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The French army occupied Franconia; it was across these mountainous defiles that Napoleon had resolved to march against the enemy divided into two corps, under the orders of the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of Hohenlohe. Already Marshals Davout and Bernadotte were established upon the left bank of the Saale. The troops of the Prince of Hohenlohe occupied the road from Weimar to Jena.
The Soubise-Hildburghausen Army does immediately withdraw on this occasion, as on the former; and makes for the safe side of the Saale again, rapidly retreating before Friedrich, who is not above one to two of them, more like one to three, now that Broglio's Detachment is come to hand.
But the fairest time of all on the Steiger was at sunset, on clear autumn days, when the scene close at hand, where the threads of gossamer were floating, was steeped in golden light, the distance in such exquisite tints-from crimson to the deepest violet blue, edged with a line of light-the Saale glimmered with a silvery lustre amid its fringe of alders, and the sun flashed on the glittering panes of the Leuchtenburg.
Early on that day Blücher heard that on the morrow Schwarzenberg would attack Leipzig from the south-east, but would send a corps westwards to threaten it on the side of Lindenau. The Prussian leader therefore hurried on from the banks of the Saale, and at night the glare of his watch-fires warned Marmont that Leipzig would be assailed also from the north-west.
Right across from Weissenfels, lapped in this crook of the Saale, or washed by it on south side and on east, rises, with extreme laziness, a dull circular lump of country, six or eight miles in diameter; with Rossbach and half a dozen other scraggy sleepy Hamlets scattered on it; which, till the morning of Saturday, 5th November, 1757, had not been notable to any visitor.
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.
The Emperor, shaken by this advice from the most able and most faithful of his allies, is said to have considered retiring towards the mountains of Thuringia and Hesse, to get behind the river Saale and there wait for the allies to attack him, where they would be at a disadvantage on the difficult terrain, heavily wooded and full of narrow passes.
This is a lofty hill which towers above the town of Jena and the narrow winding vale of the Saale; while its other slopes, to the north and west, rise above and dominate the broken and irregular plateau on which Hohenlohe's force was encamped. Had the Prussians attacked his weary regiments in force, they might easily have hurled them into the Saale.
Friedrich, still in the thick of pure Saxon business, makes instant arrangement for Silesia as well: Prince Henri, with such and such corps, to maintain the Saale, and guard Saxony; Marshal Keith, with such and such, to step over into Bohemia, and raise contributions at least, and tread on the tail of the big Silesian snake: all this Friedrich settles within a week; takes certain corps of his own, effective about 13,000; and on November 13th marches from Leipzig.
The French have placed their caissons on both sides of the road, and set them on fire, that they may serve as beacons to the retreating troops. See! they reach up to the city of Leipsic. It is as I said; the French intend to march through that city, and retreat across the Saale. Well, I think General York will await them there, and Langeron will finish them.
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