lt was driven by Wellington from the mountains at the back of
the town of Orthez, he drew back his shattered troops over the River
Adour, and then turned sharply to the east in order to join hands with
Suchet's corps. This move, excellent as it was in a military sense,
left Bordeaux open to the British; and Wellington forthwith sent
Beresford northwards with 12,000 troops to occupy that great city. He
met with a warm greeting from the French royalists, as also did the
Duc d'Angouleme, who arrived soon after. The young prince at once
proclaimed Louis XVIII. King of France, and allowed the royalist mayor
to declare that the allies were advancing to Paris merely in order to
destroy Napoleon and replace him by the rightful monarch. Strongly as
Wellington's sympathies ran with the aim of this declaration, he
emphatically repudiated it. Etiquette compelled him to do so; for the
allies were still negotiating with Napoleon; and his own tact warned
him that the Bourbons must never come into France under the cloak of
the allies.

The allied sovereigns had as yet done nothing to favour their cause;
and the wiser heads among the French royalists saw how desirable it
was that the initiative should come from France. The bad effects of
the Bordeaux manifesto were soon seen in the rallying of National
Guards and peasants to the tricolour against the hated _fleur-de-lys;_
and Beresford's men could do little more than hold their own.[437] If
that was the case in the monarchical south, what might not Napoleon
hope to effect in the east, now that the Bourbon "chimaera" threatened
to become a fact?

The news as to the state of Paris was less satisfactory. That fickle
populace cheered royalist allusions at the theatres, hissed off an
"official" play that represented Cossack marauders,[438] and caused
such alarm to Savary that he wrote to warn his master of the inability
of the police to control the public if the war rolled on towards
Paris. Whether Savary's advice was honestly stupid, or whether, as
Lavalette hints, Talleyrand's intrigues were undermining his loyalty
to Napoleon, it is difficult to say. But certainly the advice gave
Napoleon an additional reason for flinging himself on Schwarzenberg's
rear and drawing him back into Lorraine. He had reason to hope that
Augereau, reinforced by some of Suchet's troops, would march towards
Dijon and threaten the Austrians on the south, while he himself
pressed on them from the north-east. In t