had it thoroughly understood throughout Europe that he
would take no steps toward peace with Russia; that he would not yield
an inch with reference to the grand duchy of Warsaw, or regarding the
annexed lands of Italy, Holland, and the Hanseatic League. It was as
if the whole world must see that ordinary human concessions could not
be expected from one who had been conquered only by act of Providence,
and was, now as ever, invincible so far as men were concerned. He did,
however, allow the hint to escape him that Prussia, which was still
bound by her treaty, might hope for some territorial increase, and
that Austria might expect Illyria. Such ideas, expressed in
grandiloquent phrase, could not be regarded as indicating a pacific
feeling. Every social class in France had a grievance; yet amid the
din of arms, and in the dazzling splendors of military preparation,
even the retraction of the Concordat attracted little attention, and a
few riots in Dutch cities, which were the only open manifestation of
discontent throughout the whole Empire, aroused no interest at all.
The report of Napoleon's conciliatory attitude had gone abroad,
there was money in the treasury, a vast armament was prepared, the
peace so ardently desired was evidently to be such as is made by the
lion with his prey. On April fifteenth the still haughty Emperor of
the West started for the seat of war.

Around the skeleton abandoned by Murat at Posen Eugene built up out of
the stragglers an army of fourteen thousand men, which he hoped would
enable him to make a stand; but with York deserting at one end of the
line, and Schwarzenberg seeking shelter in Cracow at the other, he was
compelled to withdraw to Berlin. Finding his reception too chilly for
endurance, and being again menaced by the Russian advance, he fell
back thence beyond the Elbe, and early in March had established his
headquarters at Leipsic. By that time new forces had arrived from
France and the various garrison towns, so that on the curving line
from Bremen by Magdeburg, Bernburg, Wittenberg, Meissen, and Dresden,
there stood a force of about seventy-five thousand men in six
divisions, under Vandamme, Lauriston, Victor, Grenier, Davout, and
Reynier. Napoleon charged Eugene to take a position before Magdeburg,
whence he could protect Holland and keep Dresden. The Emperor's
general plan was to assemble an Army of the Elbe on the line of
Magdeburg, Havelberg, Wittenberg, and an Army of the Mai