Generals endeavoured to arrest the enemy, but they failed to do so; and Grouchy, who marched with great rapidity and resolution, ably seconded by the valour of his subordinate Generals, reached Givet on the 21st, and entered French territory in safety. He was then ordered to join Marshal Soult, who was attempting to rally the broken fragments of the main army at Laon. This occurred on the fatal 22nd, the same day that Napoleon, coerced by the political leaders in Paris, closed his public career, and signed his abdication of the French throne in favour of his son. Grouchy’s corps was the only one that, having taken part in the campaign in Belgium, remained intact. The main French army had been panic-stricken at Waterloo, and a large mass of those who survived the battle fled straight to Paris, or deserted their standards, and were nowhere to be found; many flung away their arms, and dispersed to their homes. The disruption of the great army was complete, and the defeat signal and decided beyond all former precedent. The co-operation of the greater bulk of Napoleon's forces in subsequent military events was impossible, and little resistance was to be apprehended from these men. But there was a remnant of true soldiers still available, who, seeking their Colours, concentrated some 20,000 strong near Philippeville. On the 22nd they were at Laon, and about that time the French could dispose of some 50,000 men for the defence of the northern frontier. The situation was a desperate one, and would have been fatal even to Napoleon himself in the full vigour of his military genius; but the position was all the more impossible, since the Saxons, the Austrians, and the Russians were by this time upon the eastern frontier of France, and were ready to advance in a concentrated and concentric march upon the capital.