avarian had succeeded in
doing under like provocation, was compelled to accept the alliance which
the Cabinet of Berlin urged on him, and to join his troops with those of
the power by which he had been thus insulted and wronged.

No sooner did Napoleon know that the Prussians had advanced into the
heart of Saxony, than he formed the plan of his campaign: and they,
persisting in their advance, and taking up their position finally on the
Saale, afforded him, as if studiously, the means of repeating, at their
expense, the very manoeuvres which had ruined the Austrians in the
preceding campaign. In a word, he perceived that the Prussian army was
extended upon too wide a line, and the consequent possibility of
destroying it in detail. He further discovered that the enemy had all
his principal stores and magazines at Naumburg, to the rearward, not of
his centre, but of his extreme right; and resolved to commence
operations by an attempt to turn the flank, and seize those magazines,
ere the main body of the Prussians, lying at Weimar, could be aware of
his movement. The French came forward in three great divisions; the
corps of Soult and Ney, in the direction of Hof; Murat, Bernadotte and
Davoust, towards Saalburg and Schleitz; and Lannes and Augereau upon
Coburg and Saalfield. These last generals were opposed sternly, at
Saalfield, by the corps of Prince Louis of Prussia. This brave young
officer imprudently abandoned the bridge over the Saale, which he might
have defended with success, and came out into the open plain, where his
troops were overpowered by the French impetuosity. He himself, fighting
hand to hand with a subaltern, was desired to surrender, and replying by
a sabre cut, was immediately struck down with a mortal thrust. The
Prussians fled; the bridge, which ought to have defended, gave the
French access to the country behind the Saale. The flank of the Prussian
position was turned: the French army passed entirely round them;
Napoleon seized Naumburg, and blew up the magazines there,--announcing,
for the first time, by this explosion, to the King of Prussia and his
Generalissimo, the Duke of Brunswick, that he was in their rear.

From this moment the Prussians were isolated, and cut off from all their
resources, as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm, when the French
had passed the Danube and overrun Suabia. The Duke of Brunswick hastily
endeavoured to concentrate his forces for the purpose of cutting his w