THREE:Austria, the centre of despotic power on the Continent, the model of absolutism, in which the principle of Divine Right was most deeply rooted, enjoyed peace from 1815, when Europe was tranquillised by the Holy Alliance, down to 1848, when it felt in all its force the tremendous shock of revolution. During that time Prince Metternich ruled the Austrian Empire almost autocratically. This celebrated diplomatist was the greatest champion and most powerful protector in Europe of legitimacy and ultra-conservatism. The news of the French Revolution reached Vienna on the 1st of March; and no censorship of the press, no espionage, no sanitary cordon designed to exclude the plague of revolution, could avert its electric influence, or arrest its momentous effects. On the 13th the people rose, defeated the Imperial troops, forced Metternich to fly, and the emperor to promise constitutional reforms. The emperor and his family, however, soon felt that Vienna was too hot for them, and notwithstanding unlimited concessions, Ferdinand began to fear that his throne might share the fate of Louis Philippe's. Therefore, he secretly quitted the capital with the imperial family, on the evening of the 17th of May, 1848, alleging the state of his health as a reason for his flight, which took his Ministers quite by surprise. He proceeded to Innsbruck in Tyrol.
ONE:After the Painting by SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A., in the National Gallery of British ArtOn the morning of the 19th the battle recommenced with fury. The French were now fighting close under the walls of the town, and Napoleon, posted on an eminence called Thonsberg, watched the conflict. Till two o'clock the fight raged all along the line, round the city; and neither party seemed to make any advance. At length the Allies forced their way into the village of Probstheide, and threw the French on that side into great confusion. Ney, on the north side, was also fearfully pressed by Blucher and the Crown Prince of Sweden, and was compelled to retreat under the walls. On a sudden, as the Russians advanced also against Ney, the Saxonsten thousand in numberwent over to them with a shout. They were sent to the rear, but their cannon was at once turned against the enemy. By evening it was clear that the French could not hold their position another day. Schwarzenberg announced to the Allied sovereigns that victory was certain, and they knelt on the field and returned thanks to God. The French knew this better than their opponents, for in the two days they had fired two hundred and fifty thousand cannon-balls, and had only about sixteen thousand cartridges left, which would not serve for more than two hours, much of their artillery having been sent to Torgau. The retreat, therefore, commenced in the night. There was only one bridge prepared, of timber, in addition to the regular stone bridge, over which one hundred thousand men must pass, with the enemy at their heels. To add to the misery, the temporary bridge soon broke down. Napoleon took a hasty leave of the King and Queen of Saxony, ordered Poniatowski to defend the rear, and himself made for the bridge. It was not without much difficulty, and considerable alarm lest he should be surrounded and taken, that he and his suite got across. Then there was a terrible scene of crushing and scrambling; and the enemy, now aware of the flight, were galloping and running from all sides towards the bridge, to cut off the fugitives. Soon after Buonaparte had got over, the bridge was blown up by the French officer in charge of the mine already made, and twenty-five thousand men were left to surrender as prisoners in the town. Amongst these were Marshals Macdonald and Poniatowski; but, disdaining to surrender, they sprang, with their horses, into the Pleisseto swim. Macdonald escaped, but Poniatowski, though he crossed the Pleisse, was again nearly cut off, and plunging into the deep and muddy Elster, was drowned. No braver man perished in these tragic campaigns; both Allies and French in Leipsic followed his remains to the tomb, in sincere honour of his gallantry. The triumph of the Allied monarchs was complete. They met in the great square of the city, and felicitated each other. The King of Saxony was sent, without any interview, under a guard of Cossacks to Berlin, and at the General Congress he was made to pay dearly in territory for his besotted adhesion to the invader of Germany. In this awful battle the French lost three hundred guns. The slain on both sides amounted to eighty thousand, and thousands of the wounded lay for days around the city, exposed to the severe October nights, before they could be collected into lazarettos; and the view of the whole environs of Leipsic, covered with dead, was fearful.
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