urn our position, and masses of Russians came
to occupy the places they had left.

The Russians formed in two columns, and descended to the valley, with
shouldered arms, in admirable order. Twice they assailed us with the
greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts' cries, like the
Prussians. Their cavalry attempted to carry the old bridge above
Schoenfeld, and the cannonade increased. On all sides, as far as eye
could reach, we saw only the enemy massing their forces, and when we
had repulsed one of their columns, another of fresh men took its place.
The fight had ever to be fought over again.

Between two and three o'clock, we learned that the Swedes and the
Prussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf, and were about
to take us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much better than
fighting face to face. Marshal Ney immediately changed front, throwing
his right wing to the rear. Our division still remained supported on
Schoenfeld, but all the others retired from the Partha, to stretch
along the plain, and the entire army formed but one line around Leipzig.

The Russians, behind the road to Mockern, prepared for a third attack
toward three o'clock; our officers were making new dispositions to
receive them; when a sort of shudder ran from one end of our lines to
the other, and in a few moments all knew that the sixteen thousand
Saxons and the Wurtemberg cavalry, in our very centre, had passed over
to the enemy, and that on their way they had the infamy to turn the
forty guns they carried with them, on their old brothers-in-arms of
Durutte's division.

This treason, instead of discouraging us, so added to our fury, that if
we had been allowed, we would have crossed the river to massacre them.
They say that they were defending their country. It is false! They
had only to have left us on the Duben road; why did they not go then?
They might have done like the Bavarians and quitted us before the
battle; they might have remained neutral--might have refused to serve;
but they deserted us only because fortune was against us. If they knew
we were going to win, they would have continued our very good friends,
so that they might have their share of the spoil or glory--as after
Jena and Friedland. This is what every one thought, and it is why
those Saxons are, and will ever remain, traitors: not only did they
abandon their friends in distress, but they murdered them, to make a
welcome with the enemy.