Emperor, he behaved with courtesy to Klenau and others of reputation, whose character had become known to him in the Italian campaigns. But he complained of the politics of their court, which he said had forced him into war when he knew not what he was fighting for. He prophesied the fall of the House of Austria, unless his brother the Emperor hastened to make peace, and reprobated the policy which brought the uncivilized Russians to interfere in the decision of more cultivated #countries than their own. Mack' had the impudence to reply, that the Emperor of Austria had been forced into the war by Russia. "Then," said Napoleon," you no longer exist as an independent power." The whole conversation appeared in the bulletin of the day, which also insinuates, with little probability, that the Austrian officers and soldiers concurred generally in blaming the alliance between their own Emperor and Alexander.3 From this we infer, that the union between those two

1 It will be unnecessary again to mention this man's name, of which our readers are doubtless as much tired as we ourselves are. He was committed to a state prison, in a remote part of the Austrian dominions; and whether he died in captivity, or was set at liberty, we have not learned, nor are we anxious to know. -[On his return to Austria, Mack was arrested, and sent to the citadel of Brunn, in Moravia. whence he was transferred to the fortress of Josephstadt, in Bohemia. He was tried by a military commission and condemned to death; but the penalty was commuted by the Emperor for two years' imprisonment, and the loss of rank.]

2 [Tenth Official Bulletin of the Grand Army.]

3["This conversation was not lost upon all: none of them, however, made any reply."-SAVARY, t. ii. p. 100.].

powerful sovereigns was, even in the moment of this great success, a subject of apprehension to Buonaparte; whose official notes are sometimes expressed with generosity towards the vanquished who had ceased to struggle, but always with a eager tone of reproach and offence towards those from whom an animated resistance was to be ap prehended.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

Position of the French Armies-Napoleon advances towards Vienna.-The Emperor Francis leaves his Capital.— French enter Vienna on the 13th November.-Review of the French Successes in Italy and the Tyrol.-Schemes of Napoleon to force on a general Battle.—Battle of Austerlitz is fought on the 2d December, and the combined Austro-Russian Armies completely defeated.-Interview betwixt the Emperor of Austria and Napoleon.The Emperor Alexander retreats towards Russia.Treaty of Presburgh signed on the 26th December—Its Conditions-Fate of the King of Sweden-and of the Two Sicilies.

THE tide of war now rolled eastward, having surmounted and utterly demolished the formidable barrier which was opposed to it. Napoleon placed himself at the head of his central army. Ney, upon

'[From Elchingen, Oct. 21, Napoleon issued the following address to the army :"Soldiers of the Grand Army! In a fortnight we have finished a campaign: we have expelled the troops of the house of Austria from Bavaria, and re-established our ally in the sovereignty of his estates. That army which, with equal ostentation and imprudence, had posted itself on our frontiers, is annihilated. Soldiers! you owe this success to your unbounded confidence in your Emperor; to your patience in supporting fatigues and privations of every description; and to your singular intrepidity. But we will not stop here. You are impatient to commence a second campaign. We are about to make the Russian army, which the gold of England has transported from

his right, was ready to repel any descent which might be made from the passes of the Tyrol. Murat, on his left, watched the motions of the Austrians, under the Archduke Ferdinand, who, refusing to join in the unworthy capitulation of Ulm, had cut their way into Bohemia, and there united themselves with other forces, either stationed in that kingdom, or who had, like themselves, escaped thither. Lastly, the division of Augereau (who had recently advanced from France at the head of an army of reserve), occupying part of Swabia, served to protect the rear of the French army against any movement from the Vorarlberg; and at the same time menaced the Prussians, in case, acting upon the offence given by the violation of their territory, they should have crossed the Danube, and engaged in the war.1

If, however, the weight of Prussia had been thrown into the scale with sufficient energy at this decisive moment, it would not probably have been any resistance which Augereau could have offered that could have saved Napoleon from a perilous situation, since the large armies of the new enemy would have been placed in his rear, and, of course, his communications with France entirely cut off. It was a crisis of the same kind which opened to Austria in the year 1813; but she was then taught

the extremities of the universe, undergo the same fate. Here there are no generals in combating against whom I can have any glory to acquire. All my care shall be to obtain the victory with the least possible effusion of blood. My soldiers are my children."]

1 [Jomini, t. ii. p. 133.]

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wisdom by experience, and availed herself of the golden opportunity which Prussia now suffered to escape. Buonaparte had reckoned with accuracy upon the timid and fluctuating councils of that power. The aggression on their territories of Anspach and Bareuth was learned at Berlin; but then the news of the calamity sustained by the Austrians at Ulm succeeded these tidings almost instantly, and while the first article of intelligence seemed to urge instant hostilities, the next was calculated to warn them against espousing a losing

cause.

Thus trusting to the vacillating and timid policy of Prussia,' Napoleon, covered on his flank and rear as we have stated, continued to push forward with his central forces towards Vienna, menaced repeatedly in the former wars, but whose fate seemed decided after the disaster of Ulm. It is true, that an army, partly consisting of Russians and partly " of Austrians, had pressed forward to prevent that disgraceful calamity, and, finding that the capitulation had taken place, were now retreating step by

1 [" The conduct of Prussia at this period was conformable to the wholesome policy which had so long connected this power with France. It is not for us, Frenchmen, to reproach her inaction at this important crisis, even while criticising her raising the shield before Jena. Until then, Prussia had showed herself reasonable, in not allowing herself to be drawn into new coalitions."-Louis BUONAPARTE, p. 44.]

["Napoleon was always on horseback whatever weather it might be, travelling in his carriage only when his army was two or three marches in advance. This was a calculation on his part, the point always entered into in his combinations, and to him distances were nothing: he traversed them with the swiftness of eagles."-SAVARY, t. ii. p. 103.]