ops of whom the French are most
afraid. With them, therefore, all the light cavalry who come upon them
unawares are sure to be Cossacks. In revenge for the many annoyances
which they were incessantly suffering from these men, they applied to
them the opprobrious epithet of _brigands_. Often did I take pains to
convince them that troops who were serving their legitimate sovereign,
and fighting under the conduct of their officers, could not be termed
banditti; my representations had no effect,--they were determined to
have some satisfaction for their disappointment in a thousand attempts
to master such enemies. Their vanity was far too great to suffer them to
do justice to those warriors; and they never would admit what thousands
had witnessed, namely, that thirty French horse had frequently run away
from two Cossacks. If Napoleon had twenty thousand Russian Cossacks in
his service, the French journalists and editors of newspapers would
scarcely be able to find terms strong enough to extol these troops; and
the French have just reason to rejoice that the emperor Alexander has no
such rivals of their government in his pay, otherwise we should hear of
their exploits only, and the vaunted French horse-guards would long
since have sunk into oblivion.

All the preparations that were making now evidently denoted that we were
on the eve of important events. The French corps had already ranged
themselves in a vast semicircle, extending from north to east, and
thence to south-west. The country towards Merseburg and Weissenfels
seemed to be merely observed. For this purpose the eminences beyond the
village of Lindenau were occupied. Here the access to the city is the
most difficult, a causeway only leading to it in this direction. The
country on the right and left consists of swampy meadows and wood-land,
every where intersected by ditches and muddy streams. If you inquired
of the French officers what might be the total strength of their army
about Leipzig, their statements were so various, that it was impossible
to fix with the least confidence upon any number as a medium. By what
standard, indeed, can you judge of a force rated by some at 150,000, by
others at 400,000 men? They unanimously agreed, on the other hand, that
the allies would be opposed by fifteen corps, exclusively of the guards.
I had an opportunity of forming a tolerably correct estimate of one
division of Marmont's corps, which consisted at the utmost of 4000, so