asterly genius and lightning-like rapidity. The Spanish
armies, as yet unsupported by British troops, were defeated at
Gomenal, Espinosa, Reynosa, Tudela, and at the pass of the Somo
sierra Mountains, and at an early hour of the morning of the 4th
December Madrid surrendered. On the 20th of December Bonaparte
marched with far superior forces against the unfortunate Sir John
Moore, who had been sent to advance into Spain both by the wrong
route and at a wrong time. On the 29th, from the heights of
Benevento, his eyes were delighted by seeing the English in full
retreat. But a blow struck him from another quarter, and leaving
Soult to follow up Moore he took the road to Paris.]--

The Emperor Francis, notwithstanding his counsellors, hesitated about
taking the first step; but at length, yielding to the solicitations of
England and the secret intrigues of Russia, and, above all, seduced by
the subsidies of Great Britain, Austria declared hostilities, not at
first against France, but against her allies of the Confederation of the
Rhine. On the 9th of April Prince Charles, who was appointed
commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops, addressed a note to the
commander-in-chief of the French army in Bavaria, apprising him of the
declaration of war.

A courier carried the news of this declaration to Strasburg with the
utmost expedition, from whence it was transmitted by telegraph to Paris.
The Emperor, surprised but not disconcerted by this intelligence,
received it at St. Cloud on the 11th of April, and two hours after he was
on the road to Germany. The complexity of affairs in which he was then
involved seemed to give a new impulse to his activity. When he reached
the army neither his troops nor his Guard had been able to come up, and
under those circumstances he placed himself at the head of the Bavarian
troops, and, as it were, adopted the soldiers of Maximilian. Six days
after his departure from Paris the army of Prince Charles, which had
passed the Inn, was threatened. The Emperor's headquarters were at
Donauwerth, and from thence he addressed to his soldiers one of those
energetic and concise proclamations which made them perform so many
prodigies, and which was soon circulated in every language by the public
journals. This complication of events could not but be fatal to Europe
and France, whatever might be its result, but it presented an opportunity
favourable to the development of the Emp