[20] Lord Burghersh's account states, that the village of Pantin was attacked, but never retaken by the French.--"Operations," p. 240.--ED. (1842.)
[21] "Prince Joseph, observing the vast number of the enemy's troops that had arrived at the foot of Montmartre, was convinced that the capitulation could be no longer delayed. He gave the necessary powers to the Duke of Ragusa; and immediately proceeded to join the government at Blois."--BARON FAIN, p. 232.
_State of Parties in Paris--Royalists--Revolutionists--Buonapartists --Talleyrand--Chateaubriand--Mission to the Allied Sovereigns--Their answer--Efforts of the Buonapartists--Feelings of the lowest classes--of the middling ranks--Neutrality of the National Guard--Growing confidence of the Royalists--Proclamations and White Cockades--Crowds assemble at the Boulevards--The Allies are received with shouts of welcome--Their Army retires to quarters--and the Cossacks bivouac in the Champs Elysées._
The battle was fought and won; but it remained a high and doubtful question in what way the victory was to be improved, so as to produce results of far greater consequence than usually follow from the mere military occupation of an enemy's capital. While the mass of the inhabitants were at rest, exhausted by the fatigues and anxieties of the day, many secret conclaves, on different principles, were held in the city of Paris, upon the night after the assault. Some of these even yet endeavoured to organise the means of resistance, and some to find out what modern policy has called a _Mezzo-termine_, some third expedient, between the risk of standing by Napoleon, and that of recalling the banished family.
The only middle mode which could have succeeded, would have been a regency under the Empress; and Fouché's Memoirs state, that if he had been in Paris at the time, he might have succeeded in establishing a new order of things upon such a basis. The assertion may be safely disputed. To Austria such a plan might have had some recommendations; but to the sovereigns and statesmen of the other allied nations, the proposal would only have appeared a device to obtain immediate peace, and keep the throne, as it were, in commission, that Buonaparte might ascend it at his pleasure.[23]