contemplated by the Emperor. In a few hours the Russians, who were receding in fair order and fighting fiercely, began to waver, and some of the formations broke into flight. In this crisis Scharnhorst arrived with five thousand Prussians; he had been compelled to make a long detour in order to avoid Ney, with whom Lestocq had been engaged. By nightfall the French were brought to a stand, and soon after they were driven back from the hamlets which they had seized in their advance. Night ended the fight. Ney had not received his orders until two in the afternoon, and arrived too late for service. The armies retained their relative positions, and both claimed the day. Neither had lost, neither had gained, the field. But the battle was disastrous for both: from first to last the struggle had been desperate and bloody. The losses were virtually equal—about eighteen thousand men on each side. During the evening Napoleon began to arrange a retreat; in fact, Davout was about to begin it when he learned that there was a great commotion in the enemy's bivouac. Advancing as far as possible, the marshal put his ear to the ground and distinctly noted a diminishing rumble, which convinced him that the Russians were withdrawing. This was an agreeable surprise, and Napoleon, when informed of the fact, ordered his army to stand fast. The morning light displayed an abandoned Russian camp.

It is impossible to tell which army was in the worse plight; both were in the utmost distress. Augereau had been wounded, and, though not disabled, had left the field. This brought down on him the commander's displeasure, and inasmuch as his corps was nearly annihilated, it was disbanded; some of his regiments were virtually destroyed. The living were gaunt, exhausted, and ill with hunger; an eye-witness declared that but for the arrival, about noon, of some Jewish traders from Warsaw with four tuns of brandy, thousands would have perished from cold and fatigue. The dead were strewn thick over the field, and in some places were piled in heaps. On the white background of a Northern winter the carnage was terribly apparent; the prowlers who skulked from place to place in search of booty could be distinguished in all directions. Marauding began on a frightful scale, discipline was slackened by misery, and for miles around thousands of wretched soldiers stripped the scarcely less wretched peasantry of their few remaining bits of property.

The army was eager to be gone from these sickening sights. But Bennigsen had technically admitted defeat by his withdrawal, which the Prussians characterized as "a sin and a shame." Napoleon, therefore, waited to secure his victory, and formally despatched a few parties in pursuit. Murat advanced to within touch of Bennigsen, who had taken his position under the walls of Königsberg. At the same time the Emperor dictated a glowing account of the French triumph and of the admirable condition of the army. It was at once despatched for publication in the official journals of Paris. Soon afterward, on February thirteenth, a messenger carried to Frederick William verbal proposals for either an armistice or a separate peace on most favorable terms. In these Napoleon set forth that the relation of Prussia to Russia was mere vassalage, and that her rehabilitation as an independent power was essential to the peace of Europe, agreeing to restore her lands as far as the Elbe, and saying that as to Poland he cared nothing whatever. The confident feeling of the allies was shown by the Prussian king's prompt refusal to accept such overtures, and by his determination to abide by the issue. On the other hand, the mere fact of the proposition was evidence of Napoleon's anxiety. It is said on good authority that the French emissary verbally offered the complete restoration of Prussia if she would desert her ally.

Stern necessity would wait no longer on Napoleon's bravado; in a few days his troops withdrew to the tableland behind the river Passarge. There they found better cantonments, but the food was neither better nor more abundant. The Emperor had only a thatched hovel for his headquarters at Osterode, and, as he wrote to his brother Joseph, lived in snow and filth, without wine, brandy, or bread. "We shall be in fine condition when we get bread," he said to Soult. "My position would be fine if I had food; the lack of food makes it only moderate," he wrote, on February twenty-seventh, to Talleyrand. This was true, because now the army was more concentrated than before; and when headquarters were moved in the spring to Finkenstein the Emperor was more comfortable. The movements culminating in Pultusk clearly prove that Napoleon could not until then adapt his means to the novel conditions of warfare he found in Poland. But in the movements antecedent to Eylau there are, in spite of virtual defeat, a clear apprehension of the difficulties, and an evident ability to surmount them. While Bennigsen constantly assumes the offensive, Napoleon always seizes the initiative, and in the retreat his choice of the plateau around Osterode as a rallying-point displays a continued mastery of all the conditions.

Around the camp-fires there was, during the remaining months of winter, a passive endurance, mingled with some murmuring about the horrors caused by one man's ambition. The Emperor set his men an example of uncomplaining cheerfulness. His health continued as exuberant as it had been for the year past, and his activity, though no longer feverish, lost nothing of its intensity. Savary thought he outdid himself, accomplishing in one month what elsewhere would have been, even for him, the work of three. Mme. de Rémusat remembered to have heard him say that he felt better during those months than ever before or after. This vigor of body, combined with the same iron determination as of old, did indeed work miracles, and this in spite of the fact that his indefatigable secretary, Maret, was long at the point of death.

To remedy the blunder of having left Dantzic behind in the hands of the Prussians, Lefebvre was despatched with his new corps to beleaguer it. Savary drove the Russians from the Narew and out of Ostrolenka; Mortier threatened Stralsund and stopped the Swedes, who, as members of the coalition, were finally about to take an active share in the fighting. To strengthen the weakened ranks of the invaders, new levies were ordered in both Switzerland and Poland, while at the same time some of the soldiers occupying Silesia and besieging her fortresses were called in. Both Neisse and Glatz were still beset by French troops, but the siege of Kolberg was abandoned, and still further reinforcements thus became available. In the daily skirmishes which occurred at the outposts the fighting was sharp; but the Cossacks were as saucy as ever, and the French light horse could bring in little news. Meantime Russia's difficulties, of which Napoleon remained ignorant, kept her from reinforcing her army to the proper size. Her credit was so low that she could raise no money on her own account, and when she applied to England for a subsidy, it was refused. The Czar was consequently furious, and strained Russia's resources to the utmost; but he could give Bennigsen no more than enough funds and men to restore his original strength.

The arms of Russia had been fairly successful on the lower Danube, for the Turks had been paralyzed by an unforeseen danger. Great Britain had sent a fleet to Constantinople, and the Sultan, though he immediately declared war against England, was terrified. But Napoleon's emissary, Sebastiani, engaged the English admiral in negotiations until the shore batteries were sufficiently strengthened to compel the British fleet to retire. Filled by this success with new enthusiasm for his Eastern projects, the Emperor of the French devised and set on foot a scheme for