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We ran, without knowing why, along the river bank, until we reached an old bridge where the Rippach and Gruna met. Here we were to intercept the enemy: but the Cossacks had discovered our design, and their whole army fell back behind the Gruna, which they forded, and, the division rejoining us, we learned that Marshal Bessières had been killed by a cannon-ball.

The next day the army marched forward, circled round the western and southern sides of Dresden, and encamped at Gruna, a mile to the southeast of the city; and throughout the night laboured at getting up batteries. The division under Holstein was planted on an eminence on the other side of the river, across which a pontoon bridge was at once thrown.

Cyr pushed back the Prussians on Gruna, while Marmont and Nansouty drove the Russians from position to position, and cleared the plain. Both flanks, in short, were turned; and the troops composing them driven in upon the centre, and cut off from their proper lines of retreat. But the French were too much enfeebled to pursue the advantages which they had gained with their accustomed spirit.

'In what part had she the greatest success?... Aratov wanted to know in what part she had appeared for the last time, but for some reason he asked a different question. 'In Ostrovosky's Gruna, as far as I remember. But I tell you again she'd no love affairs! You may be sure of that from one thing.

"At Kaditz," says Mitchell, "where the second bridge of boats took a great deal of time, I was standing by his Majesty, when news to the above effect came across from General Hulsen. The King was highly pleased; and, turning to me, said: 'Just what I wished! Gruna, about a mile to southeast of Dresden Walls, is head-quarter during this Siege.