the moment of junction with Jourdan's army,
to declare the empire our own; when at last came the terrible tidings that
he had been beaten, and that Latour was advancing from Ulm to turn our
left flank, and cut off our communications with France.

Two hundred miles from our own frontiers--separated from the Rhine by that
terrible Black Forest whose defiles are mere gorges between vast
mountains--with an army fifty thousand strong on one flank, and the
Archduke Charles commanding a force of nigh thirty thousand on the
other--such were the dreadful combinations which now threatened us with a
defeat not less signal than Jourdan's own. Our strength, however, lay in a
superb army of seventy thousand unbeaten men, led on by one whose name
alone was victory.

On the 24th of September, the order for retreat was given; the army began
to retire by slow marches, prepared to contest every inch of ground, and
make every available spot a battle-field. The baggage and ammunition were
sent on in front, and two days' march in advance. Behind, a formidable
rear-guard was ready to repulse every attack of the enemy. Before,
however, entering those close defiles by which his retreat lay, Moreau
determined to give one terrible lesson to his enemy. Like the hunted tiger
turning upon his pursuers, he suddenly halted at Biberach, and ere Latour,
who commanded the Austrians, was aware of his purpose, assailed the
imperial forces with an attack on right, centre, and left together. Four
thousand prisoners and eighteen pieces of cannon were trophies of the
victory.

The day after this decisive battle our march was resumed, and the
advanced-guard entered that narrow and dismal defile which goes by the
name of the "Valley of Hell," when our left and right flanks, stationed at
the entrance of the pass, effectually secured the retreat against
molestation. The voltigeurs of St. Cyr crowning the heights as we went,
swept away the light troops which were scattered along the rocky
eminences, and in less than a fortnight our army debouched by Fribourg and
Oppenheim into the valley of the Rhine, not a gun having been lost, not a
caisson deserted, during that perilous movement.

The Archduke, however, having ascertained the direction of Moreau's
retreat, advanced by a parallel pass through the Kinzigthal, and attacked
St. Cyr at Nauendorf, and defeated him. Our right flank, severely handled
at Emmendingen, the whole force was obliged to retreat on Huningen