ctions. They amounted to this, that he should keep the passes
into Bohemia at all hazards, and win for himself a marshal's baton.
This done, Napoleon marched upon Dresden, and on the 26th, entered it
at the head of his cavalry. The infantry followed fast; and the capital
of Saxony, which had already sustained insult from the shot and shells
of the Allies, and was threatened with an immediate assault, became
safe. Napoleon made his dispositions with equal promptitude and
secresy. He stationed his several divisions in the streets, so as to
conceal their numbers, while at the same time, each fronted a gate, or
gave support to a point that was threatened; and then calmly awaited
the attack of the enemy, which was not slow in developing itself.

Schwartzenberg had conducted his advance with an excess of caution. His
prodigious army was collected on the 13th, yet it was the 23rd ere he
forced the passes of the hills, and now only on the 26th he made his
final dispositions for the attack of Dresden. Of the local situation of
that city I have said enough to give my readers some notion of the
arena on which this great battle was fought. Standing astride upon the
Elbe, the capital of Saxony occupies the centre of an enormous plain,
the hills that surround which approach, in no instance, within three
English miles of the glacis, and in addition to its ancient
fortifications, it was, at the period at which I now speak, girdled in
on all hands by redoubts and field-works. Of that outer line the
remains are yet to be seen by every traveller who follows the direct
road to Pirna. They run from the Grosse Garten, which they include, all
the way to the Elbe. On the other flanks of the city, from the Grosse
Garten to the Elbe again, they are almost entirely effaced. But on the
26th of August 1813, they were at least respectable; and in the partial
combats which had taken place over-night, though some had fallen, the
rest were stoutly maintained. It was to be determined, that day, how
far they were or were not impregnable.

The field of battle ranged from the Elbe, on the right of the Allied
columns, to Plouen on the left. The points of attack were the gates of
Pilnitz, Pirna, Dohna, Dippoldiswald, Blender, or Plouen, and Freiberg.
It was about four in the afternoon when the discharge of their cannon
from the heights of Recknitz, where the head-quarters of the Allies had
fixed themselves, gave notice that the various columns were in motion