, as occasion might require, they would have probably fared better
than they did. As it was, they extended their front, from above Plouen,
across the valley of Tharandt, and, endeavouring to stretch out their
hand to Klenau, gave Murat the opportunity to pierce them.

The battle of Dresden was, along the centre of the line, little else
than a furious cannonade. The French had nothing to gain by rendering
it more close, and the Allies seemed indisposed to assume the
offensive. It was a ball from one of the batteries, which replied at a
disadvantage to those of the Allies above Recknitz, which mortally
wounded Moreau. His fate has been recorded by so many pens, that I need
not employ mine to swell the list, and himself either lauded or
censured, according as the prejudices of the writers leaned to the side
of Napoleon or the Allies. Let his merits have been what they might, in
a moral point of view, nobody can refuse to him the renown of an able
officer; and to the esteem in which the Emperor of Russia held him, the
stone which marks the spot where he fell, bears witness. It is a simple
block of freestone, and bears this inscription, "Moreau, the warrior,
fell here, beside his friend Alexander." But on both flanks more
important operations went forward. The French carried every thing
before them. From Cotta, which he had won, Murat turned upon the
advanced guard of Klenau's corps, and destroyed it. He then pressed
forward, bearing down all opposition, and making prisoners of whole
battalions, whose muskets had become so saturated, that they could not
be discharged. In like manner, St. Cyr pushed back the Prussians on
Gruna, while Marmont and Nansouty drove the Russians from position to
position, and cleared the plain. Both flanks, in short, were turned;
and the troops composing them driven in upon the centre, and cut off
from their proper lines of retreat. But the French were too much
enfeebled to pursue the advantages which they had gained with their
accustomed spirit. About three in the afternoon the cannonade grew
slack; the Allies showed only a strong rear-guard, and Napoleon
returned to the city, saying to those around him, "I am greatly
deceived if we shall not hear news of Vandamme. It is his movement
which has constrained the enemy to retreat thus abruptly."

The 28th was a day of continued and broken retreat on the part of the
Allies; of movements more tardy than, perhaps, they ought to have been,
on the part of