elves in Franche-Comte, in Burgundy, even to the
gates of Dijon. On the 1st of January, 1814, the _Silesian Army_, under
Blucher, crossed the river at various points between Rastadt and
Coblentz; and shortly after, the _Army of the North_, commanded by
Witzingerode and Bulow (for Bernadotte declined having any part in the
actual invasion of France) began to penetrate the frontier of the
Netherlands. The wealthier inhabitants of the invaded provinces escaped
to Paris, bearing with them these tidings; the English _detenus_ of
Verdun were seen traversing the capital on their route to more distant
quarters; the state prisoners of Vincennes itself, under the walls of
Paris, were removed. The secret, in a word, could no longer be kept. It
was known to every one that the Pyrenees had been crossed by Wellington,
and the Rhine by three mighty hosts, amounting together to 300,000 men,
and including representatives of every tongue and tribe, from the
Germans of Westphalia to the wildest barbarians of Tartary. Persons of
condition despatched their plate and valuables to places at a distance
from the capital; many whole families removed daily; and the citizens of
Paris were openly engaged in laying up stores of flour and salted
provisions, in contemplation of a siege.

The violation of the Swiss territory was in itself indefensible; but he
who had so often disdained all rules of that kind in his own person, who
had seized D'Enghien, who had traversed Bareuth, could hardly hope to be
listened to when he complained of Schwartzenberg's proceeding. The
allied generals, moreover, proclaimed everywhere as they advanced, that
they came as the friends not the enemies of the French nation, and that
any of the peasantry who took up arms to oppose them must be content to
abide the treatment of brigands. This assuredly was a flagrant outrage
against the most sacred and inalienable rights of mankind: but Napoleon
had set the fatal example himself in Lombardy, and followed it without a
blush, in Egypt, in Germany, in Spain, in Portugal, and but yesterday in
Russia. Here also, therefore, his reclamations moved no feeling
favourable to himself; and the time was gone by when the French people
would have been ready to take fire at so lawless an aggression upon
their national rights:--these Napoleon's tyranny had trampled down ere
strangers dared to insult them. There were some few scattered instances
of resistance; but in general, the first advance of