Atlantic Monthly | Page 8

We walked to the further end, encountering people who had heard the shouting and were hurrying to ascertain its meaning. At a bend of the path we met Mr. Crawford, our Minister at Paris, with Mr. Erving, U.S. Minister to Spain, and they eagerly inquired, "What news?" My father turned, and, walking back with them a few steps to where the building was visible, pointed to the standard at its summit. Nothing more was necessary. It told the whole story.
I left them and hurried back to the institution to which I belonged. I was anxious to relate the events of the day, and, as I was the only one of the pupils who had witnessed them, I had a welcome which might well have excited the jealousy of the Emperor. As far as the school was concerned, I certainly divided honors with him that evening. It was, however, a limited copartnership, and expired at bedtime.
Napoleon entered the city about eight o'clock that night. We were nearly two miles from his line of progress, but we could distinctly trace it by the roar of voices, which sounded like a continuous roll of distant thunder.
I saw him, two days after, at a window of the Tuileries. I stopped directly under the building, where twenty or thirty persons had assembled, who were crying out for him with what seemed to me most presumptuous familiarity. They called him "Little Corporal,"--"Corporal of the Violet,"--said they wanted to see him, and that he must come to the window. He looked out twice during the half-hour I staid there, had on the little cocked hat which has become historical, smiled and nodded good-naturedly, and seemed to consider that something was due from him to the "many-headed" at that particular time. Such condescension was not expected or given in his palmy days, but he felt now his dependence on the people, and had been brought nearer to them by misfortune.
It was said, at the time, that he was much elated on his arrival, but that he grew reserved, if not depressed, as his awful responsibility became more and more apparent. He had hoped for a division in the Allied Councils, but they were firm and united, and governed only by the unalterable determination to overwhelm and destroy him. He saw that his sole reliance was on the chances of war; that he had to encounter enemies whose numbers were inexhaustible, and who, having once dethroned him, would no longer be impeded by the terror of his name. There was, besides, no time to recruit his diminished battalions, or to gather the munitions of war. The notes of preparation sounded over Europe, and already the legions of his foes were hastening to encircle France with a cordon of steel. The scattered relics of the "Grand Army" which had erected and sustained his empire were hastily collected, and, as they in turn reached Paris, were reviewed on the Carrousel and sent forward to concentre on the battle-ground that was to decide his fate. No branch of art was idle that could contribute to the approaching conflict. Cannon were cast with unprecedented rapidity, and the material of war was turned out to the extent of human ability. But he was deficient in everything that constitutes an army. Men, horses, arms, equipage, all were wanting. The long succession of dreadful wars which had decimated the country had also destroyed, beyond the possibility of immediate repair, that formidable arm which had decided so many battles, and which is peculiarly adapted to the impetuosity of the French character. The cavalry was feeble, and it was evident, even to an unpractised eye, as the columns marched through the streets, that the horses were unequal to their riders. The campaign of Moscow had been irretrievably disastrous to this branch of the service. Thirty thousand horses had perished in a single night, and the events which succeeded had almost entirely exhausted this indispensable auxiliary in the tactics of war.
The expedients to which the government was reduced were evident in the processions of unwashed citizens, which paraded the streets as a demonstration of the popular determination to "do or die." Whatever could be raked from the remote quarters of Paris was marshalled before the Emperor. Faubourgs, which in the worst days of the Revolution had produced its worst actors, now poured out their squalid and motley inhabitants, and astonished the more refined portions of the metropolis with this eruption of semi-civilization.
[To be continued.]

MY JOURNAL TO MY COUSIN MARY.
[Concluded.]
IV.
June.
I can no longer complain that I see no one but Kate, for she has an ardent admirer in one of our neighbors. He comes daily to watch her, in the Dumbiedikes style of courtship, and seriously interferes with our quiet pursuits. Besides this "braw wooer," we have another intruder upon