been defeated. Marshal Saint-Cyr, who was bound to aid
Vandamme, was grossly negligent, and failed of his duty; but even he
would have acted well, had he been acting under the eye of the Emperor,
as would have been the case, had not the weather of the 27th broken down
the health of Napoleon, and had not other disasters to the French, all
caused by the same storm that had raged around Dresden, induced Napoleon
to direct his personal attention to points remote from the scene of his
last triumph.[B]

[Footnote B: There was a story current that Napoleon's indisposition on
the 28th of August was caused by his eating heartily of a shoulder of
mutton stuffed with garlic, not the wholesomest food in the world; and
the digestive powers having been reduced by long exposure to damp, this
dish may have been too much for them. Thiers says that the Imperial
illness at Pirna was "a malady invented by flatterers," and yet only a
few pages before he says that "Napoleon proceeded to Pirna, where he
arrived about noon, and where, after having partaken of a slight repast,
he was seized with a pain in the stomach, to which he was subject after
exposure to damp." Napoleon suffered from stomach complaints from an
early period of his career, and one of their effects is greatly to
lessen the powers of the sufferer's mind. His want of energy at Borodino
was attributed to a disordered stomach, and the Russians were simply
beaten, not destroyed, on that field. When he beard of Vandamme's
defeat, Napoleon said, "One should make a bridge of gold for a flying
enemy, where it is impossible, as in Vandamme's case, to oppose to him
a bulwark of steel." He forgot that his own plan was to have opposed to
the enemy a bulwark of steel, and that the non-existence of that bulwark
on the 30th of August was owing to his own negligence. Still, the
reverse at Kulm might not have proved so terribly fatal, had it not been
preceded by the reverses on the Katzbach, which also were owing to the
heavy rains, and news of which was the cause of the halting of so large
a portion of his pursuing force at Pirna, and the march of many of his
best men back to Dresden, his intention being to attempt the restoration
of affairs in that quarter, where they had been so sadly compromised
under Macdonald's direction. He was as much overworked by the necessity
of attending to so many theatres of action as his armies were
overmatched in the field by the superior numbers of the Allies.