The action began with an attempt to turn their right, but Barclay de Tolly anticipated this movement and repelled it with such vigor that a whole column of 7,000 dispersed and fled into the hills of Bohemia for safety.
Napoleon now determined to pass the Spree in front of the enemy, and they permitted him to do so, rather than come down from their position. He took up his quarters in the town of Bautzen, and his whole army bivouacked in presence of the allies.
The battle was resumed at daybreak on the 22d; when Ney on the right, and Oudinot on the left, attempted simultaneously to turn the flanks of the position; while Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge after charge on the centre. During four hours the struggle was maintained with unflinching obstinacy. The wooded heights, where Blucher commanded, had been taken and retaken several times, ere the allies perceived the necessity of retiring or losing the engagement. They finally withdrew, panic-stricken, continuing their retreat with such celerity as to gain time to rally on the roads leading to Bohemia, all others being closed against them. The want of cavalry, however, again prevented Napoleon from turning his success to account.
During the whole of the ensuing day Napoleon, at the head of the cavalry of the Guard, urged pursuit and exposed at all times his own person in the very hottest of the fire. By his side was Duroc, grand master of the palace—his dearest friend. "Duroc," said the Emperor, on the morning of the battle, "fortune has a spite at us to-day."
About 7 o'clock in the evening, Duroc was conversing on a slight eminence, and at a considerable distance from the firing, with Marshal Mortier and General Kirgener,—all three on foot,—when a cannon-ball, aimed at the group, ploughed up the ground near Mortier, ripped open Duroc's abdomen and struck General Kirgener dead on the spot.
Napoleon hastened to Duroc as soon as he heard of the event and was deeply moved on beholding him. The latter, who was still conscious, said to the Emperor: "All my life has been devoted to your service, and I only regret its loss for the use which it might still have been to you."
"Duroc," replied the Emperor, "there is another life! it is there that you will await me and there we shall one day meet."—"Yes, Sire, but that will be in thirty years, when you shall have triumphed over your enemies, and realized the hopes of your country; I have lived an honest man and have nothing to reproach myself with. I leave a daughter, your Majesty will be a father to her."
At Duroc's own solicitation the Emperor retired to spare him further grief. Napoleon had ordered his troops to halt, and he remained all the afternoon in front of his tent, surrounded by the Guard, who did not witness his affliction without tears. He stood by Duroc while he died and drew up with his own hand an epitaph, to be placed over his remains by the pastor of the place, and who received two hundred napoleons to defray the expense of a fitting monument. Thus closed the 22d.