overcoat; his large, determined chin and neck buried between his
shoulders. All shouted "_Vive l'Empereur!_" but he heard nothing of
it. He paid no more attention to us than to the drizzling rain which
filled the air, but gazed with contracted brows at the Prussian army
stretching along the Partha to join the Austrians. So I saw him on
that day and so he remains in my memory. The battalion had been on the
march for a quarter of an hour, when at length Zebede said:

"Did you see him, Joseph?"

"I did," I replied; "I saw him well, and I will remember the sight all
my life."

"It is strange," said my comrade; "he does not seem to be pleased. At
Wurschen, the day after the battle, he seemed rejoiced to hear our
'_Vive l'Empereur!_' and the generals all wore merry faces too. To-day
they seem savage, and nevertheless the captain said that we bore off
the victory on the other side of Leipzig."

Others thought the same thing without speaking of it, but there was a
growing uneasiness among all.

We found the regiment bivouacked near Kohlgarten. In every direction
camp-fires were rolling their smoke to the sky. A drizzling rain
continued to fall, and the men, seated on their knapsacks around the
fires, seemed depressed and gloomy. The officers formed groups of
their own. On all sides it was whispered that such a war had never
before been seen; it was one of extermination; that it did not help us
to defeat the enemy, for they only desired to kill us off, knowing that
they had four or five times our number of men, and would finally remain
masters.

They said, too, that the Emperor had won the battle at Wachau, against
the Austrians and Russians; but that the victory was useless, because
they did not retreat, but stood awaiting masses of reinforcements. On
the side of Mockern we knew that we had lost, in spite of Marmont's
splendid defence; the enemy had crushed us beneath the weight of their
numbers. We only had one real advantage that day on our side; that was
keeping our line of retreat on Erfurt: for Giulay had not been able to
seize the bridges of the Elster and Pleisse. All the army, from the
simple soldier to the marshal, thought that we would have to retreat as
soon as possible, and that our position was of the worst; unfortunately
the Emperor thought otherwise, and we had to remain.

All day on the seventeenth we lay in our position without firing a
shot. A few spoke of the arrival of General Regnier