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It appeared that he had been teaching French in the | Sing, where they are imprisoned for killing on a small state of New York, had married there a woman of scale-nor West Point, where they are confined to learn whom he was heartily tired already, although they had the art of killing on a large scale. The cliffs of the not lived together more than two months. They slept Hudson are in many places lofty smooth walls of trapin the same birth-lying however heel and point-stone-as the guide book informs me-varied here and spanking, quarrelling and kicking half the night, to there by a stunted pine, or fir, or cedar. On approachthe diversion of the passengers.

There was also a little Irishman aboard, squint eyed, with a twisted mouth--a papist and a mathematician. The Frenchman we dubbed the Emperor--the Irishman Don Miguel--a New Yorker, who appeared to have the organ of rope-climbing and navigation, the Commodore-and myself, on account of administering a dose of medicine to one of the crew, went currently by the name of the Doctor.

ing a landing place, the name is resounded on deck by the sailors, as thus-" Whitehall baggage!-Whitehall baggage!" by a half dozen or more at once. The fashion of letting off a boat by means of a rope attached to the wheel, is dangerous, and ought to be discontinued. Saw the wreck of Burden's new steamer, the Helen, built on a double cylinder plan. Albany, American Hotel, No. 10-fine view of the city from the opposite side of the river--the dome of the Capitol covered

CANAL.

At anchor off Old Point Comfort--no sail in sight-with splendiferous metal. negro canoes along side with oysters for sale. Wrote a letter on deck. Entered Hampton Roads--and next the Atlantic Ocean. The color of the sea is variable- Rail road to Schenectady, 14 miles. Canal boatsometimes a dark slate-sometimes a clear pellucid deck like a turtle's back, but a neat cabin. Canal from green-again a dark blue or purple. In four days we Albany to Buffalo, 369 miles. Near Utica, scenery came in sight of Sandy Hook-the revolving lights-- pretty, but on a small scale. Canal runs along the light-houses-mountains and highlands of Neversink-Mohawk, a picturesque little Indian river. Early in

finally New York city. The cholera had broken out, and in some of the streets there was a strong smell of chloride of lime.

THE HUDSON.

the morning--the mists floating on the hills. Boat drawn by two horses, a boy mounted on one--travels day and night, at the rate of 4 miles an hour, or 96 miles a day--change horses every 10 miles. Utica contains 10,000 inhabitants; its site is an amphitheNext morning went down to steamboat; on the way, atre of rising ground. Here I met with an acquaintpassed the foundation of the Astor Hotel, since com-ance I had seen at a watering place on the sea-shore. pleted. Wharf crowded-boys with newspapers for Rochester, 13,000 inhabitants, on the north side of the sale-carts and wheelbarrows-porters with trunks on canal-Utica on the south. Clinton Hotel, at Rochestheir heads-valices, band-boxes, umbrellas, baskets, ter-fleas-high embankment near the town. On the mail-bags-men, women and children. Embarked-canal, they say "riding" in the boats, instead of the noise of the steam, and the dissonant voices of the "sailing." There are a great many bridges across the crowd subside, and give place to the regular thump of canal; they are very low, some of them barely leavthe floating hotel, while the city fast recedes from the ing room for the body to pass. Whenever the word view. "Bridge" is sung out, down go all on deck, and there

On board the Albany I observed some blind chil-lie prostrate until the bridge is cleared. Erie canal dren-two girls and three boys. One of the girls had a very sweet face; she and her younger sister walked back and forward, arm in arm, on deck. The awning on the upper deck happened to take fire from a spark. Hearing a noise, I went up to see what was the matter. Two sailors were dashing water on the awning, and there was no one else up there except the pretty blind girl, who was alarmed at the noise, and crying bitterly. I took her by the hand, and said what I could to quiet her fears. She said they had gone away and left her. While I was speaking to her, the person that had the care of her, came up and led her away. My heart was touched to see these unfortunate children. Oh, to have the eye-the window of the mind-closed and darkened forever!-never again to behold the cheerful face of man, the light of day, the earth, the sea, the sky.

The Catskill mountains in sight, looking like floating clouds of light bluish ether. Beautiful villas on the Hudson-white-of fair proportions-tasteful roofs and porticoes. Small white sturgeons jumping clear out of the water. Knickerbocker, in his history of New York, gives an authentic account of the eating of the first sturgeon by the Dutch.

runs through a poor and uninteresting tract of the state of New York. Some of the villages are beautifulsome paltry; the houses are for the most part of frame. The people on the canal seemed quite temperate; and on the entire canal, I saw only one or two shops open on Sunday. Yet in almost every insignificant village, was to be seen a lazy, trifling, dronish pack of idle loiterers, lounging listeners, a gabbling, drinking, gazing, gossipping set-ale-house politicians, quid-nuncs, haunters of taverns. Passed a boat-load of Swiss emigrants, a filthy looking crew-the women very ugly. Saw some Indians of the Mohegan tribe-more "last of the Mohicans," probably. The weather was hot, it being August; the passengers were unsocial; the smooth motion of the boat was tiresome and monotonous; the bridges were a continual annoyance; everything around seemed cold, heartless, selfish, mercenary, and I cannot commend the grand canal either as an edifying, or as an agreeable route.

FALLS OF NIAGARA.

The best view of the falls is from Table Rock, on the British side-a fine position. Standing on the I say nothing of the brave Major Andre-of the brink of this rock, the cataract roars beneath you-a head-quarters of General Washington-of Rip Van thousand mists steam up from its base; over this foamWinkle, nor of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow-of Singing gulf, a rainbow spans its arch-this is the poetry of

nature. The terrible impetuosity of the rapids above-by fleas and post offices--both of which are in great the awful plunge of the cataract--the roar-the spray-numbers. I was now in the interior of the peninsula of the rainbow, these constitute a spectacle of inexpres-Michigan, when I began to hear the word prairie in sible beauty and sublimity. Nothing less than the lan- the mouths of people. This word is pronounced by the guage of a Homer or a Milton could paint the scene. common people pa-ra-re. At length, after expectation Not far from the falls, on the American side, is shown had been sometime on tiptoe, we began to catch glimpses the cave of the winds-much like that of Æolus; here of the upland prairies. An absolute prairie is totally too is a rainbow, based on eternal storms and mists. destitute of trees; but there are many partial prairies, What a pleasure it would be to watch these falls during that is, clear prairies, interspersed with clumps of trees. the changing seasons—to behold them from every point A clear prairie looks like an expanse of water; and a of view-to grow familiar and domesticated as it were house in it, looks like a ship at sea. And as the mind with the most stupendous sight on earth, compared with soon grows accustomed to the solitary sameness of the which, all ordinary objects of wonder sink into con- sea, and weary of it, so it will tire of the monotonous tempt a sight which fills the mind with lofty emotions, uniformity of the prairie in a few days. Not so with and stirs up the inmost soul of poetry. There are two the oak openings-for surely the human eye has never falls, separated by a considerable interval, entirely dis-rested on more lovely landscapes than these present. tinct, and which can never be identified. The principal, I have read of the parks, and lawns, and pleasure and by far the most astounding, is that between Grand grounds of England; but here are the parks, and lawns, Island and the Canada shore; it exceeds all description and pleasure grounds of nature--fresh and lovely as and all conception. they first bloomed at the dawn of creation. Among these delightful prairies, in Michigan and in Indiana, are scattered a number of lakes--beautiful little bodies of water which heighten the charms of the scenery. The flowers of every hue, and blades of grass wet with dew, and bending under the summer breeze: the woodlands thinned out with a "grace beyond the reach of art." These picturesque and romantic little lakes-flocks of wild turkies trooping together, where

A MEDLEY.

Buffalo, a fine young city on the shore of Lake Erie-Eagle Hotel-Steamer to Detroit. Leaving Buffalo you have from the deck a beautiful view of the place, glittering on the margin of the lake.

"The wild deer arched his neck from glades, and then

Unhunted sought his woods and wilderness again"— the beams of rosy morning streaming aslant through the woody glades, and lighting up the whole scene: these all make up a picture of beauty worth the journey of a thousand miles to see. Let no man think he has formed an adequate conception of the beauty of this earth, until he has visited the prairies of Michigan and

The weather was delightful--the blue sky overhead clear as crystal-a cool refreshing breeze played over the water, rippling its glassy surface-a more charming expanse of water, human imagination cannot conceive. Yet such is our prejudice in favor of our native latitude, that while on Lake Erie, I felt a sort of regret that so noble a sheet of water should have been created so far north. Chickens jumping overboard-passengers running to the side to see them in the water-as far as the eye could reach we could see them rocking on the bosom of the lake--came up with a steamer, that had lost her rudder-took up 30 of her passen-Indiana. gers-stopped at Cleaveland and Sandusky, Ohiocrowds of emigrants, German, Swiss, &c. with lots of luggage. Detroit, handsomely situated on the left bank of Detroit river. I had met with the cholera at New York, Albany, and Buffalo-and I found it again in Detroit-27 dying of the pestilence daily, and the inhabitants in a panic-had to wait there two days for the stage-saw the house of Governor Cass, now Secretary of War, a low old fashioned French house. Among the public buildings is a large Catholic church, with several towers and steeples: on the summit of which swallows and martins were warbling, twittering and sunning themselves. In New York, I bought a guide book-in Albany, Foster's Essays-in Buffalo, the Subaltern-in Detroit, Peter Simple; and afterwards, in Vandalia, Lockhart's Napoleon.

THE PRAIRIES.

VARIETY.

Passing through the northern part of Indiana, very little of which is yet settled by whites, I came to LaPorte in prairie La-Porte, so called from an opening in a strip of woods between two prairies--like a door. The village of La-Porte was only a year old-execrable fare at the tavern-the maitre d'hotel and wife both intemperate-fleas plenty-water brackish--and no stage for three days.

Opposite to the town is one of those picturesque lakes mentioned before, called Lake Porte; indeed they are so fond of this word, that it is likely they will restrict their potations to Old Port-and the mayor of the town shall be called and known by the title of Sublime Porte. Took a walk in the prairie-land sells $15 per acre-gathered 24 species of flowers, which I had not seen before--met three little girls gathering hazelnuts--asked their names--one had the same name with

At

Stage to Chicago-military road--properly named-myself-a coincidence! for nothing less than a soldier can stand such a road- The St. Joseph's river is a clear, pretty stream. first part of the road-the stage--an open wagon-13 St. Joseph's--a village on the river-saw some Pottapassengers--tremendous roads, gullies, ruts, stumps--a watomie Indians; and among them a frame, in which gloomy wilderness of woods on each side-passed they carry a papoose or infant. Leaving St. Joseph's, through Tecumseh, called after an Indian chief-and the stage passed through an Indian reserve of twelve Ypsilanti, called after a Greek chief-much annoyed | miles square--magnificent country.

Michigan city is situated in Indiana, and on the (although he was assisted by a stout, square-built, southern coast of Michigan. This city, however, is as double-jointed fellow from St. Louis, who sat on the yet only "in posse:" it is the germ of a future hypo-boot and pulled with all his might,) and bethought him thetical city-and the hero of our national air, were he to run his horses directly on a fence--when the barto visit that place at present, and see no town, it is cer- keeper, who was along to take up passengers, jumped tain he would not be deprived of that pleasure by the down and seized the leader by the bridle-bit; and alnumber of houses. Here I saw on the table d'hotel though he was dragged some distance first, yet succeeded, the Mackinaw shad, famous in those parts. by the assistance of the citizens, who now came running from every quarter, in stopping the four greys. Vandalia-an uninteresting place-in a rough countrypaltry hotel-assembly meets in an ordinary brick building.

INDIANS.

WOLVES.

To go back a short distance-between St. Joseph's and Michigan city, I think it was--the stage stopped two hours for dinner in the midst of an extensive and fertile prairie. There I saw three young Indians, PotThe prairie wolf is by some supposed to be the same towatomies-two boys and a girl, bartering cranberries as the jackall of Asia. It is so small, as not to be danfor meal, bacon and soap. The girl was beautiful, with gerous alone. It is said that they hunt in packs like the sweetest possible expression, and one of the boys hounds, sometimes headed by the large grey wolf; was a noble manly looking fellow, and the other not that they thus pursue the deer, with a cry like that of unhandsome. They wore their hair plaited-a green hounds, sometimes rushing in full chase by a farmhunting shirt, and red leggins. Their figures were ele-house. The officers of the army, at the Indian posts, gant-hands small and delicate, and every attitude and gesture was easy, natural and graceful; indeed their whole appearance was such as becomes the children of nature's savage nobility. The landlord informed us, that they traded with singular dexterity, being accus tomed to it from their earliest years.

AN INVENTORY.

amuse themselves hunting these animals.

The prairie hen is commonly found in the northern and middle regions of Indiana and Illinois. Its shape is more like a duck than a hen. It must be a fine fowl for sportsmen, as it never flies far at a time. In winter, I was told, they are very abundant, particularly about stacks. As an article of food, they do not rank, I believe, above mediocrity.

SUNDRIES.

From Vandalia, I went to Salem-crossed the Large Wabash river and the Small, to Vincennes, an old

For want of other employment, while waiting for dinner at this log-house in the prairie, I took an inventory of all and singular, the goods and chattels of one room-the which I found to be as follows, to wit: Beds, split-bottom chairs, tin lamps, plaid cloak, pow-town settled by the French. The castle of Vincennes der horn, shot bag, cloak, rifle hung on wooden hooks, great coat, hat, bundle in a handkerchief, slates, flowered paper pasted on logs-as also geography on entirely a new plan, ink-vials, statistics, "For sale &c." tacked up-poker, tongs, shovel, newspapers pasted up, bushes, onions, garden seeds, candlestick, glazed flower pot, jug, pitcher, tin canisters, tea-pot, pickle-jar, coffee-mill, saw, umbrella, coats, grass, whip, tumblers.

HOTCH-POT.

The Indians throw the accent on the last syllable of Chicago. Here there is a little stockade fort, and they are building a mole in the lake to form a harbor. The place is only three years old; 1500 inhabitants-fast increasing. Saw a prairie on fire. Ottawa in midst of a fine picturesque country; two pretty sisters, in pantalettes, waited on table.

has been celebrated in modern times as the scene of
the trial and execution of the Duke d'Enghien. The
name is also illustrated by being affixed to an United
Of the town itself I recollect no-
States sloop of war.
thing remarkable, except that I had my hair cut there.
From this town we journeyed towards Louisville,
Kentucky; and how agreeable the journey, may be
gathered from the following syllabus, to wit: Going
day and night-bad stage-worse driver-horses worst
of all—hills--rain-corduroy roads-stage crowded-
cholera--pole cats. One of our passengers was a great
character among the Shakers of Lebanon, Ohio. I
inferred from what I saw of him in travelling from Vin-
cennes to Louisville, Kentucky, that the substratum of
his Shakerism was extremely thin. I saw the other day
in the papers, that he had run off with $100,000, and a

fair Shaker.

Louisville is a fine flourishing place. Frankfort on the Kentucky river, is built down in a hollow. The capitol is a handsome edifice.

NAMES.

An old Quaker from Pennsylvania, at whose house we stopped for breakfast, told me that there was land on his farm, the soil of which was ten feet deep. In the American bottoms, on the Illinois river, the grass on each side of the road was as high as the top of the stage-coach. Peoria, on the Illinois, a flourishing place, and abounding in fleas. Springfield, in Sangamon county, rather a pretty place, in the centre of a fertile, beautiful, and well peopled country. Four fine greys Ben Jonson's name was often written by himself ran away with the stage before we left the town; the with an h. Dryden spelt his own with an i. Samuel driver managed to make them run round in a circle-- Butler's name was written Boteler, at least by Charles the coach in the meantime rocking from right to left like II. Our great poet's name appears Shakspere in the a boat in a storm. I caught the leathers on each side register of Stratford church, Shackspeare in the body of the coach, and held my seat in the centre by way of of his will, and Shackspere on the back of that instruballast; by this time the driver became frightened, I ment.

NOTES AND ANECDOTES,

Political and Miscellaneous-from 1798 to 1930-Drawn from the Portfolio of an Officer of the Empire; and translated in Paris, from the French, for the Messenger.

THE HUNDRED DAYS.

The most extraordinary event in our history, the return from the island of Elba, is already 20 years removed; perhaps the moment has arrived for speaking the truth; in any event it can injure no one. Napoleon is no more, and the glory attached to his name is great enough, to allow the impartial judgment of an epoch in his life, without injury to his immense renown. His lieutenants have, for the most part, descended to the tomb; and the few who are still alive, ought ardently to desire, that a light thrown on facts hitherto viewed through the medium of passion, might dissipate those accusations of ignorance and treason, which have been published as a means of concealing

the faults of others.

campaign of 1815-it has never been published; the Emperor was still alive, and in misfortune. The author, a general officer, commanding a corps of the army in this campaign, desired to remain faithful to the end, to the man whom he had served: he sacrificed everything to him, even to the publication of a truth, in which his military reputation, and that of many other Generals were interested.*

This manuscript, so far as I am concerned, has not been a revelation, but the confirmation of a former opinion; it was only the opinion I had instinctively formed, supported by facts, theoretical principles, and exact calculations. During the hundred days there was nothing superhuman, nothing supernatural, but the journey from Elba to Paris. Everything which followed that event re-entered the condition of humanity. It is man with his passions, his weakness, his limited faculties; and the disaster of Waterloo was but the inevitable result of a struggle too unequal, and of faults which cannot be denied without refusing to listen to

evidence.

which he would at this day efface; but I shall borrow from him the principal features of the examination to which I am proceeding. I do not pretend to present a complete recital of the military events of 1815, but a summary of the most important facts of that short and deplorable campaign.

In the first place, it must be confessed that the miraculous return from Elba was a misfortune both for the Emperor and for France; for the Emperor, inasmuch as it changed his supportable exile to a frightful transportation; for France, in that it cost it an army and treasures, and brought about a second invasion and a prolonged occupation. The Bourbons had proved in 1814, that they had learnt nothing, and had forgotten nothing: the return from Elba made them confess a few faults, but even that event could not force them to learn or to forget. The restoration carried in itself an original vice, a principle of destruction. It was condemned to perish :—the return from the island of Elba prolonged its existence a few years.

Here I must explain myself. I am about to speak The author will not permit me to copy the MSS. now of military and political events; I have been in ser- under my eyes. He wrote under the influence of recent vice, but I have not attained those exalted positions grief. The picture of the misfortunes of his country, from which one is allowed to observe and to appreciate the presence of foreigners, dictated bitter expressions, facts. I might perhaps, justly be denied the experience necessary to qualify me to pronounce with a mature and certain judgment. But it must have been observed from the commencement of this work, that I alone do not speak that I do not put forth my isolated opinions. Accident has placed me near a great number of distinguished men; being anxious to acquire information, I have been a witness to many things, have heard and have read much. I have sought after truth through the best sources, and I think I have secured its possession. Being a young officer at the period of the battle of Waterloo, I judged of that fearful disaster, with the ideas peculiar to my age, and felt the impressions which all my comrades partook. I also cried treason-against whom? I did not know; but it was absolutely impossible that we were not betrayed, for with the Emperor who could conquer us? Besides, a defeat weighs as heavily on the heart of the General, as on that of the lowest soldier, that we dared not avow it, without seeking out some extraordinary cause, some excuse. Afterwards, and with a few more years added to my age, I read everything that was written on the hundred days and the battle of Waterloo. My sincere conviction at this moment, is, that it would have required a miracle to have prevented the actual occurrence. Faults were committed by everybody. The Emperor, the Generals (with some few glorious exceptions), the army, were no longer the Emperor, the Generals, the army of the fine campaigns of the republic and the empire; and, in conscience, could it have been otherwise? All the apologies published at St. Helena and elsewhere, when I read them over at this day, only seem to me to prove, that we would have gained the battle of Waterloo if we had not lost it.

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The first fault that the Emperor committed, was to arrest his progress at Paris, on the 20th of March. 1 copy the manuscript.

"The details given, by General Gourgaud, in his history of the campaign of 1815, published at St. Helena, on the situation of the armies of the coalition at the moment that Napoleon, with an inconceivable boldness and unexampled good fortune, passed, as he himself said, from steeple to steeple to Paris, will suffice to convince us that the first fault which he committed was to arrest himself at the Tuileries, instead of continuing his march to the Rhine. It is probable that he would have arrived there as easily as at Paris; and in such enterprises it is always necessary to profit by the asIn my anxiety to inform myself correctly, I have ap- tonishment and stupor of the enemy. Above all, he plied to every source of information-I have addressed should not have suffered the enthusiasm with which such myself to men placed in the best situations, for ascer-miraculous success had inspired his partizans, to grow taining and appreciating the facts. A precious manu- cold. Paris, for him, was not on the Seine-it was on script has been communicated to me, written in 1818, the Rhine.

as a refutatian of General Gourgaud's history of thel

See note at end of this volume.

"The moment that he paused, that he began to cal- | sabre-victory, was doubtful; without this despotism, it culate his means, he should have considered himself was impossible. Time and means were wanting for a lost; for it cannot be thought that he seriously flattered regular war; it was necessary to undertake an irregular himself with being able to impose on the allies. His war-a war without money and without magazines-a feigned moderation, and his pacific declarations, only war like the first campaign of Italy; and in desperate served to betray his weakness, and perhaps to cool the circumstances, these are sometimes successful. public enthusiasm. Undoubtedly Napoleon found it necessary to reorganize his army, and to create means, but he might have done everything while marching forward; and the easy conquest of the Rhine would have furnished him an immense increase of resources, of which he would at the same time have deprived his enemies."

The apologists of the Emperor have said, as an excuse for his not having marched immediately to the Rhine, that he entertained the hope of peace; and that public opinion would have disapproved his course if he had acted before he had exhausted all means of conciliation. The Emperor never believed in the continuance of peace; he might have desired it, but he could not have expected it but as the consequence of a victory. The true secret of all this is, that Napoleon was no longer General Bonaparte. One cannot expend with impunity, in 20 years, the energy and activity that would have sufficed for ten first rate men. Everything wears out at last, and there are bounds to the human faculties.

The Bourbons had, during the few months of their first sojourn in France, created some interests connected with themselves. The representatives of royalist opinions, weak and scattered, before 1814, were united and strengthened. They formed in 1815, with the representatives of the new interests, a mass of formidable adversaries. On the other side, the friends of liberty, fearing the return of the imperial despotism, only The second plan was, to fortify the frontiers, to act offered their support in exchange for strong guaranties. on the defensive, to await the attack, to watch a faNapoleon, with only his own partizans, thus found vorable moment, or a fault of the enemy, and to profit himself thrown between two opinions-one his avowed by them. But such a course did not suit the character enemy, and the other armed against him with all its of Napoleon. The conduct and the delays of a defendistrust. It was necessary that despotism should re-ap- sive war were not adapted to his temperament; and it pear powerful, in order to restrain these two parties. must be confessed that this sort of warfare is but little The Emperor could do nothing but by men of action, in accord with our military spirit. This plan was more by the men who had brought him from the gulf of Juan in harmony than the two others, with the new system to Paris. It was necessary that he should reign as he which the Emperor had permitted to introduce itself in had reigned; he required that fascination of glory, by France; but this new system was supremely disagreeameans of which, he had for a long time caused every-ble to him. The sounds which echoed from the tribune thing, even liberty, to be forgotten. In the inevitable wounded his ears. Already he regretted the concesstruggle which was then coming on between a divided sions which he had been condemned to make; it was and exhausted nation, and all Europe combined against despotism which he hoped to reseize when he comher, a prompt and decisive march might have electrified menced hostilities. The acclamations of victory, had it men's spirits, and have produced the most brilliant and remained faithful to the imperial standard, would have unexpected results. In a word, there was wanting one soon controlled and silenced the importunate voices of of those miracles of the campaign of Italy; and such the tribune. miracles never spring from an acte additionel, or a champ de mai. To engage in a struggle of internal politics at Paris, without being able to deceive any one, was only to produce new enemies; and the Emperor had already enough whom there was a much more urgent necessity for combatting.

In the critical situation in which he found himself after his triumph of the 20th of March, Napoleon had to choose between three plans. I have mentioned the first; it was probably the best—not in June, but the 21st of March. It had the immense advantage of leav ing everything in the interior undecided. The return from the island of Elba had inflamed men's imaginations. France should have been left under the empire of this first impression, and the national patriotism should not have been suffered to evaporate in the vain debates of the tribune. In Rome, during periods of public danger, a dictator was appointed, and the senate and the tribunes of the people were silent before this supreme officer. The Emperor was a dictator, already nominated. There was but one party on which he could confidently reckon; this party neither asked for guaranties nor liberty, but war and battles-this party could alone serve him; the others made demands of him, but could give him nothing. To sum up the matter, with what has been called the despotism of the

The third plan, that which the Emperor adopted, was identically the same with the first, but with the enthusiasm of the people cooled, and three great months lost: these three months were an age. During these three months the coalition had not remained inactive, and an Anglo-Prussian army of two hundred and twenty thousand men, the avant-garde of six hundred thousand Austrians and Russians, already menaced our frontier. We had a hundred and fifteen thousand men to oppose to them.

If any doubts could remain about the immense advantage the Emperor would have derived from commencing the war the morning after his arrival at Paris, the first results of the contest, so tardily commenced, would suffice to remove them. If Napoleon, profiting by the first fault that was committed, that of a concentration too near the extreme frontier, was enabled to surprise the enemy already on its guard, and obtain the first advantage, what might he not have hoped from his troops, suddenly turned loose upon a dispersed enemy, without any plans for the campaign, and deprived of its means of action! On the 15th of June, when two hundred and twenty thousand men were already nearly united, the Emperor desired to prevent a greater assemblage of his enemies: his plan was to surprise his adversaries, and to beat them in detail.

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