CHAPTER XXXII.

Conspiracy of Mallet-Napoleon's reception in Parishis Military Preparations— Prussia declares war— Austria negotiates with Napoleon-Bernadotte lands in Germany-The Russians advance into Silesia-Napoleon heads his Army in Saxony-Battle of LutzenBattle of Bautzen.

SOME allusion has already been made to the news of a political disturbance in Paris, which reached Napoleon during his retreat from Moscow, and quickened his final abandonment of the army. The occurrence in question was the daring conspiracy headed by General Mallet. This officer, one of the ancient noblesse, had been placed in confinement in 1808, in consequence of his connection with a society called the Philadelphes, which seems to have sprung up within the French army, at the time when Napoleon seized the supreme power, and which had for its immediate object his deposition-while some of the members contemplated the restoration of a republican government, and others, of whom Mallet was one, the recall of the royal family of Bourbon. The people of Paris had for some weeks received no official intelligence from the grand army, and rumours of some awful catastrophe were rife among all classes, when Mallet conceived the daring project of forging a se

natus-consultum, announcing the fall of Napoleon in a great battle in Russia, and appointing a provisional government. Having executed this forgery, the general escaped from his prison, and appeared in full uniform, attended by a corporal dressed as an aide-de-camp, at midnight, on the 22d of October, 1812, at the gates of the Minimsbarracks, then tenanted by some new and raw levies. The audacity with which he claimed the obedience of these men to the senatorial decree, overawed them. He assumed the command, and on the instant arrested by their means Savary, minister of police, and some others of the principal functionaries in the capital. General Hullin, the military governor, was summoned and hesitated; at that moment the officer of police, from whose keeping Mallet had escaped, recognized him, and he was immediately resisted, disarmed, and confined. The whole affair was over in the course of a few hours, but the fact that so wild a scheme should have been so nearly successful was sufficiently alarming. The ease and indifference with which a considerable body of armed men, in the very heart of Paris, had transferred their services to a new authority, proclaimed by a stranger, made Napoleon consider with suspicion the basis of his power. And ignorant to what extent the conspiracy had actually gone, he heard with additional alarm, that no fewer than twenty-four persons, including the leader, had been condemned to death. Of so many he was willing to believe that some at least had been mere dupes, and apprehended that so much bloodshed might create a violent revulsion of public feeling. The Parisians beheld the

execution of these men with as much indifference as their bold attempt; but of this Napoleon was ignorant, until he reached the Tuilleries.

His arrival, preceded as it had been by the twenty-ninth bulletin, in which the veil was at last lifted from the fatal events of the campaign, restored for the moment the appearances of composure, amidst a population of which almost every family had lost a son or a brother. Such was the influence that still clung to his name. The Em

peror was safe. However great the present calamity, hope remained. The elements, as they were taught to believe, had not merely quickened and increased, but wholly occasioned the reverses of the army. The Russian winter was the only enemy that had been able to triumph over his genius, and the valour of Frenchmen. The senate, the magistrates, all those public bodies and functionaries who had the means of approaching the throne, now crowded to its footsteps with addresses full of adulation, yet more audacious than they had ever before ventured on. The voice of applause, congratulation, and confidence, re-echoed from every quarter, drowned the whispers of suspicion, resentment, and natural sorrow. Every department of the public service appeared to be animated with a spirit of tenfold activity. New conscriptions were called for and yielded. Regiments arrived from Spain and from Italy. Every arsenal resounded with the preparation of new artillery-thousands of horses were impressed in every province. Ere many weeks had elapsed, Napoleon found himself once more in a condition to take the field with not less than 350,000 soldiers. Such was the effect

of his new appeal to the national feelings of this great and gallant people.

Meanwhile the French garrisons dispersed over the Prussian territory were wholly incompetent to overawe that oppressed and insulted nation, now burning with the settled thirst and the long-deferred hope of vengeance. The king interposed, indeed, his authority to protect the soldiers of Napoleon from popular violence; but it presently became manifest that their safety must depend on their concentrating themselves in a small number of fortified places; and that even if Frederick William had been cordially anxious to preserve his alliance with France, it would soon be impossible for him to resist the unanimous wishes of his people. Murat was already weary of his command. He found himself thwarted and controlled by the other generals, none whom respected his authority; and one of whom, when he happened to speak of himself in the same breath with the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia, answered without ceremony, "You must remember that these are kings by the grace of God, by descent, and by custom; whereas you are only a king by the grace of Napoleon, and through the expenditure of French blood." Murat was moreover jealous of the extent to which his queen was understood to be playing the sovereign in Naples, and he threw up his command; being succeeded by Eugene Beauharnois, and insulted anew by Napoleon himself, in a general order which announced this change, and alleged as its causes, the superior military skill of the viceroy, and his possession of "the full confidence of the Emperor." Eugene succeeded to the command at the moment

when it was obvious that Frederick William could no longer, even if he would, repress the universal enthusiasm of his people. On the 31st of January, the King made his escape to Breslau, in which neighbourhood no French were garrisoned, erected his standard, and called on the nation to rise in arms. Whereon Eugene retired to Magdeburg, and shut himself up in that great fortress, with as many troops as he could assemble to the west of the Elbe.

Six years had elapsed since the fatal day of Jena; and, in spite of all the watchfulness of Napoleon's tyranny, the Prussian nation had recovered in a great measure its energies. The people now answered the call of their beloved prince, as with the heart and voice of one man. Youths of all ranks, the highest and the lowest, flocked indiscriminately to the standard: the students of the universities formed themselves into battalions, at the head of which, in many instances, their teachers marched. The women flung their trinkets into the king's treasure the gentlemen melted their plate -England poured in her gold with a lavish hand. The rapidity with which discipline was established among the great levies thus assembled, excited universal astonishment. It spoke the intense and perfect zeal with which a people, naturally warlike, had devoted themselves to the sacred cause of independence. The Emperor of Russia was no sooner aware of this great movement, than he resolved to advance into Silesia. Having masked several French garrisons in Prussian Poland, and taken others, he pushed on with his main army to support Frederick William. There was some risk