ones the town will surrender on being invested, which will give us the advantage of taking his men, and of having a good post. If the archduke flies before you, you will pursue him, so that he may not be able to pass the Danube at Komorn, where there is, I think, no bridge, but he may be obliged to take refuge at Bude: do not go farther from me. The line behind the Raab is, I think, suitable for you, because my bridges over the Danube will be completed, and I can recall you in four days, taking at least two from the enemy, which will permit you to be present at the battle, while the enemy will be unable to be there. Your aim, then, is to hinder him from passing to Komorn, and then to oblige him to throw himself upon Bude, which will take him away from Vienna." On the 14th June, even before Napoleon had written these last lines, Prince Eugène, after an obstinate combat, had taken from the Archduke John, and his brother the Archduke Palatine, the important line of the Raab. Generals Broussier and Marmont had effected their junction in the environs of Graetz, repulsing the attacks of the Giulay Ban; General Macdonald, whom the Viceroy of Italy had left behind at Papa, for the purpose of facilitating this concentration of forces, arrived on the field of battle when the day was gained; the archdukes were driven behind the Danube, and the troops furnished by the Hungarian nobility, were dispersed. "I compliment you on the battle of Raab," wrote the emperor to Prince Eugène; "it is the grand-daughter of Marengo and Friedland." General Lauriston immediately laid siege to the place, which capitulated on the 23rd June. Marshal Davout had bombarded Presburg without effect for several days, in the hope of succeeding in destroying the bridge; the garrison defended itself heroically. Every means had been adopted to rapidly concentrate the whole of the French forces upon Vienna, and to frustrate everywhere the progress of the enemy. Large reinforcements had arrived from France. The emperor himself directed the preparations on the Danube, displaying in this work all the resources of his most inventive genius, and that faculty of usefully employing the talent of others which constitutes one of the most necessary elements of government. At the commencement of July all was at length ready--men, provisions, ammunition, and bridges. "With God's help," wrote Napoleon to King Jerome, on the 4th July, "in spite of his redoubts and his entrenched camps, I hope to crush the army of the Archduke Charles."