By the middle of August the campaign began. The French had in the field some three hundred and sixty thousand men. This force was surrounded by a circle of armies, Swedish, Russian, Prussian, and Austrian, in all some eight hundred thousand men. The leaders of this hostile force included, besides the natural enemies of France, Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden, who had fought with Napoleon in Italy, and General Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden. Moreau was on Alexander’s staff. He had reached the army the night that the armistice expired, having sailed from the United States on the 21st of June, at the invitation of the Russian emperor, to aid in the campaign against France. He had been greeted by the allies with every mark of distinction. Another deserter on the allies’ staff was the eminent military critic Jomini. In the ranks were stragglers from all the French corps, and the Saxons were threatening to leave the French in a body, and go over to the allies. The second campaign of 1813 opened brilliantly for Napoleon, for at Dresden he took twenty thousand prisoners, and captured sixty cannon. The victory turned the anxiety of Paris to hopefulness, and their faith in Napoleon’s star was further revived by the report that Moreau had fallen, both legs carried off by a French bullet. Moreau himself felt that fate was friendly to the emperor. “That rascal Bonaparte is always lucky,” he wrote his wife, just after the amputation of his legs. But there was something stronger than luck at work; the allies were animated by a spirit of nationality, indomitable in its force, and they were following a plan which was sure to crush Napoleon in the long run. It was one laid out by Moreau; a general battle was not to be risked, but the corps of the French were to be engaged one by one, until the parts of the army were disabled. In turn Vandamme, Oudinot, MacDonald, Ney, were defeated, and in October the remnants of the French fell back to Leipsic. Here the horde that surrounded them was suddenly enlarged. The Bavarians had gone over to the allies. A three days’ battle at Leipsic exhausted the French, and they were obliged to make a disastrous retreat to the Rhine, which they crossed November 1st. Ten days later the emperor was in Paris. The situation of France at the end of 1813 was deplorable. The allies lay on the right bank of the Rhine. The battle of Vittoria had given the Spanish boundary to Wellington, and the English and Spanish armies were on the frontier. The allies which remained with the French were not to be trusted. “All Europe was marching with us a year ago,” Napoleon said; “to-day all Europe is marching against us.” There was despair among his generals, alarm in Paris. Besides, there seemed no human means of gathering up a new army. Where were the men to come from? France was bled to death. She could give no more. Her veins were empty.