e 18th was fought between a hundred
and fifty thousand French and a hostile army of double that strength,
which represented all northern and eastern Europe.

The battle was one of frightful slaughter. Its turning-point came when
the Saxon infantry, which had hitherto fought on the French side,
deserted Napoleon's cause in the thick of the fight, and went over in a
body to the enemy. It was an act of treachery whose fatal effect no
effort could overcome. The day ended with victory in the hands of the
allies. The French were driven back close upon the walls of Leipsic,
with the serried columns of Germany and Russia closing them in, and
bent on giving no relaxation to their desperate foe.

The struggle was at an end. Longer resistance would have been madness.
Napoleon ordered a retreat. But the Elster had to be crossed, and only a
single bridge remained for the passage of the army and its stores. All
night long the French poured across the bridge with what they could take
of their wagons and guns. Morning dawned with the rush and hurry of the
retreat still in active progress. A strong rear-guard held the town, and
Napoleon himself made his way across the bridge with difficulty through
the crowding masses.

Hardly had he crossed when a frightful misfortune occurred. The bridge
had been mined, to blow it up on the approach of the foe. This duty had
been carelessly trusted to a subaltern, who, frightened by seeing some
of the enemy on the river-side, set fire hastily to the train. The
bridge blew up with a tremendous explosion, leaving a rear-guard of
twenty-five thousand men in Leipsic cut off from all hope of escape.
Some officers plunged on horseback into the stream and swam across.
Prince Poniatowsky, the gallant Pole, essayed the same, but perished in
the attempt. The soldiers of the rear-guard were forced to surrender as
prisoners of war. In this great conflict, which had continued for four
days, and in which the most of the nations of Europe took part, eighty
thousand men are said to have been slain. The French lost very heavily
in prisoners and guns. Only a hasty retreat to the Rhine saved the
remainder of their army from being cut off and captured. On the 20th
Napoleon succeeded in crossing that frontier river of his kingdom with
seventy thousand men, the remnant of the grand army with which he had
sought to hold Prussia after the disastrous end of the invasion of
Russia.

[Illustration: A GERMAN MILK WAGON.]