t to touch the sacred
soil of France in 1793.

But the enthusiasm of the revolutionary period was long since gone by.
In vain did Napoleon send special agents through the departments,
calling on Frenchmen of all classes to rise in arms for the protection
of the soil. Coldness, languor, distrust met them almost everywhere. The
numerical results even of the conscription-levy were far under what they
should have been; and of those who did enrol themselves, multitudes
daily deserted, and not a few took part with those royalist bands who
were, as we have already seen, mustering and training zealously in
almost every district that was either strong by nature, or remote from
the great military establishments of Buonaparte. Nay, even the
Legislative Senate, so long the silent and submissive slaves of all his
imperial mandates, now dared to testify some sympathy with the feelings
of the people, whom, in theory at least, they were supposed to
represent. This was a novelty for which Napoleon had not been prepared,
and he received it in a manner little likely to conciliate the
attachment of wavering men. They ventured to hint that ancient France
would remain to him, even if he accepted the proposals of the Allies,
and that Louis XIV., when he desired to rouse the French people in his
behalf in a moment of somewhat similar disaster, had not disdained to
detail openly the sincere efforts which he had made to obtain an
honourable peace. "Shame on you!" cried the Emperor, "Wellington has
entered the south, the Russian menace the northern frontier, the
Prussians, Austrians, and Bavarians, the eastern. Shame! Wellington is
in France, and we have not risen _en masse_ to drive him back! All my
Allies have deserted--the Bavarian has betrayed me. No peace till we
have burned Munich! I demand a levy of 300,000 men--with this and what I
already have, I shall see a million in arms. I will form a camp of
100,000 at Bourdeaux; another at Mentz; a third at Lyons. But I must
have grown men--these boys serve only to encumber the hospitals and the
road-sides.... Abandon Holland! sooner yield it back to the sea!
Senators, an impulse must be given--all must march--you are fathers of
families--the heads of the nation--you must set the example. Peace! I
hear of nothing but peace when all around should echo to the cry of
war." The senate, nevertheless, drew up and presented a report which
renewed his wrath. He reproached them openly with desiring to purch