The two armies marched on parallel lines, and met with no resistance of any importance, except as the various skirmishes enabled the irregular French soldiers to display a desperate courage, not only the untried "Marie Louises" coming out from Paris, but various bodies of the national guard convoying provision-trains. It was the twenty-fifth before Marmont and Mortier effected their junction, and then, although about sixteen thousand strong, they were steadily forced back through Fere-Champenoise and Allemant toward Charenton, which was under the very walls of Paris. Marmont displayed neither energy nor common sense on the retreat: his outlying companies were cut off, and strategic points which might have been held were utterly neglected. The army with which he reached Paris on the twenty-ninth should have formed an invaluable nucleus for the formation and incorporation of the numerous volunteers and irregular companies which were available; but, like its leader, it was entirely demoralized. Ledru des Essarts, commander of Meaux, was obliged on the twenty-seventh to abandon his charge, a military depot full of ammunition and supplies, which was essential to the safety of Paris. The garrison consisted of six thousand men, but among them were not more than eight hundred veterans, hastily collected from Marmont's stragglers, and the new conscripts were ill-conditioned and badly commanded. Although the generals drew up their men with a bold front to defend the passage of the Marne, the undisciplined columns were overwhelmed with terror at the sight of Bluecher's army, and, standing only long enough to blow up the magazines, fled. They fought gallantly, however, on their retreat throughout the twenty-eighth, but to no avail; one position after another was lost, and they too bivouacked on the evening of the twenty-ninth before the gates of the capital. It is a weak curiosity, possibly, but we must wonder what would have occurred had Marmont, instead of retreating to Fismes on the eighteenth, withdrawn to Rheims, where he and Mortier could at least have checked Bluecher's unauthorized advance, and perhaps have held the army of Silesia for a time, when the moral effect would probably have been to justify Schwarzenberg and confirm his project for the pursuit of Napoleon. In that case, moreover, the precious information of Napoleon's letter to his consort would not have fallen into his enemies' hands. Would destiny have paused in its career? CHAPTER IX THE BEGINNING OF THE END[11] [Footnote 11: References: Napoleon, King of Elba. Pons de l'Herault, Memoire aux puissances alliees; publ. pour la "societe d'histoire contemporaine." Houssaye, Napoleon a l'ile d'Elbe. Sorel, Essais d'histoire et de critique. Talleyrand, Metternich. Sorel, Le Congres de Vienne. Rose, Napoleonic Studies. Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba. Foresi, Napoleone I all' isola dell' Elba.]