--could easily have checked
the foe; but the convention of Tauroggen had quickened the Austrian
memory of Russia's friendly lukewarmness in 1809, Francis was in no
humor to bolster the falling cause of his terrible son-in-law, and
after some show of negotiation a temporary neutrality was arranged.
When a few Cossacks appeared before Warsaw, on February sixth, the
Austrian general evacuated the city as if yielding to superior force,
and withdrew across the Vistula toward the frontier.

These blows seemed to fall lightly on the armor of Napoleon's
intrepidity. So far from feeling any dismay, the Emperor did not
contemplate curtailing his ambition. Perhaps he was not entirely
deceived; quite possibly, by the slightest exhibition of diminished
activity he might have weakened his influence in the great land which
formed the heart of his dominions. As one piece of bad news after
another reached Paris, each in turn seemed only a goad to new exertion
for Emperor and people. France was by that time not merely
enthusiastic; she was fascinated and adoring. The ordinary
conscription of 1813 yielded a hundred and forty thousand recruits;
four regiments were formed for artillery service from the idle
sailors, three thousand men were taken from the gendarmerie, some even
from the national guard. On January thirteenth the senate decreed a
further draft of a hundred thousand from the lists of 1813, and
ordered that the conscription for 1814 should be forestalled in order
that the hundred and fifty thousand boys thus collected might be
hardened by a year's camp life, and rendered available for immediate
use when their time arrived. There is truth in the charge that
Napoleon robbed the cradle and the grave. In order to officer this
mighty host, which included about a third of the able-bodied men of
France between seventeen and forty-five, such commanders as could be
spared were called home from Spain, and the rabble of non-commissioned
and commissioned officers which began to straggle in from Russia was
drawn back into the service. These survivors were treated like
conquerors, being praised and promoted until the nation became
bewildered, and thought of the Russian campaign as a series of
victories. Foreign visitors wrote that the Emperor had but to stamp
his foot and armed men sprang up on every side like AEetes' corps of
Colchian warriors on the field of Mars.

The comparison halted--Napoleon was AEetes and Jason combined; he yoked
t