rtended a constitutional crisis, when the summons to arms rang
forth; and the chief, warning the deputies not to imitate the Greeks
of the late Empire by discussing abstract propositions while the
battering-ram thundered at their gates, cut short these barren debates
by that appeal to the sword which had rarely belied his hopes.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXIX

LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS

A less determined optimist than Napoleon might well have hoped for
success over the forces of the new coalition. True, they seemed
overwhelmingly great. But many a coalition had crumbled away under the
alchemy of his statecraft; and the jealousies that had raged at the
Congress of Vienna inspired the hope that Austria, and perhaps
England, might speedily be detached from their present allies. Strange
as it seems to us, the French people opined that Napoleon's escape
from Elba was due to the connivance of the British Government; and
Captain Mercer states that, even at Waterloo, many of the French clung
to the belief that the British resistance would be a matter of form.
Napoleon cherished no such illusion: but he certainly hoped to
surprise the British and Prussian forces in Belgium, and to sever at
one blow an alliance which he judged to be ill cemented. Thereafter he
would separate Austria from Russia, a task that was certainly possible
if victory crowned the French eagles.[472]

His military position was far stronger than it had been since the
Moscow campaign. The loss of Germany and Spain had really added to his
power. No longer were his veterans shut up in the fortresses of Europe
from Danzig to Antwerp, from Hamburg to Ragusa; and the Peninsular War
no longer engulfed great armies of his choicest troops. In the eyes of
Frenchmen he was not beaten in 1814; he was only tripped up by a
traitor when on the point of crushing his foes. And, now that peace
had brought back garrisons and prisoners of war, as many as 180,000
well-trained troops were ranged under the imperial eagles. He hoped by
the end of June to have half a million of devoted soldiers ready for
the field.

The difficulties that beset him were enough to daunt any mind but his.
Some of the most experienced Marshals were no longer at his side. St.
Cyr, Macdonald, Oudinot, Victor, Marmont, and Augereau remained true
to Louis XVIII. Berthier, on hearing of Napoleon's return from Elba,
forthwith retired into Germany, and, in a fit of frenzy, t