After a brief delay at Mayence, it was with sincere pleasure I received my orders to push forward to the advanced posts at Wetzlar, where General d'Auvergne was with his division. Already the battalions were crossing the Rhine, and directing their steps to different rendezvous along the Prussian frontier; some pressing on eastwards, where the Saxon territory joins the Prussian; others directly to the north, and taking up positions distant by a short day's march from each other. The same urgent haste which characterized the opening of the Austrian campaign a year before, was here conspicuous; many of the corps being obliged to march seven and eight leagues in the day, and frequently whole companies being forwarded in wagons drawn by six or eight horses, in order to come up with the main body of their regiments. Every road eastward was covered with some fragment of the army. Now an infantry corps of young conscripts, glowing with enthusiasm and eager for the fray, would cheer the calèche in which I travelled, and which, as indicating a staff-officer, was surmounted by a small flag with an eagle. Now it was the hoarse challenge of an outpost, some veteran of Bernadotte's army, which occupied the whole line of country from Dusseldorf to Nuremberg. Pickets of dragoons, with troops of led horses for remounts, hurried on, and long lines of wagons crammed the road.
At last I joined General d'Auvergne, who, with all the ardor of the youngest soldier, was preparing for the march. The hardy veteran, disdaining the use of a carriage, rode each day at the head of his column, and went through the most minute detail of regimental duty with the colonels under his command. From whatever cause proceeding I knew not, but it struck me as strange that he never alluded to my visit to Paris, nor once spoke to me of the countess; and while this reserve on his part slightly wounded me, I felt relieved from the embarrassment the mere mention of her name would cause me, and was glad when our conversation turned on the events of the war. Nor was he, save in this respect, less cordial than ever, manifesting the greatest pleasure at the prospect the war would open to my advancement, and kindly presaging for me a success I scarcely dared to hope for.
“Nor is the hour distant,” said he to me one morning in the latter end of September, as we rode side by side; “the grand movement is begun.”
Augereau, with his powerful corps d'armée of twenty thousand, pressed on from Frankfort and Mayence; Bernadotte moved up on his flank from Nuremberg and Bamberg; Davoust hastened by forced marches from the Danube; while Soult and Ney with a strong force remained in the south, and in observation on the Austrian frontier. Farther to the north, again, were the new levies and the whole Imperial Guard, strengthened by four thousand additional men, which, together with Murat's cavalry, formed a vast line embracing the Prussian frontier on the west and south, and converging with giant strides towards the very heart of the kingdom. Still, mid all the thunders of marching squadrons and the din of advancing legions, diplomatists interchanged their respective assurances of a peaceful issue to their differences, and politely conveyed the most satisfactory sentiments of mutual esteem.
On the 1st of September the Emperor left Paris; but, even then, covering his designs by an affected hope of peace, he was accompanied by the Empress and her suite to Mayence, where all the splendor of a Court was suddenly displayed amid the pomp and preparation of war. On the 6th he started by daybreak; relays of horses were in waiting along the road to Wetzlar, and with all speed he hastened forward to Bamberg, where he issued his grand proclamation to the army.
With all his accustomed eloquence he represented to the army the insulting demands of Prussia, and called on them, as at Austerlitz, to reply to such a menace by one tremendous blow of victory, which should close the campaign. “Soldiers!” said he, “you were about to return to France to enjoy the well-won repose after all your victories. But an enemy is in the field; the road to Paris is no longer open to you: neither you nor I can tread it save under an arch of triumph.”
The day which succeeded the issue of this proclamation, a cavalry affair occurred at the advanced posts, in which the Prussians were somewhat the victors. Two days later, a courier arrived at the imperial headquarters with the account of another and more important action, between the grenadiers of Lannes and a part of Suchet's corps, against the advanced guard of Prince Hohenlohe, commanded by the most daring general in the Prussian service,—Prince Louis. A cavalry combat, which lasted for near an hour, closed this brief but bloody encounter with the death of the brave prince, who, refusing to surrender, was run through the body by the sabre of a quartermaster of the Tenth Hussars.
General d'Auvergne's brigade had no share in this memorable action, for on the 9th we were marched to Rudolstadt, some miles to the left of the scene of the encounter; but having made a demonstration in that quarter, were speedily recalled, and ordered with all haste to cross the Saale, and move on to the eastward.
It was now that Napoleon's manoeuvres became apparent. The same intrigue which succeeded at Ulm was again to be employed here: the enemy's flank was to be turned, the communication with his reinforcements cut off, and a battle engaged, in which defeat must prove annihilation. Such, then, was the complete success of the Emperor's movements, that on the 12th the French army was posted with the rear upon the Elbe, while the Prussians occupied a line between them and the Rhine. This masterly movement at once compelled the enemy to fall back and concentrate his troops around Jena and Weimar, which, from that instant, Napoleon pronounced must be the scene of a great battle.
All this detail I have been obliged to force on my reader, and now again return to my story.