But the long hours of consultation, arrangement, and execution were mainly concerned, we may suppose, with the hurrying in of new levies, the raising of cavalry, the creation of artillery, and the general preparation for the life-and-death struggle which was soon to take place. The Danish alliance was strengthened, and Murat by strenuous efforts was kept within the shadowy lines of the vanishing Napoleonic system. Beugnot, then head of the French regency of Berg, was one day called at a moment's notice to act as amanuensis, and in a flurry twice took his Emperor's chair. «So you are determined to sit in my seat,» was Napoleon's simple remark; «you have chosen a bad time for it.» The mayor of Mainz was St. André, a stanch conventional of the old school; another day he and Beugnot, with the Prince of Nassau, accompanied the visitor on a river excursion, and the Emperor, scanning with intense interest the castle of Biberich, leaned far over the boat. «What a curious attitude,» whispered the veteran revolutionary to the terrified Beugnot; «the fate of the world depends on a kick or two.»

The fate of the world was not in jeopardy, and the seat of Napoleon as Emperor of the West was not to be occupied by another; but the affairs of the Continent were to be readjusted, the beneficent work of the Revolution transferred to other hands, and the notion of Western empire to vanish like other baseless fabrics. The diplomacy of Lord Aberdeen, Castlereagh's envoy at Vienna, had succeeded before Napoleon returned to Dresden, and the treaty of eventual triple alliance, signed at Reichenbach on June 27, was made good on August 1 by Francis, who agreed, in return for an enormous subsidy from Great Britain, to join Russia and Prussia with 200,000 men. The rosters of Austria's army had been surreptitiously obtained by French agents in Prague. Napoleon was aghast as he read the proof of her gigantic efforts. At once he redoubled his own, and began to unfold a marvelous diplomatic shrewdness. With Poland's three despoilers thus united in England's pay, his isolation would be complete; a few days only remained until the expiration of the armistice; he had but one arrow left in his quiver, and he determined to speed it: to bribe Austria into neutrality by accepting her conditions and restoring the national equilibrium of Europe. The proposition was made, and staggered Francis; for two days he dallied, and then made a counter-proposition with a new clause, which secured, not the emancipation of states,

but dynastic independence for the sovereigns of the Rhine Confederation. This drew the veil from Metternich's policy. Afraid of a German nationality in which Prussia would inevitably secure the hegemony, he was determined to perpetuate the rivalries of petty potentates, and regain Austria's ascendancy in Germany as well as in Italy. This, too, would strip Napoleon of his German troops, and confine France to the west shore of the Rhine, even though it left Westphalia and Berg under French rulers. Such a contingency was abhorrent to one still pretending to Western empire, and Napoleon in turn procrastinated until the evening of the 9th, when, as a final compromise, he offered the dismemberment of Warsaw, the freedom of Dantzic and Illyria, including Fiume, but retaining Triest. But by this time dynastic jealousy had done its work at Prague, and when these terms were communicated to the plenipotentiaries unofficially, Cathcart's bellicose humor, which was heightened by the news from Wellington, served to complement Alexander's jealousy of Austria's rising power. The Prussian nationalists, too, saw their emancipation indefinitely postponed; and since the communication of Napoleon's ultimatum was unofficial and an official notification had not arrived at midnight on the 10th, the commissioners of Russia and Prussia rose at the stroke of the clock, and informed Metternich that, their powers having expired, he was bound by the terms of Reichenbach.

Metternich kept up his mask, and continued to discuss with Caulaincourt the items of Napoleon's proposition, but the other diplomats gave vent to their delight. Humboldt lingered until Austria's formal declaration of war was under way to Dresden; simultaneously beacons, prearranged for the purpose on Bohemian hills, flashed the welcome news to the expectant armies of Russia and Prussia. Napoleon still stood undismayed by forms, for under the terms of the armistice a week's notice must be given before the renewal of hostilities. On the 13th he offered Austria everything except Hamburg and Triest; on the 15th he offered even these great ports. But technical right was on the side of war, and his proposals were refused. Where the blame or merit for the renewal of hostilities rests will ever remain a matter of opinion. Amid the tangles of negotiation, it must be remembered that on March 24, 1812, Russia and Sweden began the coalition; that Russia and Prussia were forced into union on February 28, 1813, by the element of interest common to Alexander's

dynasty and the Prussian people; that Great Britain entered on the scene in her commercial agreement with Sweden on March 3,1813; and that English diplomacy combined with the interests of Austrian diplomacy to complete and cement the coalition with the necessary subsidies. If we view the negotiations of Poischwitz and Prague in connection with Napoleon's whole career, they appear to have run in a channel prepared by his boundless ambition: if we isolate them and scrutinize their course, we must think him the moral victor. Whatever he may have been before, he was now eager for peace, and sincere in his professions. Believing himself to have acted generously when Austria was under his feet, he was outraged when he saw that he had been duped by her subsequent course. The concessions to which he was forced appear to have been made slowly, because what he desired was not a Continental peace in the interests of the Hapsburgs, but a general peace in the interest of all Europe as represented by the Empire and the dynasty which he had founded. At this distance of time, and in the light of intervening history, some credit should be given to his insight, which convinced him that strengthened nationality, as well as renewed dynastic influence, might both retard the liberalizing influences of the Revolution, which he falsely believed himself still to represent.

THE LAST IMPERIAL VICTORY.

AT the opening of the second campaign in Saxony the allies had 435,000 men and Napoleon but 350,000. With this inferiority, it behooved the Emperor to use all his strategic powers, and he did so with a brilliancy never surpassed by him. Choosing the Elbe as his natural defensive line, Hamburg stood almost impregnable at one end, flanked to the southward by Magdeburg, Wittenberg, and Torgau, three mighty fortresses. Dresden, which was necessarily the focal point, was entrenched and palisaded for the protection of the army, which was to be its main bulwark. Davout and Oudinot, with 70,000 men, were to threaten Berlin, and, thereby drawing off as many as possible of the enemy, liberate the garrisons of Stettin and Küstrin; they were then to beleaguer Spandau, push the foe across the Oder, and stand ready to fall on the coalition's flank. Napoleon himself, with the remaining 280,000, was to await the onset of the combined Russian, Prussian, and Austrian forces. The allies now had in their camp both Jomini and Moreau. The former, pleading that he had lost a mer

ited promotion by Berthier's ill-will, and that as a foreigner he had the right of choice, had gone over to the foe; the latter, yielding to the specious pleas of his silly and ambitious wife that he might fight Napoleon without fighting France, had taken service with the Czar. These two, with the Crown Prince of Sweden, were virtually the council of war. The latter and Moreau both saw the specter of French sovereignty beckoning them on, and were more devoted to their personal interests than to those of the coalition. In the service of their ambition was formed the plan by which Napoleon was overwhelmed and the fields of France drenched with blood. Under their advice three great armies were arrayed: that of the north in Brandenburg was composed of Prussians, Swedes, and a few Russians, its generals being Bülow, Bernadotte, and Tchernicheff; that of the east was the Prusso-Russian army in Silesia, now under Blücher, that astounding youth of seventy, and Wittgenstein; finally, that of the south was the new Austrian force under Charles Schwarzenberg, with an adjunct force of Russian troops under Barclay, and the Russian guard under the Grand Duke Constantine. Schwarzenberg was reduced to virtual impotence by the presence at his headquarters of all the sovereigns and of Moreau. Divided counsels spring from diverse interests; there was at the outset a pitiful caution and inefficiency on the part of the allies, while at Napoleon's headquarters there was unity of design at least.

Both contestants were under serious misapprehensions. Francis believed that, as so often before, Napoleon's goal would be Vienna; each division of the allied army therefore was to stand expectant; if assailed it was to yield, draw on the French, and expose their flanks or rear to the attacks of the other two; then by superior force the invaders were to be surrounded. The allies divined, or believed they divined, that Napoleon would hold his guard in reserve, throw it behind any portion of his line opposite which they were vulnerable, break through, and defeat them in detachments. The idea was keen; as Napoleon later confessed, his opponents had indeed «changed for the better. But nevertheless they were deceived; for Napoleon, misapprehending and exaggerating his own inferiority, had determined, almost for the first time, to assume the defensive. This produced for the moment a powerful moral effect on his generals, who were without exception clamorous for peace, and likewise upon his new boy recruits; both classes be

ing, like himself, persuaded that they were now fighting, not for aggression, but for life. The desperate courage of his army was further strengthened by the fact that boys had fought like veterans at Lützen and Bautzen, and that at last there were cavalry and artillery in fair proportion.

At the time no one remarked any trace of nervousness in Napoleon. Long afterward the traitorous Marmont, whose name, like that of Moreau, was to be execrated by succeeding generations of honorable Frenchmen, recalled that, in writing instructions to Davout, the Emperor had designated the enemy as a rabble and that he had likewise overestimated the strategic value of Berlin. The libeller asserted, too, that Napoleon's motive was personal spite against Prussia. It has also been studiously emphasized that the «children of Napoleon's army were perishing like flowers under an untimely frost, 40,000 French and German boys being in the hospitals; that corruption was rife in every department of administration; and that the soldiers' pay was shamefully in arrears. An eye-witness saw Peyrusse, the paymaster, to whom Napoleon had just handed four thousand francs for a monument to Duroc, coolly pocket a quarter of the sum, with the remark that such was the custom. But in all these directions matters had been nearly, if not quite, as bad in 1809, and a victory had set them all in order. What nervousness there was existed rather among the allies. Never before in her history, not even under the great Frederick, had Prussia possessed such an army; the Austrians were well drilled and well equipped; the Russians were of fair qualityand numerous, for Bennigsen was steadily building up strong reserves in Poland. Yet, in spite of their strength, the allies were not really able. Austria was the head, but her commander, Schwarzenberg, was not even mediocre, and among her generals there was only one who was first rate, namely, Radetsky. Frederick William and Alexander were of incongruous natures; their alliance was artificial, and in such plans as they evolved there was an indefiniteness which left to the generals in their respective forces a large margin for independence which each was quick to use.

It was through Blücher's wilfulness that hostilities opened, as they did, by a breach of the armistice. He had always been determined to have an independent command, and had so stipulated before Austria's accession to the coalition, a fact which momentarily thwarted his ambition. Impatient of orders or good faith, he broke into the neutral zone

on August 14 at Striegau. Napoleon, hearing that 40,000 Russians from this army were marching toward Bohemia, advanced from Dresden therefore on August 15, to be within reach of the passes of the Iser Mountains on the Upper Elbe, and halted at Zittau as a central point, whence he could strike Blücher, cut off the Russians, or return to Dresden in case of need. That city was to be held by St. Cyr. On August 20 Blücher reached the banks of the Bober at Bunzlau; owing to Napoleon's nice calculation, Ney, Marmont, Lauriston, and Macdonald stood opposite to check him, the Emperor himself being at Lauban with the guard. Had Blücher stood, the Russo-Prussians would have been annihilated. But he did not stand; and retreating by preconcerted arrangement behind the Deichsel, led his antagonist to believe that he lacked confidence in his army. Perhaps this mistake was engendered by the steady stream of uneasy reports Napoleon was receiving from his own generals. On the 23d he wrote to Maret that his division commanders seemed to have no self-reliance except in his presence; «the enemy's strength seems great to them wherever I am not.» Marmont was the chief offender, having severely criticized a plan of operations which would require one or more of the marshals to act independently in Brandenburg or Silesia. At any rate, Napoleon was set in his idea, and pressed on in pursuit. On the 22d Blücher was beyond the Katzbach, and the French van close behind, when word arrived at Napoleon's headquarters that the Austro-Russians had entered Saxony, and were menacing Dresden. How alert and sane the Emperor was, how thoroughly he foresaw every contingency, appear from the minute directions he wrote for Macdonald, who was left to block the road for Blücher into Saxony, while Lauriston was to outflank and shut off the perfervid veteran from both Berlin and Zittau.

These having been written, Napoleon, wheeling the corps of Marmont, Vandamme, and Victor, together with Latour-Maubourg's cavalry and the guard, hastened back to reinforce St. Cyr at Dresden. On the 25th, as he passed Bautzen, he learned that Oudinot had been defeated at Luckau; but he gave no heed to the report, and next day he reached Dresden at nine in the morning. An hour later the guard came up, having performed the almost incredible feat of marching seventy-six miles in three days. Vandamme, with 40,000 men, had reached Pirna, a few miles above the city, and St. Cyr was drawing in behind the temporary fortifications of Dresden. The head of

Napoleon's defensive line was to be kept at any cost. The enemy, too, was at hand, but they had no plan. In a council of war held by them the same morning there was protracted debate, and finally Moreau's advice to advance in seven columns was taken. He refused to fight against his country,» but explained that the French could never be conquered in mass, and that if one assailing column were crushed the rest could still push on. This long deliberation cost the allies their opportunity, for at four in the afternoon, when they attacked, the mass of the French army had crossed the Elbe and completed the garrison of the city. For two hours the fighting was fierce and stubborn; from three different sides, Russians, Austrians, and Prussians, each made substantial gains; at six Napoleon determined to throw in his guard. With fine promptness Mortier, with two divisions of the young guard, sallied forth against the Russians, and, fighting until midnight, drove them beyond the hamlet of Striefen. St. Cyr dislodged the Prussians, and pushed them to Strehla, while Ney, with two divisions of the young guard, threw a portion of the Austrians into Plauen, and Murat, with two divisions of infantry and Latour-Maubourg's cavalry, cleared the suburb Friedrichstadt of the rest. Napoleon, alert and ubiquitous, then made his usual round, and knew when he retired to rest that with 70,000 men or boys he had repulsed 150,000 of his foe. His inspiriting personal work might be calculated as worth 80,000 of his opponent's best men. That night both Marmont and Victor, with their corps, entered the city; and Vandamme in the early dawn began to bombard Pirna, thus drawing away forces from the allies to hold that outpost.

The morning of the 27th opened in a tempest of wind and rain, a fact which is considered as having been most advantageous to the French, since it enabled them to hide their

movements, and interfered with their enemy's guns and ammunition. In any case, the second day's fighting was more disastrous to the allies than the first. At six both sides were arrayed. On the French right Victor and Latour-Maubourg; then Marmont; then the old guard, and Ney, with two divisions of the young guard; next St. Cyr, with Mortier on the left. Opposite stood Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, in the same relative positions, on higher ground, encircling the French all the way westward and around by the south to Plauen; between their center and left was reserved a gap for the Austrians under Klenau, who were coming up from Tharandt in the blinding storm, and were overdue. At seven began the artillery fire of the young guard; but before long it ceased for an instant, since the gunners found the enemy's line too high for the elevation of their guns. «Continue,» came swiftly the Emperor's order; «we must occupy the attention of the enemy on that spot.» The ruse succeeded; at ten Murat dashed through the apparently unnoticed gap, and, turning westward toward the Elbe, killed or captured all who composed the enemy's extreme left. The garrison of Pirna stood firm until afternoon, and then retreated toward Peterswald. Elsewhere there was continuous fighting, but the French merely held their own. Napoleon lounged all day in a curious apathy before his camp-fire, his condition being apparently due to the incipient stages of a digestive disorder. Early in the afternoon Schwarzenberg heard of Murat's great charge, but he still held firm. When, however, the flight from Pirna was announced, he prepared to retreat, and at five his columns were slowly withdrawing from conflict. By six Napoleon was aware that the conflict was over, and, mounting his horse, he trotted listlessly to the palace, his old gray overcoat and hood streaming with rain.

AT

AN ESKIMO GIRL.

T the head of an almost unknown bay, beA yond the waters of Inglefield Gulf, the Falcon found temporary rest; and there, under a lofty peak and in the presence of a mighty glacier, we erected our two tiny buildings. The site was chosen upon a terrace in the bed of an ancient glacier, and near a rapid brook that ran down to the bay. The studio formed a wing of the larger building, and was built of three-inch grooved pine. It was made with double walls, and had an airspace of one foot completely enveloping top, sides, and bottom, and an additional air-space of one inch formed by felt covering the walls and ceiling. On the side facing the west were placed double doors, and on the south a double skylight and a window. Over three of the exterior walls was fastened the conventional tar-paper. In this small abode, the northernmost studio in the world, with a ground-space of fifteen by six and a half feet, and with a height of less than eight, my comrade and I were to dwell for more than a year.

On August 26, 1893, the studio was made habitable with two folding-beds, trunks and boxes for seats and receptacles, and oil-cloth for floor-covering. A long shelf was run along the west side of the room, near the ceiling,

AN ARCTIC STUDIO.

(77° 44' N. Lat.)

WITH PICTURES BY THE AUTHOR.

and under the skylight was placed a series of shelves. A clock with a homelike voice gave an air of habitableness to the room, and from the ceiling was suspended a lamp with a chain for raising and lowering it-always an object of wonder and delight to the childlike Innuit, or Eskimo. Near by were two other dwellings, but of sealskin, the homes of the Innuits Myo and Kashoo, who, with their families, had been induced to leave the neighborhood of Cape Parry and come with us.

The long night was approaching, and from the time our dwelling was made ready until September 15 our days and nights were passed in long hunting-excursions. On one a distance. of 190 miles was covered in a whale-boat.

We found the Innuits very quick-witted and intelligent; with unvarying good nature and a keen appreciation of fun, they proved themselves companionable in spite of their uncleanliness. Their skill manifested itself in many ways during these long excursions. Later in the year it showed itself, on one occasion, in a particularly interesting way. Having found it necessary to cross a glacier on a hunting-trip, our Innuits paused at the edge and hallooed to ascertain the direction of the echo. On the return a storm of snow and fog had obliterated all landmarks, but