Pushing his corps forward, and easily sweeping out of his way the advance posts, Napoleon soon had his line facing that of the Austrians, which stretched from near the Danube to a point east of Wagram. At seven o’clock on the evening of July 5th the French attacked the left and centre of the enemy, but without driving them from their position. The next morning it was the Archduke Charles who took the offensive, making a movement which changed the whole battle. He attacked the French left, which was nearest the river, with fifty thousand men, intending to get on their line of communication and destroy the bridges across the Danube. The troops on the French centre were obliged to hurry off to prevent this, and the army was weakened for a moment, but not long. Napoleon determined to make the Archduke Charles, who in person commanded this attack on the French left, return, not by following him, but by breaking his centre; and he turned his heavy batteries against this portion of the army, and followed them by a cavalry attack, which routed the enemy. At the same time their left was broken, and the troops which had been engaging it were free to hurry off against the Austrian right, which was trying to reach the bridges, and which were being held in check with difficulty at Essling. As soon as the archduke saw what had happened to his left and centre he retired, preferring to preserve as much as possible of his army in good order. The French did not pursue. The battle had cost them too heavily. But if the Austrians escaped from Wagram with their army, and if their opponents gained little more than the name of a victory, they were too discouraged to continue the war, and the emperor sued for peace. [Illustration: THE LITTLE CORPORAL. This statue of Napoleon in the costume of the _Petit Caporal_, from the chisel of Seurre, was placed on the column of the Place Vendome, on July 28, 1835. It succeeded on the pedestal the white flag of the Bourbons, which in its turn had replaced the original statue of “Napoléon en César Romain,” by Chaudet. An interesting detail, unknown to most Parisians, is that the equestrian statue of Henri IV. on the Pont Neuf was cast with the bronze of Chaudet’s Napoleon. When Napoleon III. ascended the throne, he replaced the “Petit Caporal” of Seurre (whose decorative appearance he did not consider “_assez dynastique_”) by a copy of Chaudet’s “César,” made by the sculptor Drumont. That figure still crowns the summit of the column, which was re-erected after the desecration by the Commune.—A. D.] This peace was concluded in October. Austria was forced to give up Trieste and all her Adriatic possessions, to cede territory to Bavaria and to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and to give her consent to the continental system. [Illustration: MARIE LOUISE IN ROYAL ROBES. 1810.