( 3G8 )

the retreat of the Allies , after the battle ofLutzen , the Russians burnt the work by whichthis communication had been restored; and thisformidable impediment was thus made to checkthe progress of those who had been the first toform it. Upon the arrival of the French troopson the Elbe , Napoleon ordered a bridge of raftsto be thrown across the river below Dresden ,and that every exertion should be made, at thesame time, to restore a passage across the frac-tures in the stone bridge. Large trestles werefirst proposed, as the most expeditious andsimple method of effecting this; but the pro-ject was rejected, on account of the depth ofthe breach, and, consequently, the great heightwhich it would be necessary to give to trestles,if laid in one story, and the difficulty and insta-bility there might be in applying them in twotiers. It was therefore determined to resortto the same mode of construction as that whichthe Russians had recently adopted, to re-es-tablish that communication; whilst the bridgeof rafts, constructing below, might serve for thepassage of any troops it might be necessary firstto send across. But the bridge of rafts not havingbeen found to answer, and the Russians havingevacuated Nieustadt, it became of vast import-ance to Napoleon to establish, as soon as pos-