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Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon — Volume 10 by Louis Constant Wairy
page 42 of 73 (57%)
yield to the necessity of sleep, that imperious want of nature, the
Emperor took the repose which was so necessary to him when and where he
could, like a true soldier.

Although the result was decided, the battle was continued until five
o'clock in the evening. At six o'clock the Emperor had his tent erected
near a solitary inn, which had served as headquarters for the Emperor
Alexander during the two preceding days. I received orders to attend him
there, and did so with all speed; but his Majesty, nevertheless, passed
the whole night receiving and congratulating the chief generals, and
working with his secretaries.

All the wounded who were able to march were already on the road to
Dresden, where all necessary help awaited them. But on the field of
battle were stretched more than ten thousand men, Frenchmen, Russians,
Prussians, etc.,--hardly able to breathe, mutilated, and in a most
pitiable condition. The unremitting labors of the kind and indefatigable
Baron Larrey and the multitude of surgeons encouraged by his heroic
example did not suffice even to dress their wounds. And what means could
be found to remove the wounded in this desolate country, where all the
villages had been sacked and burned, and where it was no longer possible
to find either horses or conveyances? Must they then let all these men
perish after most horrible sufferings, for lack of means to convey them
to Dresden?

It was then that this population of Saxon villagers, who it might have
been thought must be embittered by the horrors of war,--in seeing their
dwellings burned, their fields ravaged,--furnished to the army an example
of the sublime sentiments which pity can inspire in the heart of man.
They perceived the cruel anxiety which M. Larrey and his companions
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