The Leipsic Campaign Author:George Robert Gleig General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1852 Original Publisher: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans Subjects: Leipzig, Battle of, Leipzig, Germany, 1813 History / Military / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When yo... more »u buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAP. XVII. WARLIKE ATTITUDES. While Napoleon was passing with all the haste which the occasion required from Dresden to Pirna, and from Pirna to Meissen and Torgau, his agents at Prague had presented their bases for a treaty of peace to Metternich, and awaited his answer. Though his country had already pledged herself to make common cause with Russia and Prussia, Metternich was too skilful a diplomatist to return the packet unopened. He read it, and replied that Napoleon's proposals were quite inadmissible ; that Fieume without Trieste would be of no use to Austria; and that the project of pushing forward the Rhenish Confederation to the Oder could not be entertained consistently with the re-establishment of the Prussian kingdom. Further, he required that the independence of Switzerland should be acknowledged; and stated that if all these points were yielded, the Emperor his master would communicate with the Emperor of Russia, who might be expected to arrive at Brandwitz about the 14th of the month. The issues of the conference were carried to Dresden the same day that Napoleon returned from his tour, and were communicated to him at a moment when Count Bubna,. the Austrian minister, came to announce that his passports were required. It was a difficult and very delicate crisis in his affairs, and considerations of prudence overcame for once the pride of the mighty warrior. He read the dispatch to Bubna, dictated in his hearing a reply, by which Caliancourt was aut...« less