Capitulation of Paris

The campaign of France had been brilliant — Champaubert, Montmirail, Vauchamps — but waged with fifty thousand men against three hundred thousand. At the end of March the allies gave up pursuing Napoleon, who was manoeuvring on their rear, and marched straight on Paris.

The city was not fortified. Joseph, lieutenant-general of the Empire, had the corps of Marmont and Mortier, the depots, the national guard and the pupils of the Polytechnique — some thirty thousand men in all. On 29 March the regent empress and the king of Rome left Paris for Blois.

The assault began in the morning on the eastern heights: Romainville, Belleville, Pantin, then the butte of Montmartre. The defenders held for a whole day, one against three; losses were heavy on both sides.

Joseph, before leaving the city, had authorised Marmont to treat. During the night of 30 to 31 March, at La Villette, Marmont and Mortier signed the capitulation: the French troops would evacuate the capital, which was handed over intact.

On the morning of 31 March, Alexander I and Frederick William III entered Paris at the head of their troops. No foreign army had entered it since the fifteenth century. The Tsar lodged with Talleyrand, who had stayed behind and who organised the provisional government the very next day.

Napoleon, who had arrived in the night a few leagues from Paris, learned that all was over and fell back on Fontainebleau. He still wanted to march on the capital; his marshals would refuse. Three days later the Senate pronounced his deposition.