had not only captured sixteen guns and four thousand prisoners, forced the French from their true line of retreat, and increased the terror and confusion which prevailed among them, but they also succeeded in following some few detachments of the enemy, who had been enabled to fly straight to Paris. In this manner their advanced posts were within five miles of the capital, near Le Bourget and Stains, where they carried panic and dismay into the heart of the city.[17] Blücher established his head-quarters at Senlis. ----- Footnote 16: Siborne, ii. p. 403. Footnote 17: Siborne, ii. 415. ----- During this vigorous pursuit, the Anglo-allies were also advancing southwards. On the 26th, Sir John Byng assaulted the fortress of Peronne with the 1st Guards Brigade, who carried the outworks by storm with little loss, soon after which the town capitulated. The British head-quarters were at Vermand and the army in the vicinity, advanced cavalry patrols having penetrated as far as Roye. The Coldstream Guards halted at Coulaincourt. Next day the army crossed the river Somme at Willecourt; the Duke was at Nesle, and Roye was occupied. On the 28th, the British right was near St. Just, and Montdidier was occupied; the left was in rear of La Tulle, where the roads meet that run from Compiègne and Roye; the reserve reached the latter place, and the Guards Division was at Conchy, where the rest of the First Army-Corps was posted. The rapid approach of the invaders upon Paris made it plain to the Provisional Government that they had no power to arrest the progress of the Allies for a single moment; and although the north side of the city was secured by a line of fortified works, sufficiently strong to resist a _coup de main_, yet the wreck of Napoleon’s army had not reached the capital, and time was imperatively required to bring them there and to organize some defence. An armistice was once more sought on the 27th, and again on the 28th, in the despairing hope that the Government might be allowed some breathing-time in which to consider their position, and make some show of resistance, in order to save France the humiliation which was clearly in store for her. But the allied Commanders were inexorable, and, refusing all such negotiations, they pursued their operations with the same activity as in the past. Wellington indeed frankly told the Commissioners who approached him on behalf of the Provisional Government, that he—