to convince him that
the fate of Paris must have been decided ere he could reach it, and
advised him to march without further delay so as to form a conjunction
with Augereau. "In that case," said the marshal, "we may unite and
repose our troops, and yet give the enemy battle on a chosen field. If
Providence has decreed our last hour, we shall, at least, die with
honour, instead of being dispersed, pillaged, and slaughtered by
Cossacks." Napoleon was deaf to all such counsel. He continued to
advance. Finding the road beyond Troyes quite clear, he threw himself
into a postchaise, and travelled on before his army at full speed, with
hardly any attendance. At Villeneuve L'Archeveque he mounted on
horseback, and galloping without a pause, reached Fontainebleau late in
the night. He there ordered a carriage, and taking Caulaincourt and
Berthier into it, drove on towards Paris. Nothing could shake his belief
that he was yet in time--until, while he was changing horses at La Cour
de France, but a few miles from Paris, General Belliard came up, at the
head of a column of cavalry--weary and dejected men, marching towards
Fontainebleau, in consequence of the provisions of Marmont's
capitulation, from the fatal field of Montmartre.

Even then Napoleon refused to halt. Leaping from his carriage, he began:
"What means this? Why here with your cavalry, Belliard? And where are
the enemy? Where are my wife and my boy? Where Marmont? Where Mortier?"
Belliard walking by his side, told him the events of the day. He called
out for his carriage--and insisted on continuing his journey. The
general in vain informed him that there was no longer an army in Paris;
that the regulars were all coming behind, and that neither they nor he
himself, having left the city in consequence of a convention, could
possibly return to it. The Emperor still demanded his carriage, and bade
Belliard turn with the cavalry and follow him. "Come," said he, "we must
to Paris--nothing goes aright when I am away--they do nothing but
blunder." He strode on, crying, "You should have held out longer--you
should have raised Paris--they cannot like the Cossacks--they would
surely have defended their walls--Go! go! I see every one has lost his
senses. This comes of employing fools and cowards." With such
exclamations Buonaparte hurried onwards, dragging Belliard with him,
until they were met, a mile from La Cour de France, by the first of the
retreating infantry. Their comman