no fresh light on the scenes of the battle; and only confirms all that has been said respecting the fatal neglect of not bridging the rivers which crossed the path of the French in retreat, and the catastrophe of destroying the only bridge which gave the army an avenue of escape, before thousands of the troops had effected the passage. These appalling scenes have been often described, the account of Marbot is especially good; and we shall not recur to frightful incidents again, which strikingly show how the staff of Napoleon, as the Duc de Fezensac has well pointed out, was on many occasions far from efficient, and how the Imperial lieutenants would not take the simplest precautions, or do anything, without the express command of their master. Macdonald, more fortunate than Poniatowski, contrived to get over the swollen Elster, and thus describes the heartrending spectacle presented by his troops on the opposite bank :— The firing continued on the other side of the Elster, suddenly it ceased. Our unhappy soldiers were driven in multitudes upon the river; whole platoons rushed in, and were carried away by the flood; cries of despair burst forth from the bank on the town side; my men saw me, and above the shouting and confusion, I distinctly heard these exclamations, "Marshal, save your soldiers, save your children!" I could do nothing for them. Agitated by passion, anger, fury, I shed tears.'

The retreat of the beaten army to the Rhine was scarcely less disastrous than that from Moscow. Even Marbot tells us that the French soldiery were indignant at the shameful neglect which had caused the sacrifice of thousands of lives, and stood sullenly aloof from the Emperor. Macdonald was naturally full of resentment, and places Napoleon's conduct in the worst aspect. This was his first interview with the defeated conqueror:―The Emperor listened to my story without interrupting me, the bystanders were deeply moved, and showed their sympathy in their attitude. I ended my remarks by saying that the losses of the army in men and material were immense, and that not a moment was to be lost to save its wreck, and to regain the Rhine. We were at Markrandstadt; I had walked several leagues, I was still wet through, and

very tired. The Emperor saw this, and coolly said, "You had better take rest." I left his presence indignant at this callous indifference.'

It was not, however, only men like Macdonald, who felt indignation during the retreat from Leipzig. The favourites of the old army of Italy, loaded by Napoleon with wealth and honours, joined in the general chorus of complaint. The authority of the Emperor, founded on success, had, in fact, begun to slip away from him; and the sons of the Revolution had no scruples in denouncing their chief in adverse fortune. Augereau broke out in characteristic Billingsgate :-'He answered me with an oath: "Does the b- know what he is

doing? Have you not already seen this? Have you not heard that during the late events, and especially since the catastrophe which has followed, he has lost his head? The coward! He deserted and sacrificed us all; and do you think me such a fool, or a madman, that I should allow myself to be slain or taken prisoner in the outskirts of Leipzig? You ought to have done as I did, and gone away."'

Even Murat, the Emperor's near kinsman, and raised by him to the throne of Naples, could not refrain from expressions like these; in truth he was already plotting treason:- The King of Naples told me that the Emperor intended to direct me to make out a good defensive position, for he wished to make a halt of five or six days. "F "added Murat,

"make out a bad one, otherwise he will ruin himself, as well as ourselves.'

Macdonald fearlessly urged his master not to lose a moment to attain the Rhine. In good and evil fortune he was always frank, to the astonishment of Imperial courtiers:-'I was introduced. The Emperor gave me the commission which I had heard of from Murat. "This reconnaisance is, at present, impossible," I said. "The fog is so thick that nothing can be seen clearly at a distance of fifteen paces. But do you really intend to halt here?" "The troops are fatigued," replied the Emperor, "and the enemy pursues slowly; they are all in need of repose." "That," I retorted, "would be all very well in different circumstances; but in the actual state of disorganisa

tion, and I must add, of demoralisation of the army, it would be of no use. You must, as quickly You must, as quickly as possible, fall back on the Rhine besides, the men are hurrying to the river in disorder." "Nevertheless," he said, "I am informed that a great number had been stopped, and that fifteen battalions of those fugitives had been pursued." "You are flattered and deceived," I firmly expressed. "It was the same thing after the death of Turenne and the rout of his army."'

Napoleon more than once showed, in his wonderful career, after Moscow and in 1814 and 1815, that he was not equal to himself in extreme misfortune. He gives proof of this defect during the retreat from Leipzig:-'I joined the Emperor, and spoke strongly to him about the position of affairs. "What would you have me do," he replied, with apathy; "I give orders and no one attends to them." On other occa

sions, at a sign, at a gesture, at a signal, and from his lips, everyone was in movement, otherwise he would have been frantic.'

Macdonald, however, is not just in insinuating that Napoleon gave proof of want of personal courage before Hanau, a victory due to his admirable skill, that threw a gleam of light on the last stage of the retreat. It is puerile to make a charge of this kind, which reveals the animus of the discontented Marshal :- The Emperor appeared followed by his guards and by other corps; he asked me for information, which I gave; I had estimated the enemy's force at 30,000 men at least. "Can we examine his position without danger," he added. "Without danger, no; but we must run risks, as I have done myself." "Well, let us retreat." As we were moving forward, a shell fell and burst near him, but no one was hurt. He stopped, dismounted, and it was impossible after this to get him out of the wood.'

The old republican soldier spoke out his mind to his great master as to the extreme imprudence of rejecting the offers of Austria in 1813; even if Austria was acting a double part, the acceptance of her terms would have put her in the wrong, and rallied opinion in France to the Emperor. It may seem strange that Napoleon allowed such freedom; but, even in the days of

his absolute power, he sometimes bore much from the chiefs of his armies:- Why,' I said, 'did you not agree to the conditions sooner? The army wished it extremely; the honour of its arms had been restored; its chief commanders begged for this in its name, and in that of France in distress. I myself explained the danger of the situation to you; I represented to you that it was difficult enough to contend against the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, and what would it be when Austria, Sweden, and other lesser states should join them? Our losses, no doubt, had been in some measure repaired, but with what means? With children of the new levy, with young horses, not trained, and already worn out by long and forced marches; the return of hostilities would cause our communications to be intercepted; a serious defeat would ruin us; we had neither a store of provisions nor magazines; above all, demoralisation was to be avoided." All this reasoning had had no effect on him during the negotiations; to-day he admitted it was right.'

In the winter of 1813, as Macdonald was in command on the Lower Rhine, charged with an impossible task, the defence of Holland. The allies, surprising Napoleon by their bold movements, invaded France even before he expected; and the Marshal, with most of his brother chiefs, was forced back to the plains of Champagne, to endeavour to resist the hosts of Europe. Macdonald had been promised large reinforcements, but Napoleon had hardly a man to send him ; and he contemplates the grand contest of 1814, like that of 1813, with a jaundiced eye. Undoubtedly, in this instance also, the Emperor tried to accomplish more than was possible with his actual military strength; he aimed at defending three-fourths of his empire, whereas he should have thought only of defending France; and his strategy, as a whole, reveals this error. But his operations on the Marne and the Seine are masterpieces of war of the highest order; they recall the achievements of 1796-7, and they shed a splendid light of glory on his fall. Macdonald scarcely alludes to these grand passages of arms, though his position on the Marne gave Napoleon an opportunity to strike down Blücher, and to win a series of triumphs

almost unparalleled. The Marshal was engaged towards the close of the contest in resisting Schwartzenberg upon the Seine; and this short anecdote again illustrates how the special privileges of the Imperial Guard were often attended with. bad results:-'I found Marshal Oudinot at Grey and the Granges; and on my asking him why he had left his position in the morning, he said that the Young Guard was not made to be a rear-guard. "In that case," I replied, "I have no more orders to give you, seek them from the Emperor."'

Macdonald asserts that he was the only Marshal who warned Napoleon that the enemy was at hand, when the Emperor was surprised at Arics-sur-Aube. He accompanied his master in the celebrated march to relieve the fortresses on the Meuse and the Moselle, and to fall on the communications of the allies, with an army largely increased by the garrisons, the last great manoeuvre of the campaign of 1814. He informs us that he urged the Emperor to persist in the movement, though Paris should fall, wise counsel from a military point of view, but rejected by Napoleon on political grounds:- Whatever orders you may give,' I said, 'Paris left without defence will have succumbed before we can arrive, if you go there, whatever may be the celerity of your movements. In your place, I would march on to Lorraine and Alsace, and collecting part of their garrisons, would carry on an internecine war on the rear of the enemy, cutting his communications and intercepting his envoys and reinforcements; he will be compelled to fall back, and you can make the fortresses your base of operations.'

The empire had fallen in a few days; and the most striking feature of this immense catastrophe was the extravagance of Napoleon's conduct, as a leader of armies, and chief of a State, during the years immediately before his overthrow. Macdonald was not the only adviser who had warned him that his efforts to keep down Europe by military force, and to refuse offers of peace, would be attended by the gravest disasters. His lieutenants had urged him in 1812 not to advance on Moscow; they had entreated him in 1813 not to stand on the Elbe, and to attempt to hold all Germany in his grasp; in 1814 Soult had plainly told him that the defence of France should be his