This news struck all parties with astonishment, and made different impressions on them, according to their different sentiments and opinions.
The discontented had no doubt of the success of the Emperor, and the ruin of the Bourbons.
The courtiers regretted that there was not sufficient danger in this mad and audacious enterprise, to give at least some value to their attachment.
The emigrants looked at it with pity, turned it into ridicule; and, if they had wanted nothing more than jests, abuse, and swaggering, to beat Napoleon, there could have been no doubt of their victory.
The government itself participated in their boasting and security.
Fresh despatches soon made known the progress of Napoleon.
The Count d'Artois, the Duke of Orléans, and Marshal Macdonald, set off hastily for Lyons.
The royalists were uneasy, the government removed their fears.
The Count d'Artois, they said, at the head of fifteen thousand national guards, and ten thousand of the troops of the line, must stop him before Lyons.
General Marchand, General Duverney, the Prince of Essling, and the Duke d'Angoulême, were getting into his rear, and would cut off his retreat.
General Le Courbe was manoeuvring on his flanks.
Marshal Oudinot was arriving with his faithful royal grenadiers.
The national guards of Marseilles, and the whole population of the south, were marching from all quarters in pursuit of him; and it was impossible for him to escape.
The next day an officer of the King's household appeared in the balcony of the Tuileries, and, waving his hat, announced, that the King had just received an official account of the Duke of Orléans, at the head of twenty thousand men of the national guard of Lyons, having attacked Bonaparte on the side towards Bourgoing, and completely beaten him.
The same day information was given, that Generals d'Erlon, Lefevre Desnouettes, and Lallemand, who had attempted to seduce the troops under their orders, had completely failed, and taken flight[48].
[Footnote 48: These four generals had agreed, to repair together to Paris. The troops of Count d'Erlon, quartered at Lisle, deceived by supposititious orders, were on their march, when they were met by the Duke de Trévise, who was going to take the command of his government. He interrogated them, perceived the plot, and ordered them back.