Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4Menzel, Wolfgang
History
Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4
Menzel, Wolfgang
Germany -- History
with seventy pieces of artillery, at La Fère Ohampenoise. On the 29th
of March, the dark columns of the allied army defiled within sight of
Paris. On the 30th, they met with a spirited resistance on the heights
of Belleville and Montmartre; but the city, in order to escape
bombardment, capitulated during the night, and, on the 31st, the
allied sovereigns made a peaceful entry. The empress, accompanied by
the king of Rome, by Joseph, ex-king of Spain, and by innumerable
wagons, laden with the spoil of Europe, had already fled to the south
of France.
Napoleon, completely deceived by Winzingerode and Tettenborn, who had
remained behind with merely a weak rearguard, first learned the
advance of the main body upon Paris when too late to overtake it.
After almost annihilating his weak opponents at St. Dizier, he reached
Fontainebleau, where he learned the capitulation of Paris, and, giving
way to the whole fury of his Corsican temperament, offered to yield
the city for two days to the license of his soldiery would they but
follow him to the assault. But his own marshals, even his hero, Ney,
deserted him, and, on the 10th of April, he was compelled to resign
the imperial crown of France and to withdraw to the island of Elba on
the coast of Italy, which was placed beneath his sovereignty and
assigned to him as a residence. The kingdom of France was
re-established on its former footing; and, on the 4th of May, Louis
XVIII. entered Paris and mounted the throne of his ancestors.
Davoust was the last to offer resistance. The Russians under Bennigsen
besieged him in Hamburg, and, on his final surrender, treated him with
the greatest moderation.[9]
On the 30th of May, 1814, peace was concluded at Paris.[10] France was
reduced to her limits as in 1792, and consequently retained the
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, of which she had, at an earlier
period, deprived Germany. Not a farthing was paid by way of
compensation for the ravages suffered by Germany, nay, the French
prisoners of war were, on their release, maintained on their way home
at the expense of the German population. None of the _chefs-d'oeuvres_
of which Europe had been plundered were restored, with the sole
exception of the group of horses, taken by Napoleon from the
Brandenburg gate at Berlin. The allied troops instantly evacuated the
country. France was allowed to regulate her internal affairs without
the interference of any of the foreign powers, while paragraphs
concerning the internal economy of Germany were not only admitted into
the treaty of Paris, and France was on that account not only called
upon to guarantee and to participate in the internal affairs of
Germany, but also afterward sent to the great Congress of Vienna an
ambassador destined to play an important part in the definitive
settlement of the affairs of Europe, and, more particularly, of those
of Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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