Generally slow in his operations, the Archduke Charles was too far from the capital to assist it. The place had made no preparations for defence, but the population was animated by great patriotic zeal, and the sight of the French troops before the gates at once caused a rising. The new town, which was open and without ramparts, was quickly in our power. Preparations were made to defend the walls of the old town, behind which the Archduke Maximilian was entrenched, with from 15,000 to 18,000 regular troops. Napoleon took up his abode at Schönbrunn, in the palace abandoned by the Emperor Francis; and after appointing as governor of Vienna, General Andréossy, recently his ambassador in Austria, waited calmly for the result of the bombardment. The archduke had imprudently exposed the town to an irresistible attack: on the morning of the 12th May he left Vienna with the greater part of his troops, leaving to General O'Reilly the sad duty of concluding the capitulation. The French took possession of the place on the 13th. The population were still excited when Napoleon issued a proclamation denouncing the princes of the house of Lorraine for having deserted, "not as soldiers of honor yielding to the circumstances and reverses of war, but as perjurers pursued by their remorse. On running away from Vienna their farewells to its inhabitants were fire and bloodshed; like Medea, they have cut the throats of their children with their own hands. Soldiers! the people of Vienna, to use the expression of the deputation from its faubourgs, are forsaken, abandoned, and widowed; they will be the object of your regards. I take the good citizens under my special protection. As to turbulent and bad men, I shall make examples of them in the ends of justice. Soldiers! Let us treat kindly the poor peasants, and this good population who have so many claims upon our esteem. Let us not be made haughty by our success; but let us see in it a proof of that divine justice which punishes the ungrateful and the perjured."