Yet from this desolation, Napoleon determined to create an army with both artillery and cavalry, and roll back the presumptuous enemy who dared to menace the soil of France, and assail his throne. Four veteran regiments of the Old Guard remained in Spain--these were recalled. Cannon from the arsenals, and artillerists from the ships of war were collected, horses purchased, and a conscription set on foot, which soon brought to his standard a vast army. But such had been the drain on France to support the former wars, that the conscription descended to mere youths, seventeen years old, and the pupils of the Guard were brought forward. The National Guard of France, a hundred thousand well disciplined men, were also incorporated into the army, while the Guards of Honor, as they were called, composed of the sons of wealthy and distinguished families, recruited the cavalry. The guards of honor were mounted bodies of men in the various cities of France--organized merely to receive and attend Napoleon when he passed through their respective places, and were wholly unfit for service. The élite of the army of the line were taken to compose the Old Guard, and it soon assumed its former appearance.

The greatest enthusiasm prevailed among the soldiers, and soon this new army took up its line of march for Germany, to join the relics of the different corps that still remained there after the retreat from Russia. Although deficient in cavalry, Napoleon immediately assumed the offensive, and pressed forward to seek the allies near Leipzic. Poserna, on the way to Lutzen, was defended, and in taking those heights, Bessieres, the commander of the Old Guard, was struck dead by a cannon-ball. This brave officer, who had risen from the ranks to Marshal of the empire, was dearly loved by the Guard. When it was composed of but eight hundred men, and laid the foundation of its fame at Marengo, he was at the head of it. Through all the terrible campaigns of Napoleon in Italy and Spain, at Austerlitz, Wagram, and Eylau, through all the disastrous retreat from Russia, he had headed its invincible columns. Noble in heart, heroic in courage, of great integrity of character, his death was an irreparable loss to the Emperor and to the Guard. His body was embalmed, and sent to the Hotel des Invalides.

That night Napoleon encamped in the plain where rose the tomb of Gustavus Adolphus. The next day the battle of Lutzen was fought. Early in the morning the heavy cannonading on the right, where Ney commanded, showed that there was to be the weight of the battle. In a short time, the concentration of heavy masses in that part of the field by the enemy, had driven back the French a mile and a half. The five villages, which formed their stronghold, were all carried, after having been taken and retaken several times. Ney had exhibited his old valor, and the young conscripts under him, who then for the first time were under fire, behaved like veterans. "Five times," said he, 'I led back those brave youths to the charge." But their valor was vain, and the victorious enemy was pushing them fiercely from their positions.

When the news of this disaster reached Napoleon, he turned to Berthier and Caulincourt, with the exclamation "Ha!" accompanied by a look which "froze every heart around him with horror." The day was wellneigh lost, and he knew it. But instead of yielding to discouragement, he rose with the increasing danger, and set off on a gallop, followed by his invincible Guard, to the scene of disaster.

Where the cannonading was heaviest, and the clouds of smoke rose thickest, thither he directed his course. The field was covered with fugitives; while the columns that were still unbroken, were slowly retiring. Clouds of the enemy's cavalry were waiting impatiently till the last village was cleared and the retreating troops should deploy in the open plain, to sweep down on them, and complete their destruction.

But hope revived at Napoleon's presence--the conscripts rallied again, and shouts of "Vive l'Empereur," rolled along the lines. Placing himself behind Ney's division, he rallied it, and sent it forward to the attack. Intrepidly advancing, it drove back the enemy, and retook a portion of the first village. But the allies receiving reinforcements, returned to the assault, and a bloody combat ensued around the shattered houses.

Neither party, however, could win the victory, but Napoleon gained what he stood in desperate need of --time for the foot soldiers and artillery of the Guard to arrive. Soon the bear-skin caps appeared, and infantry and artillery came thundering up to the Emperor, who had hardly time to form its massive columns of attack, when the French were again driven out of the village, while the shouts of the enemy were heard above the roar of the cannon. The Emperor threw one glance upon his flying troops, and then ordered Drouot, with sixty guns, to advance, and ten battalions of the Guard to follow. This dreadful artillerist cleared a way for his cannon through the crowd of fugitives that covered the plain, and opened his swift and deadly fire. Its effect was tremendous! To the distant observer the guns never seemed to stop, but to fire as they moved. Pressing steadily after, the Guard enveloped in smoke, pushed on, carrying village after village with loud hurrahs. In the close and deadly combat, officers were falling on every side, and the enemy struggled nobly to retain some portion of their conquests--flinging themselves, cavalry and infantry, in desperate valor, on those swiftly advancing columns. But onsets of cavalry, the fire of the artillery, were alike unheeded--in a solid mass those bear-skin caps were seen moving through the smoke, while the flash of their guns kept receding farther and farther, in the distance. Twilight gathered over the landscape, yet the outlines of that resistless column were revealed by the blaze of its guns, still advancing, till the field was swept and the victory gained.

Next morning the track of the Guard could he followed by the heaps of the dead it had left in its frightful passage.

The sight of the French conscripts who had fallen round those villages was mournful in the extreme. Mere youths--their forms not yet developed into manhood, their boyish features covered with blood, and stiffened in death--gave a still more horrid aspect to the field, and uttered a new malediction on war.
 

Drouot was perhaps the most remarkable artillerist the world has ever produced. He commanded the artillery of the Guard to the last, and made it the most terrible and deadly that ever swept a battle-field. Napoleon always kept him for great emergencies, and when this bold, stern man received an order in the midst of a battle to bring up his guns, he knew it was not to defend a point, but to recover a half-lost field, and move fiercely and steadily on victorious and overpowering troops. At such times he set off on a gallop, while the field shook under the weight of his cannon, as they came thundering after. He was perfectly aware of the dangerous position he held, and when about to advance on the enemy, he always dismounted, and placing himself on foot, in the midst of his guns, dressed in his old uniform of general of artillery, walked firmly into the hottest fire. He was somewhat superstitious about this uniform--he had never been wounded in it, and hence came to regard it as a sort of charm, or at least believed that good luck went with it; and strange to say in all the bloody and frightful combats he fought, neither he nor his horse was ever wounded. He always carried a Bible with him--it was on his person in battle, and the reading of it constituted his chief delight. He made no secret of this among the staff of the Emperor, which showed more courage than to face a battery. He knew everything belonging to his profession, and yet was modest as the most humble. His character seemed to be affected by the life he led, in a remarkable degree. Its solidity, the absence of all show and the presence of real strength, his quiet and grave demeanor, and the steadfastness of his affection and purpose, reminded one of the solidity and strength of his artillery.

In Napoleon's advance to Dresden, and passage of the Elbe at that place, an incident occurred that illustrates the characters of both. After bridges of rafts had been constructed, and a small portion of the troop got over during the night time, Napoleon saw fifty cannon of the enemy advance, and threaten a determined resistance to the passage. He immediately shouted to Drouot, "a hundred pieces of cannon!" The artillery of the Guard was hurried up, and Drouot posted them on the heights of Preisnitz. Napoleon, who was a little distance in the rear, was impatient, because the effect of the tire was not immediately visible, and reproached the former bitterly for not placing his pieces better, even pulling the old soldier's ears in his pet. Drouot calmly replied, "that the guns could not be better placed;" and so it proved, for under the tremendous fire which he kept up, the Russian batteries were soon silenced.

At the battle of Bautzen, which soon followed, Drouot's artillery scourged the enemy severely while the Old Guard itself sustained the grand attack in the centre, by which the victory was gained. Its squares surrounded the tent of Napoleon that evening, while its bands of music greeted him with victorious airs.

By daybreak next morning the pursuit was commenced, and pushed with the utmost fierceness. The allies had marched all night, but their rear-guard was soon overtaken, posted on strong heights, with forty pieces of cannon. Napoleon dared not attack it till the cavalry of the Guard should arrive. This body of men, six thousand strong, no sooner approached than it was put under Latour Maubourg, and advancing, overthrew the Russian cavalry in the plains, and rushing with loud shouts up the slopes of the heights, forced the enemy to retreat.

The defeated allies, however, retired in such good order, that no decisive blow could be struck and Napoleon, enraged to see a great victory turn out so barren of results, pushed forward with his escort to give greater energy to the attacks, and was still pressing on amid the cannon-balls that were whistling about him, when one of his escort was struck at his side. He turned to Duroc and said, " fortune is resolved to have one of us to-day"--prophetic words--a few moments after, as he was going along a narrow way, followed by his escort four abreast on a rapid trot, a cannon-ball struck a tree near him, glanced and killed Kugener, and mortally wounded Duroc. When this was announced to Napoleon, he dismounted, and gazed long and sternly on the battery from which the shot had been fired, then entered the cottage into which the Grand Marshal had been carried and where he lay dying.

This scene I have described in another work, but I will quote from that description the portion which illustrates the relation that existed between Napoleon and his Guard. "After the last afflicting interview with the dying hero and friend, he ordered his tent to be pitched near the cottage where he lay, and entering it, passed the night all alone in inconsolable grief. The Old Guard formed their protecting squares about him, and the fierce tumult of battle gave way to one of the most touching scenes in history. Twilight was deepening over the field, and the heavy tread of the ranks going to their bivouacs, the low rumbling of artillery wagons in the distance, and all the subdued sounds of a mighty host about sinking to repose rose on the evening air, imparting still greater solemnity to the hour. Napoleon with his grey coat wrapped about him, his elbows on his knees, and his forehead resting on his hands, sat apart from all, buried in the profoundest melancholy his most intimate friends dared not approach him, and his favorite officers stood in groups at a distance, gazing anxiously and sadly on that silent tent. But immense consequences were hanging on the movements of the next morning--a powerful enemy was near with its array yet unbroken--and they at length ventured to approach and ask for orders. But he only shook his head, exclaiming 'everything to-morrow;' and still kept his mournful attitude. No sobs escaped him, but silent and motionless he sat, his pallid face buried in his hands, and his great heart wrung with agony. Darkness drew her curtain over the scene, and the stars came out one after another in the sky, and at length the moon rose over the hills, bathing in her soft beams the tented host, while the flames from burning villages in the distance, shed a lurid light through the gloom, and all was sad, mournful, and sublime. There was the dark cottage in which Duroc lay dying, with the sentinels at the door, and there, too, was the solitary tent of Napoleon. Around it at a distance, stood the squares of the Old Guard, and nearer by a silent group of chieftains, and over all lay the moonlight. Those brave soldiers, filled with grief to see their beloved chief bowed down with such sorrow, stood for a long time tearful and silent, except as one would say to his comrade, 'Our poor Emperor has lost one of his children.' At length, to break the mournful silence, and to express the sympathy they might not speak, the bands struck up a requiem for the dying Marshal. The melancholy strains arose and fell in prolonged echoes over the field, and swept in softened cadences on the ear of the fainting warrior--but still Napoleon moved not. They then changed the measure to a triumphant strain, and the thrilling trumpets breathed forth their most joyful notes, till the night rung with the melody. With such bursts of music had they been used to welcome their chief after a day of battle and of victory, till his eye kindled in exultation--but now they fell on a dull and listless ear. It ceased, and again the mournful requiem filled the air. But nothing could arouse him from his agonizing reflections--his friend lay dying, and the heart he loved so dearly was throbbing its last pulsations."

This scene exhibits in a touching manner the sympathy that existed between Napoleon and his Guard,--and how heroically, yet how tenderly, was it here expressed. Enfolding him in their rock-fast squares, their hearts melted at the sorrow of him they protected, and the trumpets that but an hour before heralded their desperate charge strove to impart consolation by expressing the grief they dare utter in no other way. And then the thrilling blast upon blast, and loud exultant greeting, to rouse that overwhelmed heart from its stupor, and rekindle the emotions that were wont to sway it--how simple, yet how grand.

At length Napoleon entered Dresden, and an armistice was agreed upon. It ended, however, without any result, except to send Austria over to the side of the allies. Napoleon now had Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, and Bohemia, combined against him, still he evinced no discouragement. Looking calmly around on the difficulties that environed him, he prepared to meet them with that genius and iron will before which the sovereigns who sought his life, had so often humbled themselves.

But prior to his departure from Dresden, he had a grand review of his army, which took place in a vast plain near the city. Accompanied by the King of Saxony and his suite and the Marshals of the Empire, he galloped the whole length of the line. As the Guard, twenty thousand strong, defiled before him, it seemed to carry the prestige of victory in its terrible standards. He then ordered a great banquet for the whole of the Guard.

At the commencement of hostilities, Marmont, Macdonald, and Ney, who were in Bohemia, were compelled to retire before the superior force of the enemy. When the news of the successive disasters of these marshals reached Napoleon, he took with him the Old Guard, and hastened to their relief. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, went thundering through the Bohemian Mountains; and pouring like a torrent on the victorious enemy, rolled them back through the Silesian plains. In five days the Old Guard recovered all that had been lost.

But while the prospects were brightening around him in Bohemia, a dark and ominous storm was gathering over Dresden. St. Cyr with only thirty thousand men, had been left in possession of this city, against which the emperor believed no attack would be made. But suddenly a hundred and twenty thousand men and five hundred pieces of artillery darkened the heights around it. Couriers were hurriedly despatched to Napoleon, announcing the fact, who immediately put forth one of those prodigious efforts to save it, for which he was remarkable. He took with him his conquering Guard, and set out for the city. Although for four days it had marched on an average, twenty-five miles a day, fighting its passage besides, and slain six thousand men, it cheerfully turned its steps towards Dresden. Men gazed with astonishment on its swift movement. Although it was the month of August and the soldiers were worn out with their previous marches and combats, they swept forward with alacrity. Daybreak found them on the road, and night still in motion. Napoleon in their midst was devoured with the most painful anxiety. Knowing that the city could hold out but a short time against the overwhelming force gathered around it, he urged his faithful troops to their utmost speed. He wanted to give that Guard wings to transport it to Dresden. Breathless couriers dashing in one after another, telling him that if he did not arrive soon all would be lost, added to his impatience.

The troops had marched forty leagues in four days, and seemed about to break down. Napoleon saw that he had overtasked them, and fearing they would give out altogether, ordered twenty thousand bottles of wine to be distributed among them. Three thousand, however, were all that could be obtained. Refreshed by this scanty supply, they pressed forward, and at length from the heights that overlooked the city, gazed down on the thrilling spectacle. The two hosts were engaged, and the thunder of cannon rolled in heavy explosions over the hills. Columns of attack were already forming, and the innumerable array was swiftly closing around their comrades who were bravely bearing up against the shock. The Old Guard at once forgot their weariness at the sight--they saw their presence had never before been so urgently needed, and with proud hearts they thought how soon their eagles would be soaring over that tumultuous field, and their dread standards waving above a beaten foe. Like a resistless torrent they passed down the slopes and crowded swiftly forward over the bridges. The inhabitants, overjoyed at the sight of these renowned troops, rushed toward them with wine and bread--and though the wearied soldiers were parched with thirst, each and all refused the proffered refreshments, and marched steadily and swiftly on to the point of danger. They were soon standing side by side with their comrades who had combated so bravely, and with them breasting the tremendous storm of shells and shot that now deluged the city, they held that proud army in check till the arrival of the Young Guard.

The Old Guard entered the city at ten in the morning, and had fought all day with desperate valor to arrest the enemy, which, notwithstanding, made fearful progress. Some parts of the city were already inundated with their victorious troops; and at six o'clock, their cannon played within musket-shot of the walls. The arrival of the Young Guard at that hour drove the cloud from Napoleon's brow, and filled every heart with joy. He immediately ordered an attack. The gates were thrown open, and the Young Guard, under Ney, poured forth and rushing with loud cheers on the enemy, drove them back over the field. The Old Guard through another gate crushed everything in its passage, while Murat's splendid cavalry completed the discomfiture, and sent the astonished enemy back to the heights from which they had just descended in all the pride of victory, shouting, "to Paris, to Paris," as they came. The commanders who supposed the emperor was in Silesia, gazed with amazement at the Old Guard, and said one to another, "Napoleon is in Dresden."

The next morning at six o'clock. Napoleon was standing by a huge fire built in the squares of the Old Guard on the field they had won, while a cold and drizzling rain and mist darkened the ghastly scene. Behind, the cavalry of the Guard dismounted, stood beside their horses, ready at a moment's warning to dash to any part of the field.

Napoleon standing on that ploughed and dead-covered plain in the grey of the morning, in his plain overcoat, the steam arising like a cloud around his head as he dried himself beside the blazing fire, his hands crossed behind him, and his head bowed in deep thought, the Old Guard around him, the riders beside their steeds ready at a gesture to mount and charge-- yet all quiet as a domestic scene not a muscle on that marble countenance rnoving, although the heavy roll of cannon from one end of the line to the other, announced that the work of death had commenced, presents one of the most striking and sublime spectacles in history.

In the battle that followed, Ney had command of the Young Guard, and again carried it in headlong valor on the enemy. It was a battery of the Guard that Napoleon, during the day, ordered to fire on a group which he took to be officers reconnoitring his position, and at the first discharge of which, Moreau fell.

The effects of this great victory, however, were lost by the almost simultaneous disasters that befel the divisions of Macdonald in Silesia, Oudinot at Gros Beeren, Marshal Ney at Dennewitz, and above all, of Vandamme at Toeplitz. Napoleon, with the Old Guard, could not be everywhere, and while with inferior force he was dealing terrible blows on portions of the allied army, his lieutenants lacking his genius, were defeated on every side. At this time too, Bavaria went over to the ranks of the allies. Napoleon, however, did all that man can do. With his tireless unconquerable Guard, he turned first on one side and then on the other, scattering the enemy from his path. But no sooner did he withdraw from the pursuit of one division to chastise another, than the former closed fiercely on his retiring columns. Thus in almost a circle of armies, he continued to battle bravely for victory, but at last was forced to retire to Leipsic, where, having concentrated his troops, he resolved to stake all on one great battle.
 

This was a hazardous move, for the allied powers could bring into the field nearly three hundred thousand men, and thirteen hundred cannon, while he had but a little more than half that force with which to meet them. The preparations for the battle were on the grandest scale, and when the two armies finally stood in array against each other, the most casual observer could see that the day foreboded a gloomy termination for Napoleon.

At midnight the night before, rockets sent up to an amazing height from the head- quarters of the allied army, and answered by others from Blucher on the north, told that all was ready; and early in the morning the earthquake commenced, and nearly two thousand cannon exploded on ranks of living men. Notwithstanding his inferiority of force, Napoleon's star seemed still in the ascendant, and his victorious eagles soared as of old over the smoke and tumult of the fight. Near the close of the day he deemed the victory secure, and ordered up the Young Guard, supported by the Old, to make his favorite attack on the centre, and finish the battle. The stern Drouot, with sixty cannon, moved in front, clearing a space for the column pressing after, and their advancing fire soon showed that the allied centre was shaken to its overthrow. The enemy seeing their centre in such extreme peril, brought up reserve after reserve, and battery after battery, and thousands of cavalry, and closed around those devoted troops. Yet the batteries of Drouot blazed on like a volcano. The heavy cuirassiers plunged boldly after, and the advance columns approached so far that they came near taking the Emperor Alexander and the king of Prussia prisoners, who were forced to mount and retire. But this invincible corps, after performing prodigies of valor, was at length compelled to halt, and night shut in the scene.

Napoleon pitched his tent in the bed of a dried fish-pond in the centre of the thinned squares of the Old Guard. The next day the battle opened gloomily for the French, for a hundred thousand fresh troops had joined the allies during the night, making an overwhelming preponderance of force. Still Napoleon showed a bold front, and strove with almost superhuman efforts to alter the decree written against him. Early in the day the brave Poniatowsky, after struggling nobly to retain his position, was finally driven back by superior numbers. Napoleon immediately hastened to the spot with two divisions of the Guard, and with one terrible blow stopped the advancing columns.

Soon after, news was brought that Victor and Lauriston, though fighting like lions, were on the point of being annihilated. With the two remaining divisions of the Guard he hastened to their relief. The field was covered with fugitives, and the scene of confusion that met his eye was enough to fill the boldest heart with dismay. But amid the thunder of artillery, the shouts of enraged men, and disorder around him, his brow bore a calm and serene aspect. Taking two battalions of the Guard, he cleared a path through the broken masses and hurled them with such awful violence on the advancing enemy, that they were broken in turn, and compelled to relinquish the ground they had so gallantly won.

The superiority of the allies could not make head against the obstinacy of Napoleon, for wherever the battle shook, there he plunged with his Guard and dealt such blows as it only could deal. But at this critical state of affairs still more alarming news was brought to him. His Saxon allies to the number of twelve thousand, with forty pieces of cannon, suddenly went over to the enemy. Thus not only in the crisis of the battle was the important point they held deserted, but a difference of twenty-four thousand men and eighty pieces of cannon, made to the French. Not content with their treason, no sooner did they reach the enemy's lines than they turned their batteries on the friends by whose side they had just stood.

It seemed as if fate having no compassion for his gallant bearing, was determined to push Napoleon to the verge of despair. The news of this defection startled him, for Schoenfield, lying close to the suburbs of Leipsic, was now threatened, and thus his whole line of retreat endangered. He instantly took a division of the Young Guard and Nansouty's cuirassiers and hastened to the spot, and arrested the further progress of the enemy--but he saw a retreat was inevitable.

I will not describe this horrible retreat, nor the appearance of a field on which a hundred and twenty thousand men had fallen. The Old and Young Guard had maintained their character on these two dreadful days, and its dead lay on every part of that field. The infantry were exposed throughout to the most tremendous fire. Its artillery, notwithstanding its numerical inferiority, was worked with terrible power, while the cavalry charged as only the cuirassiers of the Guard could charge--but its bravery and devotion only swelled the carnage—the defection of the Bavarians ruined every thing.
 

Napoleon was now compelled to commence his disastrous retreat towards the Rhine. Outstripping his pursuers, he was approaching that river and the soil of France, when he received the astonishing news that General Wrede, his old ally, with fifty thousand Bavarians, had crossed his line of march and strongly posted at Hanau, was determined to finish the wreck of Leipsic. The French army, with the exception of the Guard, Old and Young, was a herd of stragglers. For nearly two hundred miles they had dragged their weary limbs towards the Rhine, harassed at every step by the Cossacks, and now, just as the soil of France was to welcome them, a fresh and powerful army unexpectedly crossed their path.

When this was told Napoleon, he simply said, "Advance; since these Bavarian gentlemen pretend to bar our passage, we must pass over their bellies." The Bavarians were posted in front of Hanau, stretching across the road, along which the French army was marching. Their centre was supported by seventy pieces of cannon, while between them and the approaching fugitives, stretched a forest several miles in extent. This was filled with sharp-shooters to retard the French, while the seventy cannon in battery were to receive them as they debouched on the farther side. Macdonald's and Victor's corps reduced to five thousand men, first entered the forest and cleared it, but the moment they attempted to form in the open field beyond, they were rent into fragments by the balls of those seventy guns, all trained on that devoted spot. Reinforcements kept arriving, but every effort was powerless to cross the plain in front of the forest. It was a wild hailstorm of balls in point-blank range, and the soldiers melted away before it like men of snow. It was then that Napoleon galloping up to his Guard ordered two battalions of foot chasseurs to clear the field, while at the same time he directed Drouot to advance with the artillery of the Guard. "Remember," said he, "that on this very spot the French Guards under Louis XIV., were defeated and thrown into the river. Let the enemy to-day receive the same fate, and France be avenged."

For four hours Victor and Macdonald had vainly endeavored to bear up against the tremendous force that opposed them, and now the weary troops shouted for joy when they saw the bear skin caps of the old grenadiers enter the forest. Those black caps swept on like a wave through the green foliage--a line of flame marking their passage. As in the retreat from Moscow, no calamity however great, not even the pangs of famine, could shake their constancy--so now, after a weary flight of two hundred miles, they were the same as in the flush of victory. The oaks rent round them before the cannon balls that crashed on every side--the huge limbs falling on their ranks, striking down many a brave man--but they pressed sternly on, cleared the wood, and soon won a part of the plain Victor and Macdonald had struggled for so many hours to obtain. In the open space they had thus snatched from the enemy, Drouot swiftly advanced with his trusty guns. At first with fifteen he opened his fire, then with fifteen rnore, then twenty, and so on till fifty played with all the rapidity and fearful accuracy which made the artillery of the Guard so formidable. He was in point-blank range, and the seventy pieces of the enemy gave them a superiority he must make up by rapidity of firing. It was terrific to see those hundred and twenty cannon concentrated on so narrow a space, and in such close range, exploding on each other. The guns of the Guard seemed to move in fire, so rapidly were they discharged, while the accuracy of aim soon told with fearful effect on the enemy.

In the midst of the volleys a large body of Bavarian cavalry suddenly precipitated themselves on the batteries of Drouot. The cannoneers seized their carbines--and now with the bayonet, and now with their pieces clubbed, stretched them around their guns. At this moment the cavalry of the Guard were seen debouching in dark and imposing masses from the forest. Wrede saw the gathering tempest that was about to burst upon him, and rallying his cavalry, and throwing his infantry into squares behind the Russian dragoons, awaited the shock. The bugles sounded the charge and breaking into a trot, then into a gallop, those thundering squadrons fell on infantry, cavalry, and artillery with such resistless violence that the whole left wing of the army was swept from the plain. Wrede then threw forward his right and made a desperate effort to regain the ground he had lost. The troops advanced gallantly, and the artillery approached so near that the opposing gunners could hear each other's voices. The scene then became indescribably fearful. It was one stream of lightning and peal of thunder through all the green alleys of the forest. The huge tops of the oaks swung to and fro and roared in the blast made by the balls as though a storm was sweeping over them. Giant branches were hurled through the air, and all amid the leafy recesses were seen charging columns and exploding batteries, and crowds of carriages and wagons, and a multitude of fugitives. In the centre of this forest was Napoleon walking to and fro in the road, listening with the deepest anxiety to the uproar around him, and conversing at intervals with Caulincourt. Defeat here he knew would be irretrievable ruin, for he would be driven back upon his pursuers, and crushed between two armies. While such painful thoughts were crowding his bosom a bomb fell in the ditch beside him, the fuse still burning. He paid no attention to it, and Caulincourt placing himself between it and the emperor, they continued their conversation as before. The officers of his staff looked on in amazement and held their breath in terror, but the shell had sunk so deep in the mire that it was extinguished before it had time to burst.

The firing in the forest becoming still heavier, Napoleon ordered two battalions of the Old Guard to advance, which charging almost on a run, overthrew everything in their passage, and forced the enemy into a precipitate retreat. This brave corps never behaved with greater intrepidity. A Captain Godau, at the head of only two companies, charged and overthrew several battalions of the Bavarians. Two chasseurs threw themselves in the tumult on the ranks of the enemy, and bore away each a standard. General Cambronne spurred all alone like Murat into the midst of the fray. Three soldiers seeing him dash forward, rushed after him--one of them snatching the banner of a guide from the very heart of a Bavarian battalion. The gunners fought with unparalleled heroism, and this "Column of granite" again showed itself worthy of the name it bore. It alone opened the road to the army, and saved it from utter annihilation.

That night, by the side of a blazing fire, in the heart of the forest, Napoleon bivouacked in the midst of his exhausted squares. He said afterwards that at Hanau he had not merely won a victory, but had carried a breach.

In this battle Wrede lost a fifth of his army, and Europe learned for the hundredth time the danger of attempting to stop the advance of the adamantine columns of the Old Guard.

With saddened hearts they defiled over the Rhine, and bid a final adieu to the scene of their achievements. Behind them lay Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, Eylau, and a host of fields where their iron ranks had borne down everything that opposed them and their eagles soared in triumph--never to be revisited. On the soil of beloved France-- by their own hearthstones they were now to show to the world examples of heroism unequalled in the annals of war.

Napoleon returned to Paris with a part of the Guard, to prepare for the inundation of his empire by nearly a million of men.