Napoleon: A Biography

down into the bag in which he stored all his guile and experience, for by the end of 1813 his very survival was at stake. ...

CHAPTER TWENTY -FIVE With his back to the wall, Napoleon was defiant. Having lost the military war against the Allies, he procee ...

r February r8r3, in which he declared that he would accept the Revolutionary and Bonapartist land settlements and not attempt to ...

neutral Belgium. Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, travelled to Basle in some alarm. There he was able to make common ...

Domaine Extraordinaire had been used up by the disastrous 1812 and 1813 campaigns, Napoleon had to dig deeply into his private f ...

North and, together with an expeditionary fo rce sent from Britain under Sir Thomas Graham, would occupy Holland and Belgium bef ...

January. When the Emperor came on the scene at Chalons, with Ney and the Young Guard, he noticed Blucher's forces dispersed, so ...

veered south, the effect of all this was to drive Blucher pell-mell towards Paris, and he was soon reported at Meaux, 25 miles f ...

fighting on 12-13 February the Prussians and Russians lost 6,ooo, the French no more than 6oo. Once again it was bad news from o ...

received 3o,ooo Russian reinforcements, more than making good his lost numbers. It was as if Napoleon's victories had never been ...

would commit another £ 5 million in subsidies so that the war could continue for another twenty years if necessary. In the last ...

deputy. Gneisenau was overawed by the responsibility of facing the Corsican ogre, so failed to move in to finish the French off, ...

The French had the better of a nocturnal skirmish with Schwarzen­ berg's vanguard, but next day the entire 8o,ooo-strong Army of ...

Soult at Orthez on 27 February, as a result of which Bordeaux rose against Bonaparte and opened its gates to the English on 12 M ...

in Paris by the simple ruse of appearing at the barrier at the city exit without a passport authorizing him to leave. Talleyrand ...

new allies the Austrians. The marshals now had no option but to return to the Emperor with the bad news and ask for his uncondit ...

through the streets. I am really angry at having to go, it will have terrible disadvantages for you, but they pointed out to me ...

CHAPTER TWENTY -SIX On I I April I8I4 the Allies signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which was meant to settle the fate of the B ...

him or bring him to trial. And trial for what? Waging war to retain the natural frontiers could by no stretch of the imagination ...

By I I April - the date of the Treaty of Fontainebleau - he seems to have assumed she would be accompanying him to Elba. 'You ar ...