On the first of February Blucher, in his turn, assumed the offensive, assaulting the French position in his front at once on three several points.  The battle lasted all day, and ended in the defeat of the French, who, with the loss of 4000 prisoners and seventy-three guns, escaped from the field in such disorder, that, according to Napoleon’s own avowal at St. Helena, he had serious thoughts of putting an end to the war by voluntarily resigning the crown to the heir of the Bourbons.  However this may have been, while the division of Marmont retired down the Aube before Blucher, Napoleon himself struck across the country to Troyes, which there was every reason to fear must be immediately occupied by Schwartzenberg; and was there joined by a considerable body of his own guard, in high order and spirits, whose appearance restored, in a great measure, the confidence of the troops beaten at La Rothiere.

On the 3rd, he received at Troyes a despatch from Caulaincourt, informing him that Lord Castlereagh, the English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had arrived at the headquarters of the Allies—­that negotiations were to be resumed the morning after at Chatillon—­(now in the rear of the armies), and beseeching him to intimate distinctly at what price he was now willing to purchase peace.  Napoleon replied, by granting Caulaincourt full powers to do everything necessary “to keep the negotiation alive, and save the capital.”  But the Duke of Vicenza durst not act immediately on a document so loosely worded, and sent back once more to beg for a specific detail of the Emperor’s purposes.  Napoleon had his headquarters at Nogent, on the Seine, some leagues below Troyes, when the despatch reached him, on the evening of the 8th of February; and his counsellors unanimously urged him to make use of this, probably last, opportunity.  They at length prevailed on him to agree to abandon Belgium, the left of the Rhine, Italy, and Piedmont.  But in the night after the consultation, and before the ultimatum received his signature, Napoleon received information which quite altered his views.  He learned that Blucher, instead of continuing his march down the Aube, and in communication with Schwartzenberg on the Seine, had transferred his whole army to the Marne, and was now advancing towards Paris by the Montmirail road.  That the Allies, after experiencing the effects of disunion at Brienne, and those of conjunction at La Rothiere, should have almost in the moment of victory again resolved on separating their forces, is a circumstance which no writer has as yet explained in any satisfactory manner.  The blunder was great; yet in the end its consequences were disastrous, not to those who committed, but to him whose eagle-eye detected it, and who could not resist the temptation which it presented, to make one warlike effort more.  Buonaparte, in a word, refused to sign the despatch on the morning of the 9th; and having left Bourmont at Nogent, with a small force to defend the bridge over the Seine, and Oudinot with another, for the same purpose, at the next bridge in descending the river, namely, that of Bray, immediately commenced his march with the main body of his army upon Sezanne.