These are the circumstances in which this baleful event came to spread consternation throughout the army. The Emperor was pursuing the Russian guard, which constantly escaped him. It had just done so for, perhaps, the tenth time since morning, after having killed and made prisoners of a good number of our men, when two or three cannon-balls, which ploughed up the ground at his feet, attracted the Emperor's attention and made him say: "What, no result after such a butchery! no prisoners! These fellows will not leave me a pin." Hardly had he spoken when a ball passed and upset a mounted chasseur of the escort almost between the legs of His Majesty's horse. "Ah! Duroc," said he, turning to the grand marshal, "fortune has a heavy grudge against us to-day." "Sire," said an aide-de-camp, who came up at a gallop, "General Bruyères has just been killed." "My poor comrade of Italy! Is it possible? Ah! we must get through with this all the same." And, seeing on his left an eminence from whose summit he could observe better what was going on, the Emperor turned in that direction through a cloud of dust; the Duc de Vicenza, the Duc de Trevise, Marshal Duroc, and General of Engineers Kirgener followed His Majesty very closely; but the wind blew the smoke and dust so violently that one could hardly see. A tree near which the Emperor was passing was suddenly struck by a cannon-ball which half destroyed it. His Majesty, having reached level ground, turned to ask for his glass, and saw no one but the Duc de Vicenza. Duc Charles de Plaisance came up; a deadly pallor overspread his countenance; he bent toward the grand equerry and said a few words in his ear. "What is the matter?" quickly demanded the Emperor, "what has happened?" "Sire," said the Duc de Plaisance, weeping, "the grand marshal is dead." — "The grand marshal is dead? Duroc? But you are mistaken, he was beside me just now!"

Several aides-de-camp arrived with a page who brought His Majesty's spy-glass. The fatal news was in great part confirmed. The Duc de Frioul was not yet dead, but his entrails had been struck and all the assistance of art was unavailing. The ball, after hitting the tree, had ricochetted on General Kirgener, who fell dead on the spot, and then upon the Duc de Frioul. MM. Yvan and Larrey were with the wounded man, who had been transported to a house in Makersdorf; there was no hope of saving him.

To describe the consternation of the army, the grief of His Majesty at this frightful event, would be impossible. The Emperor mechanically gave some orders and came back to camp. Arriving in the square of the guard, he sat down on a stool in front of his tent, with head bent down and joined hands, and remained thus for nearly an hour without uttering a single word. Yet essential measures must be taken for the next day; General Drouot approached him and, in a voice broken by sobs, asked him what was to be done. "Time enough for all that to-morrow," replied the Emperor; he said not another word. "Poor man!" muttered the old grumblers of the guard as they looked at him; "he has lost one of his children."

At nightfall the enemy was in full retreat, and the army having taken its positions, the Emperor left the camp and went to the house where the grand marshal had been carried, accompanied by Prince de Neufchâtel, M. Yvan, and the Duc de Vicenza. The scene was terrible. The disconsolate Emperor several times embraced this faithful friend and sought to impart some hopes; but the Duke, who knew his condition perfectly, only replied by entreating him to have them give him opium. At these words the Emperor went out; he could restrain himself no longer.

The Duc de Frioul died next morning. The Emperor ordered his body to be taken to Paris and deposited under the dome of the Invalides. He bought the house in which the grand marshal died, and charged the pastor of the village to have a stone placed on the spot where the bed had stood, on which the following inscription should be engraved:

"Here General Duroc, Duc de Frioul, grand marshal of the palace of the Emperor Napoleon, struck by a cannon-ball, died in the arms of the Emperor, his friend."

The preservation of this monument was made obligatory on the tenant of the house. This was the condition of the gift of it which was made him by His Majesty. The pastor, the village magistrate, and the donee were summoned, for this purpose, into His Majesty's presence. He made them acquainted with his intentions, which they solemnly pledged themselves to fulfil. Then His Majesty, taking the necessary funds from his cash-box, remitted them to these gentlemen.

It is well now that the reader should know how this agreement, so religiously contracted, received its fulfilment. The following order from the Russian staff-office will apprise him:

"A protocol, bearing date March 16 (28), states that the Emperor Napoleon has remitted to minister of religion Hermann, at Makersdorf, the sum of two hundred gold napoleons, intended for the erection of a monument to the memory of Marshal Duroc, who died on the field of battle. His Excellency Prince Repnin, governor-general of Saxony, having ordered that a clerk from my office should repair to Makersdorf in order to take possession of the said sum so as to deposit it with me until the final disposition of it shall be decided on, Clerk Meyerheim is charged with this mission. In consequence, he will instantly present himself at Makersdorf, for the purpose of legitimating himself to Minister Hermann, by showing him the present order, and will seize from his hands the aforesaid sum of two hundred gold napoleons. Clerk Meyerheim will have no account to give of the execution of this order to any one but me.

This document requires no comment.

After the battles of Bautzen and of Wurtchen, the Emperor entered Silesia. Everywhere he saw the combined army of the allies flying before his own, and this spectacle deeply flattered his self-love by nourishing the idea that he would soon behold himself master of a rich and fertile country, whose abundant resources would be favorable to his enterprises. Several times a day you would hear him saying: "Are we far from such a city?" His impatience did not, however, prevent his occupying himself with whatever attracted his attention, as a man might have done who was exempt from all cares; when he passed through any village he would examine the houses one after another; he noticed the direction of the rivers and mountains, and collected even the slightest information that any one could or would impart.

In the daytime of May 27, His Majesty being between two or three days' march from Breslau, he encountered, before a small village called Michelsdorf, several regiments of Russian cavalry which barred the way; they were already quite close to the Emperor and the staff, and yet His Majesty had not even thought of looking at them. Prince de Neufchâtel, seeing the enemy so near, hastened to the Emperor and said: "Sire, they keep on advancing." "Oh, well! we will advance also," returned His Majesty, smiling; "don't you see behind us?" And he pointed out to the Prince the French infantry which was approaching in serried columns. A few discharges soon routed the Russians from this position; but they turned up again half a league or a league further away; the thing was always to begin again. The Emperor knew this well, hence he manœuvred with the greatest precision. Directing in person the troops that were moving forward, he went from one acclivity to another, and made the round of all the cities and villages to reconnoitre the positions and see what resources he could extract from the soil. Through his cares, as a result of his indefatigable glance, the scene would change ten times a day. Had a column debouched through a sunken road, a wood, a village, it could, on the instant, take possession of a height, for the defence of which a battery was all ready. The Emperor indicated all the movements with admirable tact, so that it was impossible to take him unawares. He commanded only in the mass, transmitting his orders, either in person or by his orderly officers, to the commanders of corps and divisions, who transmitted them in turn or had them transmitted by their own officers to the chiefs of battalion. All the orders given by His Majesty were short, precise, and so clear that no explanation of them was ever required.

May 29, not knowing how far on the road to Breslau it would be prudent to advance, His Majesty established himself in a little farmhouse called Rosnig. It had been pillaged already and presented a wretched appearance. There was only one small room in the house with a cabinet for the use of the Emperor; Prince de Neufchâtel and the suite took up their quarters as best they could in thatched cabins, barns, and even in the gardens; for there was not shelter enough for all. Fire broke out the next day in a small grange close beside His Majesty's lodging. There were fourteen or fifteen baggage wagons in this grange, all of which were burned. One of them contained the cash-box of the paymaster of the journey; in another were some clothes and linen of the Emperor, as well as jewels, rings, snuffboxes, and other costly objects. Very little was rescued from this fire, and if the reserve service had not promptly arrived, His Majesty would have been obliged to change his usual toilet customs for lack of stockings and shirts. The Saxon Major d'Odeleben, who has written very interesting things concerning this campaign, says that everything belonging to His Majesty was burned, and that some breeches had to be hastily made for him in Breslau; it is an error. I do not think the wardrobe wagon was burned; but even if it had been, the Emperor would not have been minus clothing on that account, since he had always four or five services, either ahead or in the rear of headquarters. In Russia, where the order was given to burn all the vehicles for which there were no horses, the command was rigorously executed with regard to all the members of his household, who had almost nothing left; but for His Majesty everything was kept which could be regarded as indispensable.

At last, June 1, at six o'clock in the morning, the French advance-guard entered Breslau, having at its head General Lauriston and General Hogendorp, whom His Majesty had previously invested with the government of this city, the capital of Silesia. Thus was partially fulfilled the promise made by the Emperor when returning from Russia by way of Warsaw: "I am going to find three hundred thousand men. Success will make the Russians audacious. I shall fight two battles with them between the Elbe and the Oder, and in six months I shall again be on the Niemen."

These two battles, fought and won by conscripts, and without cavalry, had re-established the reputation of the French armies. The King of Saxony had been brought back in triumph to his capital. The Emperor's headquarters were at Breslau; one corps of the grand army at the gates of Berlin, and the enemy driven from Hamburg; Russia was about to be thrown back within its own limits, when the Emperor of Austria, intervening in the affairs of the two sovereign allies, advised them to propose an armistice. They followed this advice, and the Emperor was weak enough to consent to what they asked. The armistice was granted and signed June 4; and His Majesty set out on his return to Dresden. An hour after his departure he said: "If the allies do not really desire peace, this armistice may become fatal to us."

June 8, His Majesty went to sleep at Görlitz. That night a fire broke out in a faubourg where the guard had established its quarters. One of the notables of the city came to the Emperor's quarters at one o'clock in the morning to give the alarm and say that all was lost. The troops extinguished the fire, and some one came afterwards to acquaint His Majesty with what had occurred. I dressed him at this time, because he wished to start at daybreak. "What does the loss amount to?" asked the Emperor. "Sire, to seven or eight thousand francs, at least for the most necessitous." — "Give them ten thousand, and let it be distributed at once." The population learned the generosity of the Emperor that very instant, and when he left the city, an hour or two later, he was saluted with unanimous acclamations.

On the morning of the 10th we were back in Dresden. The arrival of the Emperor dispelled some rather singular rumors which had been in circulation ever since the remains of Marshal Duroc passed through the city. People declared that the coffin that had been brought was that of the Emperor, that he had been killed in the last battle, and that his corpse was secretly locked up in a chamber of the château, through the windows of which candles could be seen burning all night long. When he arrived, these persons, persisting in their notions, went so far as to repeat what had already been said on another occasion, namely, that it was not the Emperor that was seen in his carriage, but a manikin with a wax face. However, when he appeared on horseback before everybody the next day, in a meadow outside the city gates, they were forced to believe that he was still alive.

The Emperor alighted at the Marcolini palace, a charming summer residence situated in the faubourg Friederichstadt. An immense garden, the beautiful meadows of Osterwise, on the banks of the Elbe, and the most agreeable exposure possible rendered this sojourn far more attractive than that of the winter palace; hence the Emperor was infinitely pleased with the King of Saxony for having prepared it for him. Here his life was like what it had been at Schönbrunn; reviews every morning, a great deal of work all day, and a trifle of diversion in the evening. In general there was more simplicity than display. The middle of the day was devoted to the cabinet work; then there reigned such a tranquillity in the palace that, but for the two mounted sentries and the two sentinels that announced the abode of a monarch, it would not have been easy to suppose that this beautiful dwelling was inhabited by even the simplest private person.

The Emperor had selected the right wing of the palace for his own quarters; the left wing was occupied by Prince de Neufchâtel. In the centre of the edifice were a grand salon and two smaller ones which answered for the receptions.

Two days after his return, His Majesty sent the necessary orders to Paris for the actors of the Comedie Française to spend the time of the armistice at Dresden. The Duc de Vicenza, acting ad interim as grand marshal of the palace, was commissioned to make due preparations for receiving them. He remitted the affair to MM. de Beausset and de Turenne, to whom the Emperor gave the superintendence of the theatre. For this purpose, a hall was constructed in the Orangery of the Marcolini palace. It communicated with the apartments and could accommodate some two hundred persons. It was built as if by enchantment, and was opened, while awaiting the debut of the French troupe, by two or three representations given by the Italian comedians of the King of Saxony.

The tragedians who came from Paris were: MM. Saint-Prix, Talma; and Mademoiselle Georges.

The comedians: MM. Fleury, Saint-Fal, Baptiste junior, Armand, Thénard, Michot, Devigny, Michelot, Barbier; and Mesdames Mars, Bourgoin, Thénard, Emilie Contat, Mézeray. The direction had been intrusted to M. Després.

All these actors arrived June 19, and found everything arranged in the most suitable manner; tastefully furnished lodgings, domestics, all in fact that could aid them to endure with ease the tedium of a sojourn in a foreign country and prove to them meantime what consideration His Majesty had for their talents, — a consideration doubly merited by most of them on account of their excellent social qualities, and the nobility and good tone of their manners.

The French troupe made their debut at the Orangery theatre June 22, with the Gageure imprévue and another piece very much in vogue in Paris at the time, and which has since been seen with pleasure, the Suite d'un bal masqué.

As the Orangery hall was not large enough for tragic representations, that sort of spectacle was reserved for the grand theatre of the city, to which no one was admitted on such days unless provided with tickets from Count de Turenne, for which no charge was made.

In the grand theatre, when the French actors played, as also in that of the Marcolini palace, the attendance of the boxes was performed by none but His Majesty's footmen, who offered refreshments during the entire performance.

After the arrival of the actors of the French theatre, the day's employment was regulated in this manner:

All was quiet until eight o'clock in the morning, unless some courier arrived, or some aide-de-camp were unexpectedly summoned. At eight o'clock I dressed the Emperor. At nine he held a levee at which all persons could be present who had the rank of colonel. The civil and military authorities of the country were also admitted; the Dukes of Weimar and Anhalt, and the brothers and nephews of the King of Saxony came sometimes. Then breakfast; after which the parade in the meadow of Osterwise, about a hundred paces distant from the palace. The Emperor always went there on horseback, dismounting after he arrived; the troops defiled before him and saluted him thrice with the usual enthusiasm.

The evolutions were sometimes commanded by the Emperor and sometimes by Comte de Lobau; as soon as the cavalry began defiling, the Emperor would re-enter the palace and set to work. Then commenced that tranquillity of which I have spoken. Dinner was not until very late, at seven or eight o'clock. The Emperor often dined alone with Prince de Neufchâtel, unless he had guests belonging to the royal family of Saxony. After dinner, people went to the play when there was one, and after the play the Emperor would return to his cabinet to work again, either alone or with his secretaries.

It was the same thing every day, unless, and this case was very rare, fatigued beyond measure by the tasks of the day, His Majesty took a whim to send for Mademoiselle G——— after the tragedy. Then she would spend two or three hours in his apartment, but never more.

Sometimes, also, the Emperor would invite Talma or Mademoiselle Mars to breakfast. One day, in conversation with this admirable actress, the Emperor spoke of her debut. "Sire," said she, with that grace which everybody has recognized, "I commenced very humbly. I slipped in without being perceived." "Without being perceived!" replied His Majesty, briskly; "you are mistaken. Believe me, Mademoiselle, that, like all the rest of France, I have always applauded your rare talents."

The sojourn of the Emperor at Dresden diffused riches and plenty there. More than six millions of foreigners passed through that city between May 8 and November 16, if one credits the lists published by Saxon authority and the number of lodgings furnished. This passage was a rain of gold which was carefully picked up by caterers, innkeepers, and merchants. Those who took charge of the military lodgings, on account of the inhabitants, also made large profits. At Dresden you found Parisian tailors and bootmakers who were aiding the natives to work in the French style; you even saw bootblacks crying on the bridges of the Elbe as they had cried on those of the Seine, "Shine your boots!"

Around the city several camps had been established for the wounded, the convalescents, etc. Nothing could be more pleasing to the eye than one of these camps called the Westphalian. It was a succession of charming little gardens. Yonder, was a fortress of turf with its bastions crowned with hortensias. Here, a building site had been converted into a terrace and alleys garnished with flowers like the most carefully tended parterre. On a knoll you saw a bust of Pallas. All the barracks were covered with moss and hung with daily renewed foliage and garlands.

As the armistice was to end August 15, the celebration of His Majesty's fête was anticipated by five days. Magnificent preparations had been made by the army, the city, and the court, so that the ceremonies might be worthy of him who was their object. All that Dresden contained of wealth and power vied with each other in balls, concerts, festivities, and rejoicings of every description. In the morning, before the hour for the review, the King of Saxony with all his family came to visit the Emperor; and the two sovereigns mutually displayed their friendship. They breakfasted, and then His Majesty, accompanied by the King of Saxony, his brothers and his nephews, went into the meadow behind the palace, where they were awaited by fifteen thousand soldiers of the guard, as carefully uniformed as for the finest parades on the Champ-de-Mars.

After the review, both the French and Saxon troops went to the churches to listen to the Te Deum. The religious ceremony ended, all these brave fellows sat down at banquets prepared for them, and the shouts of joy, the music, and dances were prolonged far into the night.