On 20 June 1815 an was issued to the British army before they entered France. It placed the officers and men in his army under military order to treat the ordinary French population as if they were members of a Coalition nation. This by and large Wellington's army did paying for food and lodgings. This was in sharp contrast to the Prussian army, whose soldiers treated the French as enemies, plundering the populace and wantonly destroying property during their advance. From Beaumont, the Prussians advanced to Avesnes, which surrendered to them on 21 June. The French at first seemed determined to defend the place to the last extremity, and made considerable resistance; but a magazine having blown up, by which 400 men were killed, the rest of the garrison, which consisted chiefly of national-guards, and amounting to 439 men, surrendered at discretion. On capture of the town the Prussian soldiers treated it as a captured enemy town (rather than one liberated for their ally King Louis XVIII), and on entering the town, the greatest excesses were committed by the Prussian soldiery, which instead of being restrained was encouraged by their officers. On his arrival at Malplaquet—the scene of one of the Duke of Marlborough's victories—Wellington, issued the Malplaquet proclamation to the French people on the night 21/22 June 1815, in which be referred to the order of the day addressed to his army, as containing an explanation of the principles by which his army would be guided. Napoleon arrived in Paris, three days after Waterloo (21 June), still clinging to the hope of concerted national resistance; but the temper of the chambers and of the public generally forbade any such attempt. Napoleon and his brother Lucien Bonaparte were almost alone in believing that, by dissolving the chambers and declaring Napoleon dictator, they could save France from the armies of the powers now converging on Paris. Even Davout, minister of war, advised Napoleon that the destinies of France rested solely with the chambers. Clearly, it was time to safeguard what remained; and that could best be done under Talleyrand's shield of legitimacy. Napoleon himself at last recognised the truth. When Lucien pressed him to "dare", he replied, "Alas, I have dared only too much already". On 22 June 1815 he abdicated in favour of his son, Napoléon Francis Joseph Charles Bonaparte, well knowing that it was a formality, as his four-year-old son was in Austria.