often even loud enough to reach the ears of the Emperor; but in that case his Majesty seemed not to hear.

Amidst this disaffection of a large number of the chiefs of the army, the defection of Bavaria was learned, and gave an added strength to the anxiety and discontent inspired by the Emperor's resolution; and then occurred what had never taken place before: his staff united their entreaties that he should abandon his plans in regard to Berlin, and march on Leipzig. I saw how much the Emperor suffered from the necessity of listening to such remonstrances, notwithstanding the respectful language in which they were couched. For two entire days his Majesty remained undecided; and how long these forty-eight hours were! Never did abandoned cabin or bivouac present a more mournful sight than the sad chateau of Duben. In this doleful residence I saw the Emperor for the first time entirely unemployed; the indecision to which he was a prey absorbed him so entirely that his character seemed entirely changed. Who could believe it? To the activity which drove him on, and, so to speak, incessantly devoured him, had succeeded a seeming indifference which is perfectly indescribable. I saw him lie on the sofa nearly a whole day, the table before him covered with maps and papers at which he did not even glance, and with no other occupation for hours than slowly tracing large letters on sheets of white paper. This was while he was vacillating between his own will and the entreaties of his generals. At the end of two days of most painful suspense he yielded; and from that time all was lost. How much better it would have been had he not listened to their complaints, but had again allowed himself to be guided by the presentiments which possessed him! He repeated often, with grief, while recalling the concessions he made at that time, "I should have avoided many disasters by continuing to follow my own impulses; I failed only by yielding to those of others."

The order for departure was given; and as if the army felt as much pride in triumphing over the will of its Emperor as they would have felt in beating the enemy by obeying the dictates of his genius, they abandoned themselves to outbursts of joy which were almost beyond reason. Every countenance was radiant. "We shall now," they repeated on all sides, "we shall now see France again, embrace our children, our parents, and our friends!" The Emperor and Marshal Augereau alone did not share the general light-heartedness. The Duke of Castiglione had just arrived at headquarters, after having in some measure avenged on the army of Bohemia, Vandamme's defeat. He, like the Emperor, had dark presentiments as to the consequences of this retrograde movement, and knew that desertions on the way would add to the number of the enemy, and were so much the more dangerous since these deserters had so recently been our allies and knew our positions. His Majesty yielded with a full conviction of the evil which would result; and I heard him at the end of a conversation with the marshal which had lasted more than an hour, utter these words, "They would have it so."

The Emperor on his march to Duben was at the head of a force which might be estimated at one hundred and twenty-five thousand men. He had taken this direction with the hope of finding Blucher again on the Mulda; but the Prussian general had recrossed the river, which contributed much to give credit to a rumor which had been circulated for some time. It was said that in a council of the allied sovereigns held recently at Prague, and at which Moreau and the Prince Royal of Sweden were present, it had been agreed that as far as possible they should avoid engaging in a battle whenever the Emperor commanded his army in person, and that operations should be directed only against smaller bodies commanded by his lieutenants. It is impossible, certainly, to render more striking homage to the superiority of the Emperor's genius; but it was at the same time stopping him in his glorious career, and paralyzing his usually all- powerful action.

However that may be, the evil genius of France having obtained the ascendency over the good genius of the Emperor, we took the road to Leipzig, and reached it early on the morning of the 15th of October. At that very moment the King of Naples was in the midst of an engagement with the Prince von Schwarzenberg; and his Majesty, on hearing the sound of cannon, crossed the town, and visited the plain where the engagement was taking place. On his return he received the royal family of Saxony, who had come to join him. During his short stay at Leipzig, the Emperor performed an act of clemency which must undoubtedly be considered most meritorious if we take into consideration the gravity of the circumstances in which we were placed. A merchant of this city named Moldrecht was accused and convicted of having distributed among the inhabitants, and even in the army, several thousand copies of a proclamation in which the Prince Royal of Sweden invited the Saxons to desert the cause of the Emperor. When arraigned before a tribunal of war, M. Moldrecht could not exculpate himself; and, indeed, this was an impossibility, since several packages of the fatal proclamation had been found at his residence. He was condemned to death, and his family in deep distress threw themselves at the feet of the King of Saxony; but, the facts being so evident and of such a nature that no excuse was possible, the faithful king did not dare to grant indulgence for a crime committed even more against his ally than against himself. Only one recourse remained for this unhappy family, which was to address the Emperor; but as it was difficult to reach him, M. Leborgne D'Ideville, interpreting secretary, was kind enough to undertake to place a note on the Emperor's desk, who after reading it ordered a postponement which was equivalent to a full pardon. Events followed in their course, and the life of M. Moldrecht was saved.

Leipzig, at this period, was the center of a circle in which engagements took place at numerous points and almost incessantly. Engagements lasted during the days of the 16th, 17th, and 18th; and his Majesty, as a poor return for his clemency towards M. Moldrecht, reaped the bitter fruits of the proclamation which had been scattered in every direction through the efforts of this merchant. On that day the Saxon army deserted our cause, and reported to Bernadotte. This left the Emperor a force of only one hundred and ten thousand men, with an opposing force of three hundred and thirty thousand; so that if when hostilities were resumed we were only as one to two, we were now only one to three. The day of the 18th was, as is well known, the fatal day. In the evening the Emperor, seated on a folding stool of red morocco in the midst of the bivouac fires, was dictating to the Prince of Neuchatel his orders for the night, when two commanders of artillery were presented to his Majesty, and gave him an account of the exhausted condition of the ammunition chests. In five days we had discharged more than two hundred thousand cannon-balls, and the ammunition being consequently exhausted there was barely enough left to maintain the fire for two hours longer; and as the nearest supplies were at Madgeburg and Erfurt, whence it would be impossible to obtain help in time, retreat was rendered absolutely necessary.

Orders were therefore given for a retreat, which began next day, the 19th, at the end of a battle in which three hundred thousand men had engaged in mortal combat, in a confined space not more than seven or eight leagues in circumference. Before leaving Leipzig, the Emperor gave to. Prince Poniatowski, who had just earned the baton of a marshal of France, the defense of one of the faubourgs. "You will defend the faubourg on the south," said his Majesty to him. "Sire," replied the prince, "I have very few men."—"You will defend it with those you have." "Ah, Sire, we will remain; we are all ready to