He is
said to have repeated the following lines, after musing for a while on
the news from Kulm:--

"J'ai servi, commande, vaincu quarante annees;
Du monde entre mes mains j'ai tu les destinees,
Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque evenement
Le destin des etats dependait d'un moment."

But he had hours, we might say days, to settle his destiny, and was not
tied down to a moment. Afterward he had the fairness to admit that he
had lost a great opportunity to regain the ascendency in not supporting
Vandamme with the whole of the Young Guard.]

When Napoleon was called from the pursuit of Bluecher by Schwarzenberg's
advance upon Dresden, he confided the command of the army that was to
act against that of Silesia to Marshal Macdonald, a brave and honest
man, but a very inferior soldier, yet who might have managed to hold his
own against so unscientific a leader as the fighting old hussar, had it
not been for the terrible rainstorm that began on the night of the 25th
of August. The swelling of the rivers, some of them deep and rapid, led
to the isolation of the French divisions, while the rain was so severe
as to prevent them from using their muskets. Animated by the most ardent
hatred, the new Prussian levies, few of whom had been in service half as
long as our volunteers, and many of whom were but mere boys, rushed upon
their enemies, butchering them with butt and bayonet, and forcing
them into the boiling torrent of the Katzbach. Puthod's division was
prevented from rejoining its comrades by the height of the waters, and
was destroyed, though one of the best bodies in the French army. The
state of the country drove the French divisions together on the same
lines of retreat, creating immense confusion, and leading to the most
serious losses of men and _materiel_. Macdonald's blunder was in
advancing after the storm began, and had lasted for a whole night. His
officers pointed out the danger of his course, but he was one of those
men who think, that, because they are not knaves, they can accomplish
everything; but the laws of Nature no more yield to honest stupidity
than to clever roguery. The Baron Von Mueffling, who was present in
Bluecher's army, says, that, when the French attempted to protect their
retreat at the Katzbach with artillery, the guns stuck in the mud; and
he adds,--"The field of battle was so saturated by the incessant rain,
that a great portion of our infantry left their shoes sticking in
the m