When the war resumed its course after the disaster of Leipsic I am
certain that the Allied sovereigns determined to treat with Napoleon only
in his own capital, as he, four years before, had refused to treat with
the Emperor of Austria except at Vienna. The latter sovereign now
completely raised the mask, and declared to the Emperor that he would
make common cause with Russia and Prussia against him. In his
declaration he made rise of the singular pretext, that the more enemies
there were against Napoleon there would be the greater chance of speedily
obliging him to accede to conditions which would at length restore the
tranquillity of which Europe stood so much in need. This declaration on
the part of Austria was an affair of no little importance, for she had
now raised an army of 260,000 men. An equal force was enrolled beneath
the Russian banners, which were advancing towards the Rhine. Prussia had
200,000 men; the Confederation of the Rhine 150,000: in short, including
the Swedes and the Dutch, the English troops in Spain and in the
Netherlands, the Danes, who had abandoned us, the Spaniards and
Portuguese, whose courage and hopes were revived by our reverses,
Napoleon had arrayed against him upwards of a million of armed men.
Among them, too, were the Neapolitans, with Murat at their head!

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