The loss on either side had been great.  Napoleon’s army consisted chiefly of very young men—­many were merely boys—­the produce of his forestalled conscriptions:  yet they fought as bravely as the guard.  The behaviour of the Germans, on the other hand, at length considering their freedom and independence as hanging on the fortune of a single field, had been answerable to the deep enthusiasm of that thoughtful people.  The burghers of Leipsig surveyed from their towers and steeples one of the longest, sternest, and bloodiest of battles:  and the situation of the King of Saxony, who remained all the while in the heart of his ancient city, may be imagined.

Napoleon gave orders at midnight for the commencement of the inevitable retreat; and while the darkness lasted, the troops continued to file through the town, and across the two bridges, over the Pleisse, beyond its walls.  One of these bridges was a temporary fabric, and it broke down ere daylight came to show to the enemy the movement of the French.  The confusion necessarily accompanying the march of a whole army, through narrow streets and upon a single bridge, was fearful.  The Allies stormed at the gates on either side, and, but for the heroism of Macdonald and Poniatowski, to whom Napoleon entrusted the defence of the suburbs, it is doubted whether he himself could have escaped in safety.  At nine in the morning of the 19th, he bade farewell for ever to the King of Saxony, who remained to make what terms he could with the allied sovereigns.  The battle was ere then raging all round the walls.

At eleven o’clock the Allies had gathered close to the bridge from either wing; and the walls over against it had been entrusted to Saxons, who now, like their brethren of the day before, turned their fire on the French.  The officer to whom Napoleon had committed the task of blowing up the bridge, when the advance of the enemy should render this necessary, conceived that the time was come, and set fire to his train.  The crowd of men, urging each other on the point of safety, could not at once be stopped.  Soldiers and horses, cannons and wains, rolled headlong into the deep though narrow river; which renewed, though on a smaller scale, the horrors of the Beresina.  Marshal Macdonald swam the stream in safety:  the gallant Poniatowski, the hope and pride of Poland, had been twice wounded ere he plunged his horse into the current, and he sank to rise no more.  Twenty-five thousand Frenchmen, the means of escape entirely cut off, laid down their arms within the city.  Four Princes, each entering at the head of his own victorious army, met at noon in the great market-place at Leipsig:  and all the exultation of that solemn hour would have been partaken by the inhabitants, but for the fate of their own sovereign, personally esteemed and beloved, who now vainly entreated to be admitted to the presence of the conquerors, and was sent forthwith as a prisoner of war to Berlin.