This was the third of the marshals--Augereau, Macdonald, Victor, each in turn--who since the opening of the campaign had shown a physical and moral exhaustion disabling them from rising to the heights of Napoleon's expectation. "We must pull on the boots and the resolution of '93," wrote the Emperor to Augereau; he was quite right: nothing short of the unsapped revolutionary vigor of France could have saved his cause. On the eighteenth, after a six hours' struggle, the French under Gerard and Pajol seized Montereau. Napoleon had halted at Nangis, and there Berthier received by a flag of truce a letter from Schwarzenberg, declaring that he had ceased his offensive march in consequence of news that preliminaries of peace had been signed the day previous at Chatillon. This was probably as base a ruse as any ever practised by Napoleon's generals. It is likely that all the Austrian marches and countermarches for ten days past had been but a bustling semblance calculated for diplomatic effect. Be that as it may, before Napoleon's advance the Austrian commander had quailed, and, with the French at Montereau, his columns were already moving back to Troyes, where they were drawn up in battle array. Napoleon wrote indignantly to Joseph that the ruse was probably preliminary to a request for an armistice, and that he would now accept nothing short of the Frankfort proposals. "At the first check the wretched creatures fall on their knees." Meanwhile he led his army over the river to Nogent, and prepared to attack Schwarzenberg. But Bluecher had not been idle; by superhuman exertions he had collected and strengthened his army at Chalons, and on the twenty-first he appeared at Mery on the Seine, threatening Napoleon's left flank in case of an advance toward Troyes. By this time the flames of French patriotism were rekindled in town and country, and, the soldiers being flushed with victory, it was clearly the hour to strike at any hazard. Oudinot was despatched with ten thousand men to hold Bluecher, and this task he actually accomplished, capturing that portion of Mery which lay on the left bank of the river, and fortifying the bridge-head against all comers. Marmont being at Sezanne with eight thousand men to cover Paris, and Mortier at Soissons with ten thousand to prevent the advance of York and Sacken, Napoleon marched on Troyes. It was late in the evening when his main army was drawn up, and in order to leave time for his rear to come in, he postponed operations until the morning. Schwarzenberg had seventy thousand in line, but at four in the early dawn of the twenty-second, leaving in place a front formation sufficient to mask his movements, he decamped with his main force and withdrew behind the Aube.