( 188 )

duke Charles commenced an attack on theFrench army; and throughout the remainder ofthat, and all the following day, a furious battleraged. The village of Essling was taken andretaken five times in the course of the 21st;and on the 22d, that village, and Gross Aspernlikewise, became the scenes of repeated andsanguinary operations, with alternate successand discomfiture.

During the battle, the Austrians sent downthe river, floating bodies of various descriptions,for the purpose of breaking the bridges; and,notwithstanding the exertions of the pontoneersand boatmen, placed in surveillance above, boththe bridges of boats, 1 , i*> communicating withthe Lobau, were carried away. The French armywas thus placed, for a considerable time, in thegreatest peril. A consciousness of this, so ex-cited the exertions of the pontoneers, that, inthe course of the afternoon, both bridges wererepaired: but, late in the day,the bridge, 1 , acrossthe first branch was again broken; and fromwant of materials could not speedily be madegood.

If the Archduke Charles had employed thedistinguished valour of his troops, in preventingthe French from issuing from the tete-de-pont ,E, plate 6; and in defending the villages of Gros