Excerpt
NARRATIVE, &c.
You know, my dear friend, how often I have expressed the inconsiderate wish to have some time or other an opportunity of witnessing a general engagement. This wish has now been accomplished, and in such a way as had well nigh proved fatal to myself; for my life had like to have been forfeited to my curiosity. I may boast, however, with perfect truth, that, during the four most tremendous days, I was wholly unaffected by that alarm and terror which had seized all around me. On those four days I was a near and undisturbed observer of a conflict which can scarcely be paralleled In the annals of the world: a conflict distinguished by a character which raises it far above your ordinary every-day battles. Its consequences will extend not to Europe only, but to regions separated from it by vast oceans. You must not expect from me a narrative that will enter into military details, but merely a faithful historical picture of what fell under my own observation; of what my own eyes, assisted by an excellent telescope, could discover from one of the highest buildings in the city, in the centre of operations, in the midst of a circumference of more than eighteen leagues; and what I saw and heard while venturing, at the hazard of my life, out of the city, not indeed up to the mouths of the infernal volcanoes, but close in the rear of the French lines, into the horrible bustle and tumult of the baggage-waggons and bivouacs. We were here exactly in the middle of the immense magic circle, where the incantations thundered forth from upwards of fifteen hundred engines of destruction annihilated many thousands, in order to produce a new creation. It was the conflict of the Titans against Olympus. It is unparalleled in regard to the commanders, great part of whom knew nothing of defeat but from the discomfiture of their opponents, and among whom were three emperors, a king, and the heir-apparent to a throne;—it is unparalleled in regard to the form, for it was fought in a circle which embraced more than fifteen miles;—it is unparalleled in regard to the prodigious armies engaged, for almost half a million of warriors out of every region of Europe and Asia, from the mouth of the Tajo to the Caucasus, with near two thousand pieces of cannon, were arrayed against one another;—it is unparalleled in regard to its duration, for it lasted almost one hundred hours;—it is unparalleled in regard to the plan so profoundly combined and so maturely digested by the allies, and characterized by an unity, which, in a gigantic mass, composed of such, multifarious parts, would have been previously deemed impossible;—it is unparalleled also in regard to its consequences, the full extent of which time alone can develop, and the first of which, the dissolution of the confederation of the Rhine, the overthrow of the Continental system, and the deliverance of Germany, are already before our eyes:—finally, it is unparalleled in regard to single extraordinary events, the most remarkable of which is, that the majority of the allies of the grand army, who had fought under the banners of France in so many engagements with exemplary valour and obstinacy, in the midst of this conflict, as if wakened by an electric shock, went over in large bodies, with their drums beating and with all their artillery, to the hostile legions, and immediately turned their arms against their former associates. The annals of modern warfare exhibit no examples of such a phenomenon, except upon the most contracted scale. You may possibly object, that in all this there is some exaggeration; and that, if I rate the battle of Leipzig so highly, it is only because I happened to be an eye-witness of it myself; that the French army is by no means annihilated; that in the uncommon talents of its leader it possesses a sure pledge that it will regain from its enemies those laurels which on various occasions they have ravished from it for a moment. You may employ other arguments of a similar kind; but to these I boldly reply, that neither do I consider the French army as annihilated; that such a calamity could scarcely befall a force which in the month of May, after ten engagements, numbered not less than 400,000 men, and was conducted by a general who had already won near fifty battles: but this I maintain, that the mighty eagle, which proudly aspired to encompass the whole globe in his flight, has had his wings crippled at Leipzig to such a degree, that in future he will scarcely be inclined to venture beyond the inaccessible crags which he has chosen for his retreat....