misfortunes: the Russians, elated of Leipzig, events, not excepting the French victories, taught one only lesson - caution; but they taught in vain. by the advantages they had gained over him, were pouring into western Europe, where the States which he had subjugated were one and all kindling at the thought of deliverance from his yoke; his prestige and his physical power were both seriously damaged. Surely consolidation was what he should have aimed at; and as a means to that end, moderation should, for the time at least, have been his rule. But his desires, his overpowering will, had now become too strong for his discretion; he had no longer an ear for the warnings of prudence, but gave himself up to wild imaginations. Wellington, in Spain, was pressing his troops hard, and might any day deal him a heavy blow there; between him and France lay subject nations whose further submission had become doubtful, and who, he knew, might rise suddenly and separate him from his only refuge in case of disaster; a little time to instruct and season his new troops would have been most invaluable. More than all this, he had, by very rough schooling, taught his opponents how to make war as he did. But he shut his eyes to these considerationswould not regard them when they were presented by his generals talked only of astonishing his foes as he had done in former days, and of executing vengeance when he himself it was who was daily and hourly liable to find himself at the mercy of others. He was no longer able to overcome himself, and so the chance of his confounding his adversaries was small indeed. Thus the undertaking of this German campaign was a blunder. In the course of it, blunder after blunder, interspersed among flashes of the old ability and promptitude, led to its inevitable failure. All through the campaign up to the catastrophe An Englishman, who in Saxony may interest himself in inquiry concerning the events of 1813, will in some sort realise the condition of Germany during the wars of the French Revolution, and cannot fail to become alive to the favoured position which his own island enjoyed in those days. England was the soul of the resistance that was made to the ambitious projects of the Emperor. Without her the nations must, many a time during the contest, have discontinued their efforts; and yet she, though like a fate maintaining and directing the struggle, altogether escaped that horrid acquaintance with its incidents which was burnt into the hearts of the dwellers on its theatre. She sent forth her sons to fight, and she spent her treasures liberally those were her sacrifices in the long war. But such appear light afflictions indeed, to them who have known what it was to "Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror." The town of Leipsig was simply ruined by the French occupation in 1813. Dresden suffered the same fate. The cruelties, exactions, and oppressions were most horrible. When we read of the universal joy which was diffused over the towns when the French evacuated or were driven out of them, we are apt to imagine that, once the disagreeable visitors withdrew, things returned to their former condition, and all went merrily again. the universal joy must be a mere figure of speech, or it must mean the joy of the opposing forces who entered, or of the nations generally whose forces were victorious. As for the wretched towns themselves, they never got rid of the French But until everything they had had been consumed or destroyed, and famine and pestilence were legacies left behind the visitors. I am told that it is hardly too much to say that not one of those who had arrived at man's estate at the time of the occupation ever lived to recover from the destitution in which they were at that time plunged. Very many families which enjoyed wealth and position in the last century remain to this day little better than paupers; and their destitution is due to the French, who deprived them of everything they had. It must be remembered, too, that the French and Saxons were allies the Saxon monarch stood by Napoleon throughout the campaign, and until towards the very end of the battle of Leipzig the Saxon troops fought on the French side. The treatment which I have been describing was that which Napoleon's friends received at his hands. It is a drive of two hours at most from Leipzig to Lützen, over a country possessing as few elements of the picturesque as can well be imagined. The great plain extends to points far beyond Lützen. It is diversified by no alternation of hill and dale; scarcely a grove or clump of trees breaks the monotony of the landscape. All is flat and bald. There is sublimity in the immensity of the plain, but beauty is altogether wanting. The villages-scarce in neighbourhood of Lindenau, but more plentiful around Lützen- -are about as unadorned and ugly as they can be. Railways have not yet found their way as far as Lützen and its adjacent villages; and, except where they have penetrated, it may be assumed that the aspect of things is much what it was in 1813. The soil of the plain seems to be very rich, and is entirely cultivated. No hedge or material demarcation inter rupts the vapidity of the great flat, or occupies a hand's-breadth that should be the husbandman's. The colours of the crops alone, in this springtime, brighten and vary the scene a little. I suppose no warrior ever thought of giving these places historical renown to compensate their want of beauty; yet warriors have amply done this for them. These plains of Leipzig, of what grand events have they been the theatre what turning acts in the world's history have they witnessed! Very near to Lützen, but rather to the north of Napoleon's battlefield, a plain stone, which modern reverence has surmounted by a more showy monument, marks the deathspot of Gustavus Adolphus. If the ground had had no other interest, the last battle-field of the Protestant champion would have been worthy of a pilgrimage; and very glad am I to have surveyed the scene where he closed his career, Shall I, however, make a confession to you, dear Editor? While I paused near the monument, thinking of what is now an old, old story, the character which presented itself most pertinaciously in my memory was not the great Gustavus, nor any being that ever walked this earth, but the creation of a great magician, never perceived by human sense, howbeit a distinct figure in many a human mind nevertheless. It was Captain Dugald Dalgetty, of voracious and loquacious fame, that would intrude himself into my thoughts. I found that I had never pictured to myself Gustavus-had not, in truth, an idea what he looked like; while of the sagacious captain I possessed as clear an image as was possible in the mind's eye. Thus, by a very intelligible chain of ideas, I, a pilgrim at the stone of the Swedish hero, was spirited away among the scenes of the Legend of Montrose'; for Gustavus was Dugald's constant theme, his preceptor in the art of war, his inspiration. I have a suspicion, moreover, that my earliest acquaintance with the monarch was through the ci-devant Ritt-meister; for I fell, while of tender age, among tales and legends, and think that my historical reading can have extended little, if at all, beyond the outlines of English his tory, when I made acquaintance with many a romancer's dreams. That by the way. Round this spot it seems that Napoleon's guard bivouacked on the night of May 1, 1813, his army being then on its march to the Elbe, by Leipzig. The Allied army were at this time close to his line of advance, and meditating a stroke which he little expected. Having contrived to conceal their position from him till next day, they, soon after noon, fell upon his extended columns in a very masterly way, taking him by surprise and at great disadvantage. If the execution of their attack could have equalled its conception, they would have then and there finished the campaign. But the valour and steadiness of the French troops, and the skill of the French Emperor, were sufficient to ward off a disaster which at one time was imminent. The villages of Great and Little Görschen, of Kaja, Rahno, and Eisdorf, all a little to the south of Lützen, were held by the French with extreme tenacity and valour, or, if lost for a time, were recovered again by desperate efforts. Had these little points of vantage been lost, and the French been forced past them on to the open plain, the Cossacks and other splendid cavalry (in which the Allies were rich) would speedily have wrought complete destruction, for the French were weak in that arm. As it was, the villages, by supreme efforts, were held until Napoleon could in some sort concentrate his army on the point where he was attacked. He lost more men than the enemy, but by nightfall he was in greater force near Lützen than they. The opposing forces remained till next day on the field; and during the night the cavalry of the allies made an incursion on the weary French, by which the Emperor was nearly captured. In the morning the Allies, finding themselves overmatched, retreated, without being molested. The war was transferred to the Elbe, and the plains of Leipzig were left in peace. until October, when they heard the sound of cannon again. But Lützen is properly described as one of the most brilliant of Napoleon's victories; and this because it was his generalship alone which prevented it from being a defeat. He, being in a great strait, by a wonderful intuition penetrated the enemy's plan, brought up all the force which he had in hand to make good the key of his position, and contrived to hold his ground until more of his divisions, arriving from distant points, made him of superior strength to the Allies, and the latter found it necessary to retreat. though his abilities thus saved him from disaster, the affair reflected little credit on his prudence, and showed that he was no longer to have the initiative in war as of old. The action was planned by the Allies, not by him. They lay for many hours quite close to his line of march without his knowledge of their design, or of their exact position. They assailed him when his divisions, being on the march, were extended over thirty miles of country from Weissenfels to Leipzig; and they went very near, indeed, to cutting his army in two. victory was nothing like those stunning overthrows by which he had once been accustomed to paralyse his foes. The Allies retired fighting, without the least disorder, and without the loss of a gun or a His waggon, and Napoleon did not at once pursue them. He had lost the power of controlling the campaign and of driving his adversary before him, either because his qualities and his troops had deteriorated, or because his opponents had gained a new proficiency in the art of war. But the more that he ought to have been impressed by these considerations, the more incautious and wilful did he become. He was possessed by the idea of punishing Prussia for joining Russia. He blustered most unadvisedly about destroying Berlin, and making Frederick William's realm a desert; and while he was uttering threats like these, calculated to excite war to the knife against him if anything could do so, he was endeavouring to detach separate States from the alliance which frowned so darkly on his fortunes. He should have forborne to threaten, or else saved himself the trouble of negotiating. But all lessons, as we know, were lost upon him; and although he did not cease to win battles, he ceased to win decisive ones, and his fortunes steadily deteriorated. Bad news came from Spain and Gerinany; and at length Austria, feeling that he had fallen low enough to warrant her in hazarding another stroke for independence, threw her sword into the scale against him. His old renown, and the dread which he had universally inspired, would have enabled him at any time in this summer to make reasonable terms, by which he would have gained time to reorganise his power, if he could gain nothing else. But opportunity after opportunity was lost; negotiation after negotiation came to nought; he was even mad enough to personally insult Prince Metternich at a time when the retention of the Austrian alliance was of the utmost moment to him; and the autumn saw him once more on the plains around Leipzig, his chance of retreat to the Rhine without ruinous damage hanging on the issue of a battle wherein his troops would be matched against equal numbers, a far stronger cavalry, and an opposing force whose physical and moral condition was superior to theirs: and yet standing in this jeopardy, his mind was set upon aggression and vengeance, and making the nobles of Prussia beg their bread! So have I seen an old mastiff whose teeth had been ground down by work and time unable to comprehend that he was no longer the champion that he had been, and challenging and fighting with the avidity of old days, but getting only defeats from younger and better-armed foes. It was during the months which elapsed between the two battles of Lützen and Leipzig fought by Napoleon on these plains, that the poet Körner was brought by stealth wounded into the latter town. His regiment had been treacherously attacked by the French during an armistice, and he, unarmed, had been cut down. It was a dangerous act then to harbour a soldier of the Allied armies in a Saxon town; nevertheless, a humane and patriotic medical man in the suburbs of Leipzig received Körner into his house, and attended to him until he recovered. The poet then returned to his regiment, and served but a short time longer before he received another and a fatal wound. He was slain during the unsuccessful attack made by the Allied army on Dresden in August. In the last-named city, before the grammar-school in the GeorgsPlatz, stands his statue, wherein the artist has endeavoured to glorify the poet and the soldier; and so, in my opinion, has produced an satisfactory effect. A military poet does not usually take his MS. with un him when he charges the enemy, nor wear his panoply when he is composing or reciting his verses. But our sculptured Körner, grasping his sword with one hand-and a warlike figure in all respects but one, carries a literary roll in the other hand. The statuary in one effort can seize but a single epoch in the life of a man, and should confine himself to that. Körner never immortalised himself as soldier; and though he fell bravely fighting, as hundreds of other Germans did, he did not by that means earn his statue. The homage is undoubtedly paid to the memory of the patriotic poet, and it would have been well, I think, if Herr Hähnel had remembered this, and spared us the spurs and other articles of war. a I think that it is supposed by most of those who have written of the battle of Leipzig that the town at the time of the battle was fortified. This is a mistake. It was in the days of the Seven Years' War surrounded by a continuous enceinte, strengthened by some outworks; but immediately after that war the levelling of the ramparts commenced. They were removed very gradually, the last curtain-that in front of Schiller Strasse-having disappeared before the middle of the present century. Therefore, in 1813 Leipzig was not fortified in the sense of being in a condition to stand a siege. Any town may be defended by street and house fighting, and this was the sort of resistance that was made to the Allied forces when they broke into Leipzig on the 19th October. No doubt the portions of the old enceinte and outworks then existing helped the French rearguard a little in their resistance; but the whole assault was an affair of only an hour or two. If the walls had been continuous they might have kept the conquerors, or a large portion of them, back for some days, and materially retarded the pursuit. The Leipzigers have taken pains to mark by a column each of the principal points in the battles, so that a stranger, after a short survey of the ground, finds his comprehension of the awful struggle pretty clear, if he happens to have read a good account of the order of events. The The great plain of Leipzig extends in every direction from the town as far as the eye can reach. Except by the rivers that flow through it, it is very little broken even in these days of railways and quarries. In 1813, it was probably, in a general sense, unbroken; and the fullest advantage was in that year taken of its extent for fighting purposes; for round the town, there was not a point of the compass where the battle of 16th to 19th October did not reach. principal struggle-where the generals-in-chief on both sides were present, and where the great body of the forces was engaged-occurred to the south-east of Leipzig on the 16th and 18th. To the northeast, Marshal Ney opposed Blucher's and Bernadotte's corps. The Allied forces, as the victory inclined to their side, extended towards each other, and finally touched, thus stretching over more than a halfcircle from north-west to southwest by the cast. On the west, by Lindenau, a corps of Austrians ceaselessly endeavoured to drive General Bertrand's corps off the main road to Erfurth. Thus was Leipzig literally "encompassed with armies." It is impossible to conceive that "glorious war," as a spectacle, could be more grandly presented; and if there were in Leipzig at the time any spectator whose affections and possessions were untouched by the war, he must have enjoyed scenes of un |