On Sunday, January 23, 1814, some 700 officers of the Parisian National Guard assembled in the Salle des Marechaux of the Tuileries Palace. The Salle des Marechaux was cavernous, it's two-story walls echoing with the booted footfalls of the officers.[1] The very magnificance of the Salle proclaimed the glory of France, a glory that was now threatened by invading enemies. But Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, was due to make an appearance. There was something about the man that inspired confidence—but only when he was physically present.
It had been a hard winter, and patches of snow lay around the Cour du Carrousel where the National Guard was drawn up in serried ranks. Inside the Palace the atmosphere was just as frigid, chilled not by the weather, but a kind of collective anxiety. The Allies of the Sixth Coalition—Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and a host of smaller states—were even now on French soil.
The Allies has several armies in the field, including Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley, soon to be created 1st Duke of Wellington. Wellington came up from Spain, pierced the rugged Pyrenees Mountains, and was now threatening Bayonne and southern France. There was another army under Swedish Crown Prince Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, a former French marshal who nursed ambitions for the throne of France.
