From this moment the Prussians were isolated, and cut off from all their resources, as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm, when the French had passed the Danube and overrun Suabia. The Duke of Brunswick hastily endeavoured to concentrate his forces for the purpose of cutting his way back again to the frontier which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon, meantime, had posted his divisions so as to watch the chief passages of the Saale, and expected, in confidence, the assault of his outwitted opponent. It was now that he found leisure to answer the manifesto of Frederick William, which had reached Paris a day or two after he himself quitted that capital for the camp. His letter, dated at Gera, is written in the most elaborate style of insult. The King of Prussia (said he) had sent him a silly pamphlet of twenty pages, in very bad French--such a pamphlet as the English ministry were in the habit of commanding their hireling scribblers to put forth--but he acquitted the King of having read this performance. He was extremely anxious to live on the most friendly terms with his "good brother," and begged him, as the first token of equal goodwill, to dismiss the counsellors who had hurried him into the present unjust and unequal war. Such was the language of this famous note. Napoleon, now sure of his prey, desired his own generals to observe how accurately he had already complied with one of the requests of the Prussian Manifesto--"The French army," said he, "has done as it was bidden. This is the 8th of October, and we _have_ evacuated the territories of the Confederation of the Rhine."