Buonaparte had returned to France breathing vengeance. He sent before him two-and-twenty standards taken in the course of his German campaign; and he announced to his Council of State, in troubled and passionate language, the extent of his danger, and his determination of opposing and overcoming it by the most ♦BUONAPARTE’S SPEECH TO HIS COUNCIL.♦ violent efforts. “Wellington,” said he, “is in the south, the Russians threaten the northern frontier, Austria the south-eastern, ... yet, shame to speak it, the nation has not risen in mass to repel them! Every ally has abandoned me: the Bavarians have betrayed me!... Peace? no peace, till Munich is in flames! I demand of you 300,000 men; I will form a camp at Bourdeaux of 100,000, another at Lyons, a third at Metz: with the remnant of my former levies, I shall have 1,000,000 of men in arms. But it is men whom I demand, full-grown men; not these miserable striplings who choke my hospitals with sick, and my highways with their carcases.... Give up Holland? rather let it sink into the sea! Peace, it seems, is talked of, when all around ought to re-echo with the cry of war!” ♦NOVEMBER. PROCEEDINGS OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT.♦ Accordingly the obsequious senate placed, in official form and phrase, 300,000 conscripts at the disposal of the minister of war: they were to be taken from the men who had been liable to the conscription in former years, as far back as 1806, with an exception however in favour of those who should have been married prior to the publication of this decree; half this number were immediately to take the field, the others to be held in reserve, and brought forward in case the eastern frontier should be invaded. Comte Dejean, who ♦COMTE DEJEAN.♦ addressed the senate upon this measure, said that painful as it was thus to call upon classes who had formerly been free from the conscription, circumstances now required such a measure: by this means men would be ranged under the French eagles, who united strength with courage, and could support the fatigues of war; while the younger conscripts would have time in garrisons and in armies of reserve to acquire vigour for seconding the sentiments which inspired them. “The cry of alarm,” said Regnaud de S. Jean d’Angely, ♦REGNAUD DE S. JEAN D’ANGELY.♦ “and of succour, sent forth by our sons and brethren in arms, still gloriously combating upon the banks of the Rhine, has resounded upon the Seine and the Rhone, the Doubs and the Gironde, the Moselle and the Loire, the mountains of Jura and of the Vosges, the Alps and the Pyrenees. All true Frenchmen are already prepared to meet the wants of their country, ... to meet the dangers and sacrifices which must prevent other dangers and sacrifices far more frightful, both for their extent and for the humiliation which must accompany them. If the coalesced armies could penetrate beyond the Pyrenees, the Alps, or the Rhine, then the day of peace could not shine