Old Time, why wilt thou never
      Let young Love be? Ah why!
      Because thou art for ever
      Unkindly fleeting by.
      Must Love, too, share thy treasons,
      And play me false like thee?
      Change thou thy suns and seasons,
      But leave my love to me!

BLUCHER'S MARCH THROUGH
FRANCE.

MILITARY authorities agree for once in
this, that the Grand Army never really
recovered the terrible losses of the Russian
campaign. Thenceforward it was equally
brave and intrepid, but it nevertheless
became a patchwork of broken, ill-officered
regiments, irregularly clubbed together.
From that time the army, though often
victorious, was, somehow or other, constantly
retreating. After his disastrous loss of fifty
thousand men at Leipzig, Napoleon fought
his way through Germany, bleeding at every
joint of his armour. He won two victories,
Dresden and Hanau, but he was defeated
at Gross-Bæren, Cuhn, and Dennewitz. In
almost every skirmish the French were
outnumbered, overweighted in light cavalry,
light infantry, and tirailleurs.

Napoleon reached Paris on November the
9th, 1813, and instantly, with his usual
energy, ordered a levy of three hundred
thousand men. On the 25th of January,
parting from Marie Louise and the King
of Rome, to start for the frontier, he cried:
"Why should not the whole truth be
told? Wellington has entered the south;
the Russians menace the north; the
Prussians, Austrians, and Bavarians threaten
the east. Shame! Wellington is in France,
and we have not risen en masse to drive
him back. No peace more till we have
burned Munich. I demand of France three
hundred thousand men. I will form a camp
of one hundred thousand at Bourdeaux,
another at Metz, and a third at Lyons.
With the present levy, and with what
remains, I will have a million of men. But
I must have grown men, not these boy
conscripts, who encumber the hospitals and
die of fatigue on the roads. Counsellors,
there must be an impulse given. All must
march — you, the fathers of families—you,
the heads of the nation, must set the
example. They speak of peace. I hear of
nothing but peace when all around should
echo to the cry of war." Wise men
shuddered to see that this man, who had already
turned Europe into one vast slaughterhouse,
was still eager for more wars.

Wishing to avoid the strongholds that
protected the Rhine from Bâle to
Mayence, and were still held for the most part
by French soldiers, the Allies, powerful
enough to brave out any injustice, violated
the neutrality of Switzerland and passed
through Geneva. On the 21st of December,
Prince Schwartzenberg crossed the Rhine
with the Austrians, at four points, and
advanced upon Langres, which at once
surrendered, as did also Dijon, while Lyons,
with the brave Burgundy men, repulsed
its assailants. Blucher and the army of
Silesia crossed the Rhine at Caub, twenty-
one miles from Wiesbaden. The Prussians
advanced hotly in four divisions, blockading
or masking the frontier fortresses of Metz,
Saarlouis, Thionville, and Luxembourg,
while part of the army passed the defiles of
the Vosges, and pressed forward at once to
Joinville, Vitry, and St. Dizier, to open
communication with the central army,
which had already penetrated as far as
Bar-sur-Attbe, in Champagne, the very
centre of France. In ten days from crossing
the Rhine, Blucher had established his
army at Nancy.

France was tired of the Bonapartes. The
people made no desperate resistance, and
neither welcomed nor repelled the strangers.
In the mean time, Bulow and Winzengerode
entering France by the northern frontier,
and as a reserve to Blucher's army of
Silesia, advanced as far as Laon, in French
Flanders. "I am two months behind-
hand," said Napoleon, prophetically. " If
I had had that time, they should never have
crossed the Rhine. I can do nothing single-
handed; unless I am assisted, I must fall
in the struggle." With this feeling of
despair gnawing at his heart, we shall see
what a brave fight this great genius made
of it.

Time brings its revenges. Napoleon now
did as the Archduke Charles had done in
1809. He called out the levy en masse,
that last and hopeless move of all defeated
patriots, and Schwartzenberg behaved as
Napoleon had before done—threatening
vengeance on all who obeyed the summons.
The Allies, now with all in their hands
between Langres and Chalons, hesitated, not
being fully conscious of Napoleon's real
weakness. They looked with longing but
timid eyes at Paris, afraid of a defeat in
the centre of France, with no strong
position to hold, and with unconquered
fortresses still in their rear. They were still
hoping that France would rise against
Napoleon, or that Bonaparte himself would
come to terms. Every day of that hesitation
at Langres cost those waverers a thousand