p 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 wh