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If, as seems probable, he was led to adopt that course by the news of the escape of De Wet from the Cape Colony, a historical parallel may be found in the sudden dissolution of the Congress of Vienna, when the courier brought the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba.
Then came the Bavarians, worthy comrades of Napoleon's soldiers. The people applauded their defenders. Pupils of the military schools sprang into the ranks to welcome their fathers, while old men embraced their children. A general chorus was heard. Then a warrior came to the front of the stage and celebrated in a hymn the marvels of the campaign of Austerlitz.
De Marmont was ready enough to talk. He knew nothing, of course, of Napoleon's plans and ideas save what Emery had told him. But what he lacked in knowledge he more than made up in imagination. Excitement too had made him voluble. He talked freely and incessantly: "The Emperor would do this. .
As Prince Metternich has said in his curious Memoirs: "The so-called Peace of Vienna had enclosed the Empire in an iron circle, cutting off its communication with the Adriatic, and surrounding it from Brody, on the extreme northeast, towards Russia, to the southeastern frontiers toward the Ottoman Empire, with a row of states under Napoleon's rule, or under his direct influence.
An assembly of Mexican notables, convened by the general of the invaders, voted to set up an imperial government and offered the crown to Napoleon's nominee, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. And now the Government at Washington was faced with a complicated problem. What about the Monroe Doctrine? Did the Union dare risk war with France?
I am just waiting for a good chance to join a hospital unit, but I do not happen to know any surgeon who has gone, and of course they all pick their own nurses. But my chance will come. I am sure of it, and then I am going to do my part. Why! my great-grandfather was an officer in Napoleon's army. I feel ashamed not to be over there."
Under the influence of Castlereagh and Canning the British government gradually broke away from the Holy Alliance formed to suppress all protests against the settlement reached after Napoleon's fall; and Britain interposed with decisive effect at the battle of Navarino in 1827, which secured the independence of Greece from Turkey.
Everything was duplicated down to the last detail. Ladies-in-waiting thronged about the young archduchess; and presently there came to her Queen Caroline of Naples, Napoleon's sister, of whom Napoleon himself once said: "She is the only man among my sisters, as Joseph is the only woman among my brothers."
It is not when 800 leagues from home that one risks his last resource." During this long day this was Napoleon's constant reply to all the leaders of divisions who believed they held in their hands the foretaste of victory, or who saw officers and soldiers slaughtered around them. Napoleon was waiting for a propitious moment, to decide himself the success of the day.
The rapid military promotion may be given as another cause of Napoleon's success. The most distinguished corps were, of course, the greatest sufferers; and the young man who joined the army, as a lieutenant, on the eve of an action, was a captain the next day, perhaps a colonel before he had seen a year's service. Nothing struck me more forcibly than the youth of the French officers.
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