Napoleon quitted Paris in the middle of April, and on the 18th reached the banks of the Saale; where the troops he had been mustering and organising in France had now been joined by Eugene Beauharnois and the garrison of Magdeburg.  The Czar and his Prussian ally were known to be at Dresden; and it soon appeared that, while they meditated a march westwards on Leipsig, the French intended to move eastwards with the view of securing the possession of that great city.  Of the armies thus about to meet each other’s shock in the heart of Saxony, there is no doubt that Buonaparte’s was considerably the more numerous.  His activity had been worthy of his reputation; and a host nearly 200,000 strong was already concentrated for action, while reserves to nearly a similar extent were gradually forming behind him on the Rhine.  The Russians had not as yet pushed forward more than half their disposable troops beyond the Vistula—­wherever the blame lay, such was the fact; the Prussians, unanimous as their patriotism was, had had only three months to reorganise their establishments.  Under such circumstances, the advance of the allies beyond the Elbe, could only have proceeded from their ardent wish to stimulate the spirit of insurrection in the kingdom of Saxony and the neighbouring states.  It was obviously Napoleon’s interest to bring them to action while their numbers were thus unequal, and ere the sole object of their hazardous advance could be realised.

The armies met sooner than he had ventured to hope, on the first of May, near the town of Lutzen, celebrated already as the scene of the battle in which King Gustavus Adolphus died.  The allies crossed the Elster suddenly, under the cover of a thick morning fog, and attacked the left flank of the French, who had been advancing in column, and who thus commenced the action under heavy disadvantages.  But the Emperor so skilfully altered the arrangement of his army, that, ere the day closed, the allies were more afraid of being enclosed to their ruin within his two wings, than hopeful of being able to cut through and destroy that part of his force which they had originally charged and weakened, and which had now become his centre.  Night interrupted the conflict.  They retreated next morning, leaving Napoleon in possession of the field.  But here the advantage stopped.  The slain of the one army were not more numerous than those of the other; and the allies, convinced of their mistake, but neither broken nor discouraged, fell back leisurely on Leipsig, thence on Dresden, and finally across the Elbe to Bautzen, without leaving either prisoners or guns in the hands of the French.  The victory of Lutzen was blazoned abroad, as having restored all its glory to the eagle of Napoleon; but he clearly perceived that the days were no more in which a single battle determined the fate of a campaign, and an empire.  It was at Lutzen that Marshal Bessieres died.