stimulate the spirit of insurrection in the kingdom of
Saxony and the neighbouring states. It was obviously Napoleon's interest
to bring them to action while their numbers were thus unequal, and ere
the sole object of their hazardous advance could be realised.

The armies met sooner than he had ventured to hope, on the first of May,
near the town of Lutzen, celebrated already as the scene of the battle
in which King Gustavus Adolphus died. The allies crossed the Elster
suddenly, under the cover of a thick morning fog, and attacked the left
flank of the French, who had been advancing in column, and who thus
commenced the action under heavy disadvantages. But the Emperor so
skilfully altered the arrangement of his army, that, ere the day closed,
the allies were more afraid of being enclosed to their ruin within his
two wings, than hopeful of being able to cut through and destroy that
part of his force which they had originally charged and weakened, and
which had now become his centre. Night interrupted the conflict. They
retreated next morning, leaving Napoleon in possession of the field. But
here the advantage stopped. The slain of the one army were not more
numerous than those of the other; and the allies, convinced of their
mistake, but neither broken nor discouraged, fell back leisurely on
Leipsig, thence on Dresden, and finally across the Elbe to Bautzen,
without leaving either prisoners or guns in the hands of the French. The
victory of Lutzen was blazoned abroad, as having restored all its glory
to the eagle of Napoleon; but he clearly perceived that the days were no
more in which a single battle determined the fate of a campaign, and an
empire. It was at Lutzen that Marshal Bessieres died.

Napoleon entered Dresden on the 6th, and on the 12th was joined there by
the King of Saxony, who certainly had been individually a gainer by his
alliance, and who still adhered to it, in opposition to the wishes both
of his people and his army. The Saxon troops, who had been wavering,
once more submitted to act in concert with the French; and Hamburg,
which city had partaken in the movement of Prussia, and all the country
to the left of the Elbe, fell back, for the moment, into their hands.
The cruelty with which the defection of Hamburg, in particular, was now
revenged on the inhabitants by Marshal Davoust, has consigned to lasting
abhorrence the name of that able but heartless satellite of Napoleon.
All the atrocities of Jun