aught with future
danger.[422]

While the conferences at Chatillon followed one another in fruitless
succession, Bluecher, with 48,000 effectives, was once more resuming
the offensive. Napoleon heard the news at Troyes (February 25th). He
was surprised at the veteran's temerity: he had pictured him crushed
and helpless beyond Chalons, and had cherished the hope of destroying
Schwarzenberg.--"If," he wrote to Clarke on the morrow, "I had had a
pontoon bridge, the war would be over, and Schwarzenberg's army would
no longer exist.... For want of boats, I could not pass the Seine at
the necessary points. It was not 50 boats that I needed, only
20."--With this characteristic outburst against his War Minister,
whose neglect to send up twenty boats from Paris had changed the
world's history, the Emperor turned aside to overwhelm Bluecher. The
Prussian commander was near the junction of the Seine and the Aube;
and seemed to offer his flank as unguardedly as three weeks before.

Napoleon sent Ney, Victor, and Arrighi northwards to fall on his rear,
and on the 27th repaired to Arcis-sur-Aube to direct the operations.
What, then, was his annoyance when, in pursuance of the allied plan
formed on the 23rd, Bluecher skilfully retired northwards, withdrew
beyond the Marne and broke the bridges behind him. Then after failing
to drive Marmont and Mortier from Meaux and the line of the Ourcq, the
Prussian leader marched towards Soissons, near which town he expected
to meet the northern army of the allies. For some hours he was in
grave danger: Marmont hung on his rear, and Napoleon with 35,000 hardy
troops was preparing to turn his right flank. In fact, had he not
broken the bridge over the Marne at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, and thereby
delayed the Emperor thirty-six hours, he would probably have been
crushed before he could cross the River Aisne. His men were dead beat
by marching night and day over roads first covered by snow and now
deep in slush: for a week they had had no regular rations, and great
was their joy when, at the close of the 2nd, they drew near to the
42,000 troops that Buelow and Winzingerode mustered near the banks of
the Aisne and Vesle.

On that day Napoleon, when delayed at La Ferte, conceived the daring
idea of rushing on the morrow after Bluecher, who was "very embarrassed
in the mire," and then of carrying the war into Lorraine, rescuing the
garrisons of Verdun, Toul, and Metz, and rousing the peasantry of the