Laon, a still stronger position. He had
lost no guns and no prisoners. The
Russians, resisting a general charge of the
French cavalry, retreated slowly, as if
taking part in a mere review. The loss
was about equal on both sides.

Napoleon himself followed the retreating
Russians as far as an inn between Craonne
and Laon, called l' Ange Gardien. Here he
planned his attack, aided by information
supplied by M. Bussy de Bellay, a retired
officer and old schoolfellow of his. When
he finished his plans, the emperor
exclaimed:

"I see this war is a bottomless abyss,
but I am resolved to be the last it shall
devour."

Bulow defended bravely Laon on its
plateau, rising above a plain a league in length,
his troops being posted along the shelving
declivities among the vineyard terraces.
The remainder of the Silesian army was
below, the left wing of Prussians extending
to the village of Athies, the right of
Russians resting on the hills between Thiers and
Semonville. On the 9th, Napoleon's grenadiers
pushed to the foot of the plateau, and
began to force their way up to the town.
Every wall was turned by the Germans
into a bastion, every house into a fort.
While falling back before this storm of
fire, two battalions of Jägers rushed down
the descent, and recovered the villages.
The French, however, still obstinately held
the village of Clacy, but everywhere else
along the front and centre failed to secure
a firm footing. On the left Marshal
Marmont had advanced fiercely upon the village
of Athies, the key of Blucher's position on
that side, and wrestled for it with D'York
and Kleist, who were backed up by
Sacken and Langeron. Marmont, having
made some way, held a few of the houses of
Athies, and bivouacked there that night in
front of the enemy. But Blucher never
rested under defeat; before daybreak the
Prussians made a " hourra," as the Cossacks
called it, on the sleeping French, and cut
to pieces, took, or dispersed the whole
division. Marmont rallied the fugitives on
the road to Rheims, near Corbeny, but his
guns were lost, and the failure on Laon
was fatal to the emperor, who, however,
again threw himself unsuccessfully on
Clacy and Semilly. He then pronounced
the place impregnable, and withdrew on
the 11th with a loss of thirty guns and ten
thousand men, whom he could ill spare.
The Allies, firing from behind walls, lost
but few soldiers.

Halting at Soissons, which Langeron
had evacuated in order to concentrate with
Blucher, Napoleon ordered the defences to
be strengthened, intending to leave Mortier
there to hold it against the Prussians, and
so to block their advance. While at
Soissons, Bonaparte, hearing that St. Priest,
a French renegade in the Russian service,
had taken Rheims, which would renew
the communication between Blucher and
Schwartzenberg, he fell on the place and
took it, St. Priest being wounded in the
encounter. To please the Parisians, Napoleon
pretended that the renegade St. Priest
had been killed by a ball from the same
cannon that killed that more illustrious
renegade, Moreau, at Dresden.

Marmont rejoined the emperor at
Rheims, and was received with bitter
reproaches. The game was in such a state
that one false move now might lose it.
Napoleon stayed three days at Rheims to
rest and strengthen his shattered army,
and was joined there by Jansenns, a Dutch
officer, who had brought four thousand
men from the Moselle garrisons with great
cleverness and daring. At Rheims, for the
last time, Napoleon transacted business
with his ministers from Paris.

In the mean time, Oudinot and Gerard,
at the head of twenty-five thousand men,
had remained on the heights of Bar-sur-
Aube, to prevent Schwartzenberg and the
Austrians crossing the river. The French
took the town, but in the suburbs the
Allies made a stand, and brought up their
reserves and their artillery. The French
struggled hard for the heights of Vernonfait,
but were at last charged and driven
back over the Aube, their cavalry being
crushed by the sustained fire. The Allies
eventually retook the town, and the French
could not rally before they reached the
village of Vandœuvres, nearly half-way
between Bar and Troyes. They lost three
thousand men, the Allies about two
thousand men. Both Schwartzenberg and
Wittgenstein were wounded. Marshal
Macdonald, who was higher up on the
same river, was compelled, after this defeat,
to retreat to Troyes, and leave his strong
position at Ferté-sur-Aube. The three
marshals then abandoned Troyes, and fell
back towards Paris, leaving the road to the
capital once more open to the Austrians.

The Allies were so alarmed, however,
when they heard that Napoleon had taken
Rheims and Chalons-sur-Marne, and so
interposed between them and Blucher,
that they at once resolved to fall back
to Arcis-sur-Aube, and there concentrate.
But for the Emperor Alexander they would