the duties: Personal examination, which is so revolting and indecorous, especially with respect to females, was suppressed. But these modifications did not proceed from the highest quarter; they were due to the good sense of the subordinate agents, who plainly saw that if the Empire was to fall it would not be owing to little infractions in the laws of proscription against coffee and rhubarb.

If the custom-house regulations became less vexatious to the inhabitants of Hamburg it was not the same with the business of the post-office. The old manoeuvres of that department were resumed more actively than ever. Letters were opened without the least reserve, and all the old post-office clerks who were initiated in these scandalous proceedings were recalled. With the exception of the registrations and the customs the inquisitorial system, which had so long oppressed the Hanse Towns, was renewed; and yet the delegates of the French Government were the first to cry out, "The people of Hamburg are traitors to Napoleon: for, in spite of all the blessings he has conferred upon them they do not say with the Latin poet, 'Deus nobis haec otia fecit."

But all that passed was trifling in comparison with what was to come. On the 18th of June was published an Imperial decree, dated the 8th of the same month, by virtue of which were to be reaped the fruits of the official falsehood contained in the bulletin above mentioned. To expiate the crime of rebellion Hamburg was required to pay an extraordinary contribution of 48,000,000 francs, and Lubeck a contribution of 6,000,000. The enormous sum levied on Hamburg was to be paid in the short space of a month, by six equal instalments, either in money, or bills on respectable houses in Paris. In addition to this the new Prefect of Hamburg made a requisition of grain and provisions of every kind, wines, sailcloth, masts, pitch, hemp, iron, copper, steel, in short, everything that could be useful for the supply of the army and navy.

But while these exactions were made on property in Hamburg, at Dresden the liberties of individuals and even lives were attacked. On the 15th of June Napoleon, doubtless blinded by the false reports that were laid before him, gave orders for making out a list of the inhabitants of Hamburg who were absent from the city. He allowed them only a fortnight to return home, an interval too short to enable some of them to come from the places where they had taken refuge. They consequently remained absent beyond the given time. Victims were indispensable but assuredly it was not Bonaparte who conceived the idea of hostages to answer for the men whom prudence kept absent. Of this charge I can clear his memory. The hostages, were, however, taken, and were declared to be also responsible for the payment of the contribution of 48,000,000. In Hamburg they were selected from among the most respectable and wealthy men in the city, some of them far advanced in age. They were conveyed to the old castle of Haarburg on the left bank of the Elbe, and these men, who had been accustomed to all the comforts of life, were deprived even of necessaries, and had only straw to lie on. The hostages from Lubeck were taken to, Hamburg: they were placed between decks on board an old ship in the port: this was a worthy imitation of the prison hulks of England. On the 24th of July there was issued a decree which was published in the Hamburg Correspondent of the 27th. This decree consisted merely of a proscription list, on which were inscribed the names of some of the wealthiest men in the Hanse Towns, Hanover, and Westphalia.

CHAPTER XXIX.

1813.

Napoleon's second visit to Dresden—Battle of Bantzen—The Congress at Prague—Napoleon ill advised—Battle of Vittoria—General Moreau Rupture of the conferences at Prague—Defection of Jomini—Battles of Dresden and Leipsic—Account of the death of Duroc—An interrupted conversation resumed a year after—Particulars respecting Poniatowski—His extraordinary courage and death— His monument at Leipsic and tomb in the cathedral of Warsaw.

On the 2d of May Napoleon won the battle of Lutzen. A week after he was at Dresden, not as on his departure for the Russian campaign, like the Sovereign of the West surrounded by his mighty vassals: he was now in the capital of the only one of the monarchs of his creation who remained faithful to the French cause, and whose good faith eventually cost him half his dominions. The Emperor stayed only ten days in Dresden, and then went in pursuit of the Russian army, which he came up with on the 19th, at Bautzen. This battle, which was followed on the two succeeding days by the battles of Wurtchen and Oclikirchen, may be said to have lasted three days—a sufficient proof that it was obstinately disputed. It ended in favour of Napoleon, but he and France paid dearly for it: while General Kirschner and Duroc were talking together the former was killed by a cannon-ball, which mortally wounded the latter in the abdomen.

The moment had now arrived for Austria to prove whether or not she. intended entirely to desert the cause of Napoleon.

—[There is a running attack in Erreurs (tome, ii. pp, 289-325) on all this part of the Memoirs, but the best account of the negotiations between France, Austria, and the Allies will be found in Metternich, Vol. i. pp. 171-215. Metternich, with good reason, prides himself on the skill with which he gained from Napoleon the exact time, twenty days, necessary for the concentration of the Austrian armies. Whether the negotiations were consistent with good faith on the part of Austria is another matter; but, one thing seems clear—the Austrian marriage ruined Napoleon. He found it impossible to believe that the monarch who had given him his daughter would strike the decisive blow against him. Without this belief there can be no doubt that he would have attacked Austria before she could have collected her forces, and Metternich seems to have dreaded the result. "It was necessary, therefore to prevent Napoleon from carrying out his usual system of leaving an army of observation before the Allied armies, and himself turning to Bohemia to deal a great blow at us, the effect of which it would be impossible to foresee in the present depressed state of the great majority of our men" (Metternich, Vol. i, p. 177). With our knowledge of how Napoleon held his own against the three armies at Dresden we may safely assume that he would have crushed Austria if she had not joined him or disarmed. The conduct of Austria was natural and politic, but it was only successful because Napoleon believed in the good faith of the Emperor Francis, his father-in- law. It is to be noted that Austria only succeeded in getting Alexander to negotiate on the implied condition that the negotiations were not to end in a peace with France. See Metternich, Vol. i. p. 181, where, in answer to the Czar's question as to what would become of their cause if Napoleon accepted the Austrian mediation, he says that if Napoleon declines Austria will join the Allies. If Napoleon accepts, "the negotiations will most certainly show Napoleon to be neither wise nor just, and then the result will be the same. In any case we shall have gained the necessary time to bring our armies into such positions that we need not again fear a separate attack on any one of them, and from which we may ourselves take the offensive."]—

All her amicable demonstrations were limited to an offer of her intervention in opening negotiations with Russia. Accordingly, on the 4th of June, an armistice was concluded at Pleiswitz,