[12] Fought May 2, 1813, near Leipsic, Saxony, between the French under Napoleon and the allies, Prussian and Russian. The French greatly predominated in numbers, and claimed the victory, which, however, proved fruitless.
[13] Bautzen, fought May 21, 1814, between the allies and the French, at a point some thirty miles east of Dresden, and about one hundred and fifty miles from Lützen. It was another nominal French victory. In these two engagements the loss of Napoleon’s army is computed as having been between forty and fifty thousand men.
[14] Of the 600,000 men Napoleon is believed to have, first and last, led into Russia, only about 12,000, in a wholly disorganized condition, reached the Niemen. The French army was virtually destroyed. Napoleon got to Paris December 18, 1812, and again took the field at the head of a fresh army of about 700,000 men, the following April, fighting the battle of Lützen May 2.
[15] The battle of Leipsic, resulting in the total defeat of the French army under Napoleon, with a loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners of about 70,000 men, occurred October 16–19, 1813. Wellington, as the result of his Peninsular campaign, entered French territory on the seventh of the same month.
[16] Henry IV, Part I, Act V, Sc. 4.
[17] The Fontainebleau abdication of the emperor had taken place on the eleventh of April. Napoleon had reached Elba, after his abdication, on the fourth of May, eight days before the date of this letter.
[18] William Shaw Cathcart, created Earl Cathcart July 16, 1814. He had served in the American Revolutionary War 1777–1780. He was Ambassador from the Court of St. James’s to that of Russia in 1812–1814.
[19] Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Staël-Holstein, better known as Madame de Staël, was born at Paris, April 22, 1766, and died there July 14, 1817. Exiled from France in 1812 by order of Napoleon, she visited Austria, Russia, Sweden, and England. She was then forty-six years of age, and at the height of her great reputation. The following letter was written by John Quincy Adams to his brother, Thomas Boylston Adams, in the latter part of November, 1812, but the interviews described and the conversations related had taken place on the sixth and the eighth of the previous September.
[20] The battle of Salamanca, between the British army, under the Duke of Wellington, and the French army, under Marshal Marmont, was fought July 22, 1812. The bombardment of Copenhagen under the command of Lord Cathcart had occurred in September, 1807.
[21] “The Mihavansa,” Wiiesinha’s translation.