his throne, and distributed eagles to the troops of the line and the national guards as they marched by him, adjuring them at the same time to defend those ensigns at the hazard of their lives, and never suffer foreigners to dictate laws to their country. They very readily swore; for some of them had witnessed the effect of the laws which he had dictated to Prussia, Holland, and Spain. Thus ended the ceremony. Assembly of the chambers. THE Constitution being accepted, the next point was to assemble the chambers. The peers were tractable, but the representatives were so tainted with jacobinism, as to elect for their president Lanjuinais, who in the preceding year had drawn up the reasons which proved that Bonaparte was unworthy to reign. It was necessary to have this election confirmed, and when application was made for that purpose, an intimation was given that the emperor's pleasure might be known next day on enquiry of the chamberlain or page in waiting. The chamber suspended their sitting until a categorical answer should be returned; and this answer was communicated in the laconic phrase, "I approve." On the 7th of June, Bonaparte surrendered, in the presence of both chambers, the absolute power with which circumstances had invested him since his return, and professed himself a friend to liberty. He mentioned the coalition of monarchs against France, the commencement of war in the capture of the Melpomene by an English ship of war, and the internal divisions of the country. He urged the strong necessity for regulating the freedom of the press, requested financial aid, and demanded a general example of confidence, energy, and patriotism. An obedient address was carried by the peers; but the representatives, in promising unanimous support against a foreign enemy, CHA P. XC. 1815. enemy, intimated their intention to amend the constitution, and declared that the nation indulged no schemes of ambition, nor should even the will of a victorious prince draw it beyond the limits of just defence. In reply, Bonaparte observed, that the nation had not to dread the seductions of victory; it had to struggle for existence. "Let us not imitate," he added, "the conduct of the Roman empire, which, pressed on all hands by barbarians, became the laughing-stock of posterity by occupying itself with the discussion of abstract questions, while the battering ram shook the gates of the metropolis." After delivering this admonition he pre- Bonaparte pared to place himself at the head of his brave and departs for devoted army, in the hope that a splendid victory would soon enable him to awe these oligarchs into submission, and enforce their obsequious homage to the empress and the king of Rome. the army. distri forces. THE allies were menacing the French frontiers Amount with immense forces; and a loan of thirty six mil-bution of lions, effected in England, gave a potent stimulus the allied to their exertions. The emperors of Russia and Austria, and the king of Prussia, had again taken the field. An army of 150,000 Austrians was advancing from Italy, and another of equal strength, under Schwartzenberg, approached the higher Rhine; 200,000 Russians were pressing toward the frontiers of Alsace; 150,000 Prussians under Blucher occupied Flanders, and were united with about 80,000 troops in British pay, under the orders of the duke of Wellington. The contingents of the different German princes might swell this force to upwards of a million of men; but the different corps were necessarily distributed over a wide range of country, and were at various distances from the probable scene of action. The regular forces of France amounted to about 440,000 men ; and the national guards numbered nearly a million, CHAP. but their capacity and zeal for the public service could not be confidently relied on. XC. 1815. heads the Sambre. BONAPARTE determined to attack the English Bonaparte and Prussians before they should be joined by their army of the allies, and placed himself at the head of a select army of 150,000 men, on the frontier of Flanders. The allied generals had made every disposition for the concentration of their forces, either for offensive, or defensive operations. Three of the Prussian divisions occupied Charleroi, Givet, and Namur, and defended the left bank of the Sambre. The fourth, under Bulow, about 30,000 strong, was posted between Liege and Hanaut. The duke of Wellington had his head-quarters in Brussels. His first corps under the prince of Orange, with two divisions of British, two of Hanoverians, and two of Belgians, occupied Enghien, Brain le Comte, and Nivelles, forming a reserve to the Prussian division under Ziethen, which was at Charleroi. The second division under lord Hill, including two British, one Belgian, and two Hanoverian divisions, was cantoned at Halle, Oudenard, and Grammont. The reserve, under sir Thomas Picton, consisting of the remaining two British divisions, with three of the Hanoverians, was quartered at Brussels and Ghent. The cavalry occupied Grammont and Nineve. The proportion of British, in the army under the duke of Wellington, amounted to about thirty thousand men. Attack on the Prus sians at ON the 15th of June, at day-break, the French drove in the Prussian outposts on the Sambre, atCharleroi. tacked general Ziethen at Charleroi, and compelled him to retire with his division through Fleurus, to unite himself with the main Prussian army, which lay in the vicinity of St. Amand and Ligny. Towards evening they caused an advanced corps of Belgians to retire from Frasnes to Quatre Bras. Intelligence of their movements reached the headquarters at Brussels about midnight; the troops |