The Emperor now concentrated some 190,000 troops on Leipzig, the enemy having at their command a possible 300,000, all of whom, however, were not available at the beginning of the now famous “Battle of the Nations.” This lasted from the 16th October till the 19th, and ended in the defeat of Napoleon. During the four days no fewer than 120,000 men were killed or wounded, eloquent proof of the awful nature of the desperate conflict. Deserted by the Saxons, Würtembergers and Bavarians, Napoleon fought his way to the Rhine, crossed the river, and leaving his army, now reduced to about 70,000 men, arrived in Paris on the 9th November. “The close of the campaign,” said Mignet, “was as disastrous as that of the preceding one. France was threatened in its own limits, as it had been in 1799; but the enthusiasm of independence no longer existed, and the man who deprived it of its rights found it, at this great crisis, incapable of sustaining him or defending itself. The servitude of nations is, sooner or later, ever avenged.” The concluding sentence sums up the whole philosophy of history. CHAPTER XXXII The Conquest of the Conqueror (1814-1821) The Allies now had the upper hand beyond the shadow of a doubt. Napoleon the Conqueror--for he has surely as much right to that title as William of Normandy--who had used the greater part of Europe as a parade ground for his matchless legions, who had overturned thrones and founded a dynasty in the modern nineteenth century, had been defeated in two great campaigns. It is difficult to realise that he was now only forty-four years of age, in the prime of life, but “One grows old quickly on battlefields,” as he once remarked. His astounding energy, physically if not mentally, was wearing out. Superactivity is a consuming fire. [Illustration: 1814 By J. L. E. Meissonier By permission of Messrs. Goupil & Co.] Although the Allies had brought the Emperor to his knees, or almost so, there was considerable difference of opinion among them as to their next step. He had lost much; the Confederacy of the Rhine was shattered, the greater part of Germany was unshackled, disasters had occurred in Italy, the British were masters of the Peninsula, yet his enemies wanted more. The Czar and England were the most determined; Prussia, Sweden and Austria were lukewarm. They eventually agreed to give the Emperor another chance, to offer terms humiliating without doubt, but affording him an opportunity of restoring peace to Europe, a blessing long desired but now absolutely necessary. The boundaries of France were to be the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the Alps. He could accept them or choose the only alternative--war. The proud nature of the man, the memory of former conquests, more especially of the time when Alexander and Frederick William III. had been as so much clay in his hands, made a negative answer practically certain, and accordingly the terms of the Allies were refused.