Meanwhile he turned his eminent talents for diplomacy to good account. He persuaded Bavaria to return to his brother portions of Coburg territory which that state unjustly held, and removed the galling pain of the Bavarian flag floating over villages within four English miles of the town of Coburg itself. [Sidenote: THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.] In 1812 Napoleon's frightful war with Russia broke out. Napoleon summoned the subject and enfeebled German Princes to Dresden. Duke Ernest was compelled to go, and Leopold also was cited to the gathering, but he went to Vienna, and then to Italy, to keep out of the way. It would have been now most dangerous to decline the French service, and he was determined at all costs not to enter it. "Germany," said he, "was, at the beginning of 1812, in the lowest and most humiliating position; Austria and Prussia sunk to be auxiliaries; everybody frightened and submissive, except Spain, supported by England." But Napoleon's reverses in Russia soon followed, and they electrified all Germany into new courage. The Duke of Coburg posted off to Berlin to endeavour to stimulate the perplexed, vacillating, and timorous Prussian King into manly and decided action. The other brother, Ferdinand, went to Vienna on a similar errand. Leopold hied him to Munich to stir up the Crown Prince of Bavaria, afterwards King Louis. They were all moderately successful, and Leopold hastened to Kalisch, in Poland, being the first German Prince to join the Army of Liberation. He was equally honoured and gratified by being appointed a Major-General by the Czar. He was present at the hard-fought but indecisive battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. There followed an armistice, and a conference at Prague, with a view to a definite settlement. This the Prince attended. He was the only person admitted to the presence of the Emperor of Austria, and spent much of his time with the plenipotentiaries Metternich, Humboldt, Ansted, Gentz, and others. The negotiations broke off, and hostilities were resumed. At the decided defeat which the French general Vandamme sustained, shortly before the crowning victory of Leipsic, Leopold commanded all the allied cavalry, and distinguished himself the more that he was the only general in the field who knew the country. He was present, and in high command, at Leipsic, where Germany was finally freed. After the fight, the Grand Duke Constantine accompanied him to Coburg, visiting the relatives of the wife from whom he was now separated, and who lived and died in retirement in Switzerland. Amongst others they visited the future Duchess of Kent, then Princess of Leiningen, her first husband being still alive. Shortly afterwards Constantine and Leopold rejoined the army in Switzerland, where Leopold tried hard, but ineffectually, to effect a reconciliation between his sister and her husband. Leopold subsequently entered Paris at the head of the cavalry; his eldest brother procured the evacuation of Mayence by its French