Joachim, remaining erect amid the ruins of his army, sustained with heroic firmness the efforts of his enemies. Resolved to fall with arms in his hand, he rushed on the battalions, and carried terror and death into the midst of their ranks. But his valour could only ennoble his fall. Still repulsed, still invulnerable, he relinquished the hope of meeting death or victory. In the night of the 19th of March he returned to Naples: the Queen appeared indignant at seeing him. "Madame," said he to her, "I was not able to find death." He departed immediately, that he might not fall into the hands of the Austrians, and came to take refuge in France. The Queen, notwithstanding the dangers, that threatened her life, resolved to remain at Naples, till her fate and that of the army were decided. When the treaty was signed, she withdrew on board an English vessel and repaired to Trieste. The catastrophe of the King made the most profound impression on the superstitious mind of Napoleon; but the French it inspired with little regret, and no fear. I say no fear, for the nation was familiarised with the idea of war. The patriotism and energy, with which it felt itself animated, filled it with such confidence, that it deemed itself sufficiently strong, to dispense with the support of the Neapolitans, and struggle alone against the coalition. It recalled to mind the campaign of 1814; and, if at that period Napoleon, with sixty thousand soldiers, had beaten and held in check the victorious foreign armies, what might it not hope now, when an army of three hundred thousand fighting men would form, in case of need, only the advanced guard of France? The royalists and their newspapers, by repeating the manifestoes of Ghent and Vienna, enumerating the foreign armies, and exaggerating our dangers, had indeed succeeded in abating the courage of a few, and shaking their opinions; but the sentiments of the bulk of the nation had lost nothing of their vigour and energy. Every day fresh offerings[20] were deposited on the altar of their country; and every day new corps of volunteers, equally numerous and formidable, were establishing, under the names of lancers, partisans, federates, mountain chasseurs, and tirailleurs. [Footnote 20: The departments of the Centre, and of the East, particularly distinguished themselves. A great number of their inhabitants gave considerable sums, and equipped at their own expense companies, battalions, whole regiments, of partisans or national guards. A single citizen of Paris, Mr. Delorme, proprietor of the fine _passage_ of the same name, offered his country a hundred thousand francs.