of Destiny; but Nemesis was preparing to exact her dues very swiftly.  A victory can scarcely be so called, unless it be well followed up; and whether Dresden should be another Austerlitz depended upon what might be done during the next two or three days.  Napoleon did not act with his usual energy on that critical occasion, and in seven months he had ceased to reign.  Why did he refrain from reaping the fruits of victory?  Because the weather, which had been so favorable to his fortunes on the 27th, was quite as unfavorable to his person.  On that day he was exposed to the rain for twelve hours, and when he returned to Dresden, at night, he was wet to the skin, and covered with mud, while the water was streaming from his chapeau, which the storm had knocked out of a cocked hat.  It was a peculiarity of Napoleon’s constitution, that he could not expose himself to damp without bringing on a pain in the stomach; and this pain seized him at noon on the 28th, when he had partaken of a repast at Pirna, whither he had gone in the course of his operations against the beaten enemy.  This illness caused him to cease his personal exertions, but not from giving such orders as the work before him required him to issue.  Perhaps it would have had no evil effect, had it not been, that, while halting at Pirna, news came to him of two great failures of distant armies, which led him to order the Young Guard to halt at that place,—­an order that cost him his empire.  One more march in advance, and Napoleon would have become greater than ever he had been; but that march was not made, and so the flying foe was converted into a victorious army.  For General Vandamme, who was at the head of the chief force of the pursuing French, pressed the Allies with energy, relying on the support of the Emperor, whose orders he was carrying out in the best manner.  This led to the Battle of Kulm, in which Vandamme was defeated, and his army destroyed for the time, because of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy; whereas that action would have been one of the completest French victories, had the Young Guard been ordered to march from Pirna, according to the original intention.  The roads were in a most frightful state, in consequence of the wet weather; but, as a victorious army always finds food, so it always finds roads over which to advance to the completion of its task, unless its chief has no head.  Vandamme had a head, and thought he was winning the Marshal’s staff which Napoleon had said was awaiting him in the midst of the enemy’s retiring masses.  So confident was he that the Emperor would support him, that he would not retreat while yet it was in his power to do so; and the consequence was that his corps d’armee was torn to pieces, and himself captured.  Napoleon had the meanness to charge Vandamme with going too far and seeking to do too much, as he supposed he was slain, and therefore could not prove that he was simply obeying orders, as well as acting in exact accordance with