d had declared him a
traitor, simply because he was the only one who had not betrayed him.
Certainly if fortune had again become favorable to him, as in the past,
the King of Saxony would have found himself master of one of the most
extensive kingdoms of Europe; but fortune was hereafter to be always
adverse, and even our victories brought us only a barren glory.

Thus, for instance, the French army soon covered itself with glory at
Hanau, through which it was necessary to pass by overwhelming the immense
army of Austrians and Bavarians collected at this point under the command
of General Wrede. Six thousand prisoners were the result of this
triumph, which at the same time opened to us the road to Mayence, which
we expected to reach without other obstacles. It was on the 2d of
November, after a march of fourteen days from Leipzig, that we again
beheld the banks of the Rhine, and felt that we could breathe in safety.

Having devoted five days to reorganizing the army, giving his orders, and
assigning to each of the marshals and chiefs of the several corps the
post he was to occupy during his absence, the Emperor left Mayence on the
7th, and on the 9th slept at Saint-Cloud, to which he returned preceded
by a few trophies, as both at Erfurt and Frankfort we had taken twenty
banners from the Bavarians. These banners, presented to the minister of
war by M. Lecouteux aide-de-camp to the Prince de Neuchatel, had preceded
his Majesty's arrival in Paris by two days, and had already been
presented to the Empress, to whom the Emperor had done homage in the
following terms:

"MADAME, AND MY VERY DEAR WIFE,--

"I send you twenty banners taken by my army at the battles of
Wachau, Leipzig, and Hanau. This is an homage it gives me pleasure
to render to you. I desire that you will accept it as a mark of my
entire satisfaction with the manner in which you have administered
the regency which I confided to you."

Under the Consulate and during the first six years of the Empire,
whenever the Emperor had returned to Paris after a campaign, it was
because that campaign was finished, and the news of a peace concluded in
consequence of a victory had always preceded him. For a second time he
returned from Mayence under different circumstances. In this case, as on
the return from Smorghoni, he left the war still in progress, and
returned, not for the purpose of presenting to France the fruit of his
victories, but to demand