ons were in progress, he made an
effort to conciliate that large party of his subjects, who had hitherto
looked on him with coldness as the oppressor of the head of the Catholic
church. During his absence in Russia, the Pope had been removed once
more to Fontainebleau, where he now occupied apartments in the palace,
under strict _surveillance_ of the police. The Emperor presented himself
suddenly in his hunter's dress before the holy father on the 13th of
January; and exerted his talents with such success, that preliminary
articles of a new concordat were at length drawn up. But in his
eagerness to produce a favourable impression on the Catholic public,
Napoleon published these preliminary articles, as if they had formed a
definite and ratified treaty; and Pius, indignant at this conduct, which
he considered as equally false and irreverent, immediately announced his
resolution to carry the negotiation no further.

The Pope, however, was the only man in France who as yet durst openly
confront the rage of Buonaparte. As the time when he was expected to
assume once more the command of his army in the field drew near, the
addresses of his apparently devoted subjects increased in numbers, and
still more in the extravagance of their adulations.

Napoleon quitted Paris in the middle of April, and on the 18th reached
the banks of the Saale; where the troops he had been mustering and
organising in France had now been joined by Eugene Beauharnois and the
garrison of Magdeburg. The Czar and his Prussian ally were known to be
at Dresden; and it soon appeared that, while they meditated a march
westwards on Leipsig, the French intended to move eastwards with the
view of securing the possession of that great city. Of the armies thus
about to meet each other's shock in the heart of Saxony, there is no
doubt that Buonaparte's was considerably the more numerous. His activity
had been worthy of his reputation; and a host nearly 200,000 strong was
already concentrated for action, while reserves to nearly a similar
extent were gradually forming behind him on the Rhine. The Russians had
not as yet pushed forward more than half their disposable troops beyond
the Vistula--wherever the blame lay, such was the fact; the Prussians,
unanimous as their patriotism was, had had only three months to
reorganise their establishments. Under such circumstances, the advance
of the allies beyond the Elbe, could only have proceeded from their
ardent wish to