On Düben Heath is a Saxon fortress, Düben Castle. There, one morning, the Emperor is at work, planning the march on Berlin, the defeat of Bernadotte and Blücher, smashing blows which will finish off the enemy.

Then a number of generals are announced. He comes out of his study to meet them, knowing what they want, for his intimates have kept him informed of the growing discontent among the leaders, who wish to winter quietly on the Rhine. Marshal Ney has recently reported: “I am no longer master of my army.” One of the visitors begins to speak hesitatingly; a second puts forward dubious reasons; then, nodding to encourage one another, they all obsequiously beg him not to march on Berlin. Leipzig will be a better point of attack.

The Emperor listens to them in silence as he wonders: “Is my power vanishing?” At length he replies: “The secession of Bavaria is imminent. A movement on Leipzig, a backward movement, will arouse despair among the soldiers. But I will think over what you have said.” He spends the rest of the day alone, refusing himself to all visitors, brooding over his maps. Caulaincourt, on duty outside, listens for sounds from within, but can only hear the windows rattling in the October gale which is howling round the castle. At length he is allowed to enter. The Emperor walks up and down, and, speaking rather to himself than to Caulaincourt, he says: “The French cannot endure reverses.” Then he sinks into a reverie.

Next day he announces that they will go to Leipzig. It is October 15th: general animation; orders are issued; every one is delighted. Discussing with Marmont the latest steps of the Habsburg ruler, Napoleon says in conclusion: “I prefer a man of honour who simply keeps his word, to a conscientious man who does what he thinks right.... Emperor Francis has done what he believes to be the best for his subjects; he is conscientious, but he is not a man of honour.”

Next day begins the great “Battle of the Nations.” The Emperor has only one hundred and eighty thousand men against three hundred thousand of the allies; by the evening he has won only part of the battle-field. On the second morning Bernadotte arrives with reinforcements. The Emperor sees that things are going badly, and would like to withdraw, but he cannot make up his mind to a step that would give the impression of defeat. Once more he tries negotiation. General Merveldt has been taken prisoner; his sword is restored on parole; he is to go to Emperor Francis with proposals for an armistice.

“I will retire behind the Saale, while the Russians and the Prussians withdraw beyond the Elbe, and you Austrians go back into Bohemia; Saxony must remain neutral.” Then, livening up, he develops to this enemy general nothing less than a new plan for Europe. Hanover is to be returned to England; the Baltic coast is to be freed; any of the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine who wish to do so can leave the Confederation; Poland, Spain, and Holland are to be independent; the only reservation is as regards Italy, which must not become Austrian. “Be off with you! You have a splendid peace mission. Should fortune favour it, you will earn the love of a great nation. But if your side refuse peace, we shall know how to defend ourselves.”

General Merveldt departs in amazement, and his report seems incredible to his master. What! The Emperor Napoleon, in the course of war, between battles, is willing to renounce half Europe and chooses a prisoner to bring this offer? We did not know he was so weak.

The Emperor is anxiously awaiting his emissary’s return. Till far on into the night, therefore, he refrains from issuing orders for the morrow; he speaks of the ties of kinship, and of his wife and child. Suddenly he is attacked by his gastric trouble, and staggers against the wall of the tent, his face pale. They wish to send for his physician. “No! my tent is transparent. If I am up and about, every one is at his post.”

“At least lie down, Sire!”

“No, I will die standing.”

“Do let me fetch the doctor, Sire.”

“No, I tell you! I can send a sick soldier to hospital. But who can send me?” Terrible moments pass. “I’m getting better now. See to it that no one comes into the tent!”

Half an hour later, he issues orders, but not for a retreat. Instead, the army moves a little nearer to Leipzig. The enemy now outnumbers him by two to one.

When day comes, he takes up his headquarters in a windmill. The attack upon the French starts from three sides. It appears that, at the last moment, Bernadotte has persuaded the Saxons to turn their guns against France. “Infamous!” exclaims the Emperor, and all around echo the word. Saxon officers who remain faithful to him, break their swords. A dragoon belonging to the escort wheels his horse, and shouts: “We’ll do for them yet, the scoundrels! We Frenchmen, too, are here! Vive l’Empereur!” The whole escort follows him at the charge. Soon a young officer, who has seized one of the Saxon eagles, gallops back with it to the Emperor, and collapses from his wounds as he arrives. “These sons of France!” says Napoleon softly.

On the second day of battle, he loses sixty thousand men. He is beaten, but even the German critics say of the affair: “The allies did not secure an overwhelming victory, such as might have been expected from the enormous preponderance of their forces.”

During the hasty retreat of the defeated army through the town of Leipzig, the Emperor dictates orders for the withdrawal. “They had brought him a wooden stool,” writes an eyewitness. “On this, he now fell into a slumber of exhaustion, his hands loosely folded in his lap. In gloomy silence the generals were standing round the fire, while the soldiers were marching past a little way off.”

Next morning the pursuing enemy spread disorder in the streets; a bridge was blown up prematurely, so that the rear guard was forced to surrender; one of the marshals escaped by swimming across the river, another was drowned, several were wounded and taken prisoner. When, subsequently Macdonald came across Augereau, for whose corps he had been waiting, Augereau laughed him to scorn: “Do you think me such a fool as to let myself be slaughtered in a Leipzig suburb? I won’t do that for a madman’s sake!”

Here we have it for the first time, a sign that one of Napoleon’s oldest companions-in-arms has become completely indifferent to the Emperor’s fame; is animated by the mere will-to-live, reasonable enough in a private soldier, but unworthy of a marshal of France. On the very same day, another friend of Bonaparte’s youth writes to the Emperor, complaining that in the report of the previous day’s fighting his services have been overlooked, although for ten hours he had held a part of the plain for whose defence another man is now given the credit. “Never in my life have I served you more faithfully than I did on this occasion.... Sire, I could not suffer anything worse than to be forgotten at such a time.” The letter is signed, “Marmont.”

These two utterances on the day after Leipzig are the shadows of coming events. Marmont and Augereau will both desert the Emperor in the decisive hour.

Fifty miles away, Goethe is sitting in his room at Weimar. Napoleon’s picture has fallen from its nail. The poet has heard the sound of the Leipzig guns. The first news of the French defeat has arrived. Though none of the allied generals can say, yet, whether the Emperor may not be able to collect his forces once more, and to resume his career of victory, Goethe, who only a few months earlier had declared Napoleon to be invincible, already realises the full extent of the disaster. On the day of the retreat, as if everything had happened a hundred years before, and the whole matter had become legendary, he writes the following verses:

He who feels courage in his royal breast knows no shudderings, treads gladly the undermined road leading to the steps of the throne, knows the danger and nevertheless mounts confidently. The golden circlet’s tremendous burden, he does not try its weight; resolute and calm, he presses it gladly on his bold brow, and bears it lightly, as if it were a laurel crown. Thus didst thou. What seemed so far away, thou hast tranquilly learned to make thine own; and whatever fierce obstacles might block the path, thou sawest them, contemplated them, and understood them. A joyful day dawned, it summoned thee, thou wast summoned, and thus it came to pass.... And thou still standest despite all that has happened to thee, despite the foe, who, with war and death threatens thee from without and from within.... The peoples are agape, they chatter, they are full of vain imaginings— What do they care for, but games?... The false world, it wooes us for our treasure, for our favour, for our position, and, even if one makes one’s lover one’s equal, love does not suffice him, he wants the whole kingdom. So was it with this man!—And now, declare it abroad, even if it cost you your life: To every man, be he whom he may, there comes a last happiness and a last day.

At the same date, Schelling writes: “I do not believe that Napoleon’s end is yet very near. If I am right, he will still be spared; and, even if all his helpers fall away from him, he will still live to drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs.” When, almost immediately afterwards, the Bavarians definitively changed sides, Hegel wrote: “In Nuremberg, the mob has welcomed the incoming Austrians with the most hateful jubilation.... Nothing more contemptible can be imagined than the mood and the conduct of the burghers.”

Three outstanding Germans, immediately after Leipzig!

Certainly, it is far from being a final defeat. Fighting, and fighting victoriously, the Emperor withdraws. In Erfurt, Murat presents himself, wishing to go back to his kingdom. The master allows him to do so, saying: “By next May, I shall have an army of a quarter of a million on the Rhine!” Thus does his intelligence work; such is the quality of his imagination; he can still think only in hundreds of thousands. In Mainz, his troops are attacked by typhus, and he hastens to move what is left of them across the Rhine. During the retreat, he works from three in the morning till eleven at night.

Meanwhile, the advancing allied headquarters are thronged by the princes who are deserting the cause of Napoleon. All is promptly forgotten and forgiven. But there is one honest man left who finds strong words to describe what is happening: “What do you think of these wretches’ behaviour?... They have had better treatment than they deserve.... All these princelets are weaklings, to whom a far more honourable existence has been conceded than their pitiful conduct would seem to justify.... The retention of their sovereignty, which consists in pretentiousness, pleasure seeking, and the lust for dominion, has cost them nothing more than the blood of their subjects.”

Such is Baron vom Stein’s judgment concerning his peers, the German princes.