He watched, unmoved, as tens of thousands of soldiers from all corners of France, resplendent in their fine uniforms, fought to the death for him. In his twenty years of military service, he had long since become accustomed to conquest and glory, to danger and death; such scenes no longer stirred him.,Although the front line troops were retreating piecemeal, the entire battlefield soon crumbled with them. Even the emperor himself could not stop this rout.,When Napoleon first abdicated in 1814, at the "invitation" of Emperor Francis of Austria, the French empress, his daughter Louise, arrived at this Austrian palace with her son on May 21st. From then on, she became a crowned hostage.。