The month of November 1813 was fatal to the fortune of Napoleon.  In all parts the French armies were repulsed and driven back upon the Rhine, while-in every direction, the Allied forces advanced towards that river.  For a considerable time I had confidently anticipated the fall of the Empire; not because the foreign sovereigns had vowed its destruction, but because I saw the impossibility of Napoleon defending himself against all Europe, and because I knew that, however desperate might be his fortune, nothing would induce him to consent to conditions which he considered disgraceful.  At this time every day was marked by a new defection.  Even the Bavarians, the natural Allies of France, they whom the Emperor had led to victory at the commencement of the second campaign of Vienna, they whom he had, as it were, adopted on the field of battle, were now against us, and were the bitterest of our enemies.

Even before the battle of Leipsic, the consequences of which were so ruinous to Napoleon, he had felt the necessity of applying to France for a supply of troops; as if France had been inexhaustible.  He directed the Empress Regent to make this demand; and accordingly Maria Louisa proceeded to the Senate, for the first time, in great state:  but the glories of the Empire were now on the decline.  The Empress obtained a levy of 280,000 troops, but they were no sooner enrolled than they were sacrificed.  The defection of the Bavarians considerably augmented the difficulties which assailed the wreck of the army that had escaped from Leipsic.  The Bavarians had got before us to Hanau, a town four leagues distant from Frankfort; there they established themselves, with the view of cutting off our retreat; but French valour was roused, the little town was speedily carried, and the Bavarians were repulsed with considerable loss.  The French army arrived at Mayence; if, indeed, one may give the name of army to a few masses of men destitute, dispirited, and exhausted by fatigue and privation.  On the arrival of the troops at Mayence no preparation had been made for receiving them:  there were no provisions, or supplies of any kind; and, as the climax of misfortune, infectious epidemics broke out amongst the men.  All the accounts I received concurred in assuring me that their situation was dreadful: 

However; without counting the wreck which escaped from the disasters of Leipsic, and the ravages of disease; without including the 280,000 men which had been raised by a ’Senatus-consulte, on the application of Maria Louisa, the Emperor still possessed 120,000 good troops; but they were in the rear, scattered along the Elbe, shut up in fortresses such as Dantzic, Hamburg, Torgau, and Spandau.  Such was the horror of our situation that if, on the one hand, we could not resolve to abandon them, it was at the same time impossible to aid them.  In France a universal cry was raised for peace, at whatever price it could be purchased.  In this state of things it may be said that the year 1813 was more fatal to Napoleon than the year 1812.  The disasters of Moscow were repaired by his activity and the sacrifices of France; but the disasters of Leipsic were irreparable.