the part she was to take as one of the allies against Napoleon, when Metternich again visited Dresden in person for the purpose of repeating his assurances of amity, for the armistice had but just commenced, to Napoleon. The French emperor had an indistinct knowledge of the transactions then passing, and bluntly said to the Count, "As you wish to mediate, you are no longer on my side." He hoped partly to win Austria over by redoubling his promises, partly to terrify her by the dread of the future preponderance of Russia, but, perceiving how Metternich evaded him by his artful diplomacy, he suddenly asked him, "Well, Metternich, how much has England given you in order to engage you to play this part towards me ?" This trait of insolence towards an antagonist of whose superiority he felt conscious, and of masking the most deadly hatred beneath a show of contempt, was peculiarly charisteristic of the Corsican, who, besides the qualities of the lion, fully possessed those of the cat. Napoleon let his hat drop in order to see whether Metternich would raise it. He did not, and war was resolved upon. A pretended congress for the conclusion of peace was again arranged by both sides; by Napoleon, in order to escape the reproach cast upon him of an insurmountable and eternal desire for war, and by the allies, in order to prove to the whole world their desire for peace. Each side was, however, fully aware that the palm of peace was alone to be found on the other side of the battle-field. Napoleon was generous in his concessions, but delayed to grant full powers to his envoy, an opportune circumstance for the allies, who were by this means able to charge him with the whole blame of procrastination. Napoleon, in all his concessions, merely included Russia and Austria to the exclusion of Prussia.* But neither Russia nor Austria trusted to his promises, and the negotiations were broken off on the termination of the armistice, when Napoleon sent full powers to his plenipotentiary. Now, was it said, it is too late. The art with which Metternich passed from the alliance with Napoleon to neu

*Russia was to receive the whole of Poland, the grand-duchy of Warsaw was to be annihilated. Such was Napoleon's gratitude towards the Poles!-Illyria was to be restored to Austria. Prussia, however, was not only to be excluded from all participation in the spoil, but the Rhenish confederation was to be extended as far as the Oder. Prussia would have been compelled to pay the expenses of the alliance between France, Russia, and Austria.

trality, to mediation, and finally to the coalition against him, will, in every age, be acknowledged a master-piece of diplomacy. Austria, whilst coalescing with Russia and Prussia, in a certain degree assumed a rank conventionally superior to both. The whole of the allied armies was placed under the command of an Austrian general, Prince von Schwarzenberg, and if the proclamation published at Calisch had merely summoned the people of Germany to assert their independence, the manifesto of Count Metternich spoke already in the tone of the future regulator of the affairs of Europe.* Austria declared herself on the 12th of August, 1813, two days after the termination of the armistice.

CCLXI. The battle of Leipzig.

IMMEDIATELY after this-for all had been previously arranged the monarchs of Russia and Prussia passed the Riesengebirge with a division of their forces into Bohemia, and joined the emperor Francis and the great Austrian army at Prague. The celebrated general, Moreau, who had returned from America, where he had hitherto dwelt incognito, in order to take up arms against Napoleon, was in the train of the czar. His example, it was hoped, would induce many of his countrymen to abandon Napoleon. The plan of the allies was to advance, with their main body under Schwarzenberg, consisting of one hundred and twenty thousand Austrians and seventy thousand Russians and Prussians, through the Erzgebirge to Napoleon's rear. A lesser Prussian force, principally Silesian Landwehr, under Blücher, eighty thousand strong, besides a small Russian corps, was, meanwhile, to cover Silesia, or, in case of an attack by Napoleon's main body, to

* "Every where," said this manifesto, "do the impatient wishes of the people anticipate the regular proceedings of the government. On all sides, the desire for independence under separate laws, the feeling of insulted nationality, rage against the heavy abuses inflicted by a foreign tyrant burst simultaneously forth. His Majesty the emperor, too clearsighted not to view this turn in affairs as the natural and necessary result of a preceding and violent state of exaggeration, and too just to view it with displeasure, had rendered it his principal object to turn it to the general advantage, and, by well-weighed and well-combined measures, to promote the true and lasting interests of the whole commonwealth of Europe."

retire before it and draw it further eastward. A third division, under the crown-prince of Sweden, principally Swedes, with some Prussian troops, mostly Pomeranian and Brandenburg Landwehr under Bülow, and some Russians, in all ninety thousand men, was destined to cover Berlin, and in case of a victory to form a junction to Napoleon's rear with the main body of the allied army. A still lesser and equally mixed division under Wallmoden, thirty thousand strong, was destined to watch Davoust in Hamburg, whilst an Austrian corps of twenty-five thousand men under Prince Reuss watched the movements of the Bavarians, and another Austrian force of forty thousand, under Hiller, those of the viceroy Eugene in Italy.

Napoleon had concentrated his main body, that still consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand men, in and around Dresden. Davoust received orders to advance with thirty thousand men from Hamburg upon Berlin; in Bavaria, there were thirty thousand men under Wrede; in Italy, forty thousand under Eugene. The German fortresses were, moreover, strongly garrisoned with French troops. Napoleon had it in his power to throw himself with his main body, which neither Blücher nor the Swedes could have withstood, into Poland, to levy the people en masse and render that country the theatre of war, but the dread of the defection of the Rhenish confederation and of a part of the French themselves, were the country to his rear to be left open to the allies and to Moreau, coupled with his disinclination to declare the independence of Poland, owing to a lingering hope of being still able to bring about a reconciliation with Russia and Austria by the sacrifice of that country and of Prussia, caused that idea to be renounced, and he accordingly took up a defensive position with his main body at Dresden, whence he could watch the proceedings and take advantage of any indiscretion on the part of his opponents. A body of ninety thousand men under Oudinot meantime acted on the offensive, being directed to advance, simultaneously with Davoust from Hamburg and with Girard from Magdeburg, upon Berlin, and to take possession of that metropolis. Napoleon hoped, when master of the ancient Prussian provinces, to be able to suppress German enthusiasm at its source and to induce Russia

and Austria to conclude a separate peace at the expense of Prussia.

In August, 1813, the tempest of war broke loose on every side, and all Europe prepared for a decisive struggle. About this time, the whole of Northern Germany was visited for some weeks, as was the case on the defeat of Varus in the Teutoburg forest, with heavy rains and violent storms. The elements seemed to combine, as in Russia, their efforts with those of man against Napoleon. There his soldiers fell victims to frost and snow, here they sank into the boggy soil and were carried away by the swollen rivers. In the midst of the uproar of the elements, bloody engagements continually took place, in which the bayonet and the butt-end of the firelock were almost alone used, the muskets being rendered unserviceable by the wet. The first engagement of importance was that of the 21st of August between Wallmoden and Davoust at Vellahn. A few days afterwards, Theodore Körner, the youthful poet and hero, fell in a skirmish between the French and Wallmoden's outpost at Gadebusch.Oudinot advanced close upon Berlin, which was protected by the crown-prince of Sweden. A murderous conflict took place, on the 23rd of August, at Gross-Beeren between the Prussian division under General von Bülow and the French. The Swedes, a troop of horse artillery alone excepted, were not brought into action, and the Prussians, unaided, repulsed the greatly superior forces of the French. The almost untrained peasantry comprising the Landwehr of the Mark and of Pomerania rushed upon the enemy, and, unhabituated to the use of the bayonet and the fire-lock, beat down entire battalions of the French with the butt-end of their muskets. After a frightful massacre, the French were utterly routed and fled in wild disorder, but the gallant Prussians vainly expected the Swedes to aid in the pursuit. The crown-prince, partly from a desire to spare his troops and partly from a feeling of shame, he was also a Frenchman, remained motionless. Oudinot, nevertheless, lost two thousand four hundred prisoners. Davoust, from this disaster, returned once more to Hamburg. Girard, who had advanced with eight thousand men from Magdeburg, was, on the 27th, put to flight by the Prussian Landwehr under General Hirschfeld.

Napoleon's plan of attack against Prussia had completely

failed, and his sole alternative was to act on the defensive. But on perceiving that the main body of the allied forces under Schwarzenberg was advancing to his rear, whilst Blücher was stationed with merely a weak division in Silesia, he took the field with immensely superior forces against the latter under an idea of being able easily to vanquish his weak antagonist and to fall back again in time upon Dresden. Blücher cautiously retired, but, unable to restrain the martial spirit of the soldiery, who obstinately defended every position whence they were driven, lost two thousand of his men on the 21st of August. The news of Napoleon's advance upon Silesia and of the numerical weakness of the garrison left at Dresden reached Schwarzenberg just as he had crossed the Erzgebirge, and induced him and the allied sovereigns assembled within his camp to change their plan of operations and to march straight upon the Saxon capital. Napoleon, who had pursued Blücher as far as the Katzbach near Goldberg, instantly returned and boldly resolved to cross the Elbe above Dresden, to seize the passes of the Bohemian mountains, and to fall upon the rear of the main body of the allied army. Vandamme's corps d'armée had already set forward with this design, when Napoleon learnt that Dresden could no longer hold out unless he returned thither with a division of his army, and, in order to preserve that city and the centre of his position, he hastily returned thither in the hope of defeating the allied army and of bringing it between two fires, as Vandamme must meanwhile have occupied the narrow outlets of the Erzgebirge with thirty thousand men and by that means have cut off the retreat of the allied army. The plan was on a grand scale, and, as far as related to Napoleon in person, was executed, to the extreme discomfiture of the allies, with his usual success. Schwarzenberg had, with true Austrian procrastination, allowed the 25th of August, when, as the French themselves confess, Dresden, in her then ill-defended state, might have been taken almost without a stroke, to pass in inaction, and, when he attempted to storm the city on the 26th, Napoleon, who had meanwhile arrived, calmly awaited the onset of the thick masses of the enemy in order to open a murderous discharge of grape upon them on every side. They were repulsed after suffering a frightful loss. On the following day, destined to end in still more terrible bloodshed, Na