In the north of France, Napoleon’s downfal had been hurrying rapidly to its close. The congress at Chatillon finally concluded its sittings on the 19th of March--and on the next day, Buonaparte was severely repulsed in a general engagement with the allies at Arcis. Even the repeated reverses he had latterly endured, could not extinguish that audacity of action for which the French emperor was so remarkable. With a ruined army, he threw himself behind the Marne on the 22nd, regardless of the enormous _corps d’armée_ collected in his front, and whose numbers were quite adequate to crush a force like his, weakened by defeat, and disheartened by the defection of the southern provinces. Directing his march on St. Dizier, he declared “that he should reach Vienna before the allies entered Paris.” If this mad project were devised only to interrupt their advance on the French capital, it failed entirely,--the allied corps marched steadily on Paris--Marmont and Mortier were driven back upon that city--and the capital was regularly invested on the 29th. Affairs had now reached a crisis. To defend that city with a corps not mustering twenty thousand men, would have been, with every assistance attainable from the inhabitants and _gendarmerie_, an act of madness. On the 30th, the allies carried the heights of Bellevue. The marshals retired--Joseph, the ex-King of Spain, quitted the capital--and the city, evacuated by the regular troops, capitulated. Failing in his efforts at distracting the allied generals in their advance, Napoleon, after a smart affair, decided to countermarch on Paris--but the Prussian corps, that held Vitry, completely barred the direct line of march, and obliged him to take a circuitous rout. Having put his army again into motion, Buonaparte travelled post, and when within four leagues of Paris, learned that his capital was actually in possession of the allies. After much indecision he determined, with what troops he could collect, to march from Fontainbleau to Paris, on the 3rd of April. But his history had been already politically closed by a decree passed on the preceding day by the conservative senate. His deposition was solemnly pronounced--the soldiery liberated from their allegiance--all confidence, civil and military, was destroyed--and a throne, erected on the ruins of kingdoms, and cemented by seas of blood, crumbled into nothingness, and, “Like the baseless fabric of a vision, Left not a wreck behind.”