On the 3d of December Napoleon issued a bulletin which has become famous, telling the anxious nations of Europe that the grand army was annihilated, but the emperor was safe. Two days afterwards he surrendered the command of the army to Murat and set out at all speed for Paris, where his presence was indispensably necessary. On the 13th of December some 16,000 haggard and staggering men, almost too weak to hold the arms to which they still despairingly clung, recrossed the Niemen, which the grand army had passed in such magnificent strength and with such abounding resources less than six months before. It was the greatest and most astounding disaster in the military history of the world. This tale of terror may be fitly closed by a dramatic story told by General Mathieu Dumas, who, while sitting at breakfast in Gumbinnen, saw enter a haggard man, with long beard, blackened face, and red and glaring eyes. "I am here at last," he exclaimed. "Don't you know me?" "No," said the general. "Who are you?" "I am the rear-guard of the Grand Army. I have fired the last musket-shot on the bridge of Kowno. I have thrown the last of our arms into the Niemen, and came hither through the woods. I am Marshal Ney." "This is the beginning of the end," said the shrewd Talleyrand, when Napoleon set out on his Russian campaign. The remark proved true, the disaster in Russia had loosened the grasp of the Corsican on the throat of Europe, and the nations, which hated as much as they feared their ruthless enemy, made active preparations for his overthrow. While he was in France, actively gathering men and materials for a renewed struggle, signs of an implacable hostility began to manifest themselves on all sides in the surrounding states. Belief in the invincibility of Napoleon had vanished, and little fear was entertained of the raw conscripts whom he was forcing into the ranks to replace his slaughtered veterans. [=Europe in Arms Against Napoleon=] Prussia was the first to break the bonds of alliance with France, to ally itself with Russia, and to call its people to arms against their oppressor. They responded with the utmost enthusiasm, men of all ranks and all professions hastened to their country's defence, and the noble and the peasant stood side by side as privates in the same regiment. In March, 1813, the French left Berlin, which was immediately occupied by the Russian and Prussian allies. The king of Saxony, however, refused to desert Napoleon, to whom he owed many favors and whose anger he feared; and his State, in consequence, became the theatre of the war. [=The Opening of the Final Struggle=]