WHILE from every quarter ruin was, as we have seen, breaking in upon the Prussian monarchy, negotiations for peace were also carrying on, and with the degree of success which was to be expected from the gloomy character of the events by which they were occasioned. The Marquis de Luchessini, bearing proposals of peace, had already reached the French head-quarters on the 21st October, and as Napoleon refused to grant an armistice, entered immediately into negotiations with Duroc and Talleyrand for a final treaty.

The terms demanded by the conqueror were, that Prussia should relinquish all her provinces west of the Elbe, pay a contribution of a hundred millions of francs, and renounce for the future every right to interfere in the affairs of Germany. The negotiator, doubting how far he could accede to these severe demands, sent them to the king, who immediately accepted and returned them; and on the 27th they were already submitted to the emperor for his signature. But the events previously narrated were then passing between the Elbe and the Oder, and induced the victor to delay his final ratification in the hopes that additional success might furnish additional means of raising his terms, and when the catastrophes of Prentzlau and Passewalck, together with the rapid fall of so many fortresses, became known, he refused it altogether. He then declared "he had not yet determined on the manner of granting peace to Prussia, and that the duty which the general welfare imposed upon him-a duty far more binding on sovereigns than any merely written laws, absolved him altogether from his previous word." As no truce existed between the parties, Napoleon could find ample precedent for rising in his demands with the success of his arms. The unworthy cant about the "general welfare" will not so easily be defended

by the example of any one holding a high station in history.

The victory of Jena having been gained over new and untried foes, over soldiers who had still maintained a high military reputation, inspired greater enthusiasm in France than the battle of Austerlitz had done. A deputation of the senate was in consequence sent from Paris to congratulate the conqueror on his splendid achievements. In return for their address Napoleon communicated to them the decrees against England, known as the Berlin decrees, and presented them with the trophies taken during the campaign. But the gift, however splendid, was not gratuitous, for the victor demanded in return a levy of 80,000 men, to be raised on the conscription of 1807, that of 1806 being already exhausted. Blood, blood, and always blood, was the call of Napoleon, whose throne of power and greatness was only raised on the mangled bodies of slaughtered thousands. The submissive senate readily voted away the lives of their countrymen; but having in their address ventured, though in the humblest and most flattering terms possible, to express some desire for peace, it excited immediate displeasure. The slightest shadow of independence, of a free and manly thought, instantly gave umbrage to the idol of modern liberalism; and, accustomed to servile obedience, and not to counsel, Napoleon told the deputation "that they had very ill chosen the time to give him advice."

The victor having refused to grant terms to Prussia, it now became necessary to prepare for meeting the Russians advancing to the aid of their unfortunate allies. Nor was the task a difficult one, for the vast dominions at this time under the sway of the French emperor furnished ample means for opening the new campaign. Numerous reserves were drawn from France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and the states

of the Confederation, and forced levies of men were already raised in the usurped provinces of Hanover, Brunswick, and Cassel. Napoleon had by degrees assumed the strange right of elevating princes of minor rank to the dignity of kings. Whether the exercise of this novel prerogative helped to augment his power we cannot say; but it certainly did not tend to enhance the lustre of royalty. However this may be, the Elector of Saxony became one of the promoted; and having, along with the other sovereign princes of the house of Saxony, the Dukes of SaxeWeimar, Gotha, Meiningen, and Hildeburghausen, been admitted members of the Confederation of the Rhine, he was made King of Saxony, and his contingent of troops fixed at 22,000 men. It was only with the blood of the brave that the favours conferred by Napoleon were to be paid.

The French force ready to take the field amounted, according to the best authorities, to nearly 200,000 men, under the immediate command of the emperor. Besides these, a corps, under Jerome Bonaparte, was engaged in reducing the Silesian fortresses, and another, under Marshal Mortier, in observing Colberg and Swedish Pomerania, and in covering the rear of the army. The allies were far inferior in strength. Besides the troops that garrisoned Colberg, Dantzig, Graudenz, and a few minor posts, the Prussians had been able to bring only 15,000 men, the remnant of their splendid army, into the field; these were placed under the orders of General Lestocq, an officer, as the result proved, of great merit. General Benningsen was advancing with 53,000 Russians, and was followed by Count Buxhoveden with 38,000 more; while in the rear a small reserve was assembling under General Essen. The

Russian field-marshal Kaminski was named commander-in-chief of all these forces. The advantage of numbers, confidence, experience, were all, therefore, greatly on the side of Napoleon. Other causes seemed to tell still more decisively in his fa

vour.

The Prussian corps formed but a small portion of the troops destined to fight the battle of Prussian inde

pendence, and the defeats of Jena and Auerstadt obliged the Russian commanders to begin their campaign under the most unfavourable auspices. They had expected to avenge the defeat of Austerlitz by the side of the Prussians, and they now found that, instead of auxiliaries, they had become principals in the war. The idea that the Russian army was to be sacrificed for Prussia in a contest in which their country had little to gain, made a deep and unfavourable impression on the minds of the troops. This feeling was augmented by the knowledge that the losses sustained during the campaign of 1805 had not yet been replaced, and that great difficulty existed in forming and assembling soldiers in the vast dominions of the czar. It was evident that, notwithstanding the good-will of the Emperor Alexander and the bravery of the troops, reflections of this nature could hardly fail to weaken the bonds that linked the two armies together, and deprive them of much of that strength which they would have derived from a more perfect union of views and feelings. Prussia fought for her very existence; the negotiations for peace had shewn that she had nothing but the fate of arms to rest upon. Russia, on the contrary, fought only to support a nearly ruined ally.

The localities also were greatly against the allies, for the Poles only awaited the arrival of the French to rise in their favour. The country that became the theatre of war had no fortress, except the citadel of Graudenz, that could lend any support to the operations. Pillau and Dantzig were too distant to have any influence; the stores had therefore to be assembled in open towns, and often became the prey of the enemy. The Prussian levies and reinforcements came in but slowly, and in the Russian army discord ran so high that Field-marshal Kaminski, who was subject indeed to mental infirmities, was deposed by his own generals. As the parties could not afterwards agree about his successor, this extraordinary measure left the army for nearly three weeks without a general-in-chief, and, divided into two corps, was commanded by officers at variance with each other. It was

The enthusiasm of the people was at its height; the most extravagant acclamations of joy hailed the arrival of Murat's troops whenever they appeared; the slavery of years was forgotten in an instant. In the enemies of their oppressors the multitude beheld only liberators, and already, in their excited fancies, saw their country independent, and the light of freedom dispersing the heavy gloom which had so long overspread the land of their fathers. From far and near the voice of justice and patriotism claimed from the mighty victor the emancipation of a brave and chivalrous people so barbarously enchained. It was a deed reserved for the strong of hand and high of heart, and certain to obtain for him who achieved it the brightest garland ever gathered in glory's course. This garland was offered to Napoleon, but his dull eye saw it not; on no chord of that cold and ignoble

heart could honour and generosity strike with effect; to him power and dominion alone constituted greatness, and by following these idols he forfeited the most splendid opportunity of performing an act of true heroism ever offered to an individual in modern times.

That the emancipation of Poland would have been attended with difficulties may be readily granted, but they were not of a nature to have arrested Napoleon with the power he then possessed, had his heart been set upon the task. He must have conciliated Austria, and given her some compensation for the loss of her Gallician provinces, and the liberation of Poland must have made Russia a deeply interested principal in the war; but the events of the campaign proved that he could cope with the Russians, wanting even the mighty aid he would have derived from liberated Poland; and Austria,

however jealous and anxious to regain her former position in Europe, had been so much weakened by the events of 1805 that she would most likely have been satisfied with a reasonable equivalent. This, indeed, was offered; but the offer consisted of plundered property, the Silesian provinces of Prussia, which that power had not yet resigned, and which the Emperor Francis declined to receive on that account. Had the Dalmatian provinces, taken from Austria in 1805, been tendered, the difficulty would probably have been removed; but these belonged to Napoleon himself, and the enemy of freedom could make no individual sacrifice to the cause of national independence. He never even pressed himself distinctly on the subject of Poland, though he allowed his subordinates to issue proclamations, some bearing even the forged name of Kosciusko, calling on the people to join the French. In one of his bulletins the following ambiguous passage also appears: "Shall the Polish throne be re-established, and shall the Great Nation secure for it respect and independence? Shall

ex

she recall it to life from the grave? God only, who directs all human affairs, can solve this mystery."

It was at first the intention of the allies to defend the line of the Vistula, and Marshal Lannes had been defeated in an attempt to pass the river near Thorn, and to make himself master of that town; but unexplained circumstances led to a change of measures, and on the arrival of the French at Warsaw the Russians withdrew from Praga and the Prussians from Thorn, the orders being that both corps should unite behind the Narew. As the French, however, followed very slowly, General Benningsen, on the 8th of December, again directed the armies to advance and resume their former quarters, a movement that caused the French corps to be assembled and brought forward, with a view, no doubt, of striking an early and decisive blow at the Russians. The Bug and the Ukra were passed with slight opposition, the Russian detachments forced to give way; and on the 25th of December Marshal Lannes, with his own and part of Davoust's corps, appeared in front of Benningsen's

army, drawn up for battle, and having the village of Pultusk on their left and a small wood on their right. The number of men in position amounted to about 40,000. Fieldmarshal Kaminski, the commanderin-chief, who was already on the road to Ostrolenska, had given orders for the allied army to retire and fall back behind the Russian frontier; but a sudden thaw had set in and rendered the roads in that deep and loamy soil so difficult to pass, that Benningsen, thinking he could not continue his retrograde movement without sacrificing his artillery and heavy baggage, determined to halt on the 26th, even at the risk of being attacked.

He made judicious dispositions for the combat, and they were all needed, for though the French were inferior in numbers, Marshal Lannes not having more than 30,000 men with him, they were vastly superior in the daring and confidence resulting from success, and which made them count as nothing the numerical superiority of their adversaries.

The battle of Pultusk was fought on the 26th of December. Napoleon was not present in the action, but Lannes made the onset with all the gallantry for which he and his troops were distinguished. Their utmost efforts failed, however, against the firmness of the Russians, and after a sanguinary struggle, in which the marshal was himself wounded, night put an end to the combat. The French withdrew from the field, leaving the battle-ground and 700 prisoners in possession of the Russians. Feeble trophies on which to claim a victory that was followed by a retreat, commenced before the rising dawn could shew the conqueror what had become of their late adversaries. The Russians lost about 3000, the French about 5000 men in the action.

The only result of the battle of Pultusk was the safe and unmolested retreat it secured for the Russians; but a severe blow might have been struck at the French had not Marshal Kaminski's strange conduct prevented General Buxhovedon and Anrepp from joining Benningsen. They were already, at his request, in full march towards the battle-field; there was ample time to join the combat, when at ten o'clock in the

morning they received positive orders from the field-marshal "instantly to retire, as every thing was lost, and the whole army in retreat towards Novogorod." Not being exactly aware of the general-in-chief's state of mind, receiving no further intelligence from Benningsen, and hearing no firing in the direction of Pultusk, the action not having then commenced, they obeyed the commands delivered to them, and fell back accordingly. Fortune seemed really to take some strange pleasure in varying the modes of shewing favour to Napoleon. She had hitherto placed only weak and incapable men at the head of the armies against which he had to contend, she now gave him an opponent who was not only insane, but destitute even of the daring that often distinguishes absolute madness, for Kaminski never appeared before the enemy, and only gave orders to retire.

While the main army under Benningsen was fighting the battle of Pultusk, another division, under Prince Galitzen, consisting of 17,000 men only, was maintaining a more unequal combat at Golymin. Attacked by the corps of Murat and Augereau, aided by part of Davoust's, the Russians maintained their position the whole day, and only retired during the night after the French had withdrawn from the action and left them masters of the field. Both parties claimed the victory in these actions, which were attended with little advantage to either, though they no doubt tended to give the Russian troops confidence in themselves, and possibly also to hurry their leaders into the ill-concerted measures which soon afterwards followed.

These sanguinary and indecisive actions closed the campaign of 1806, and since the times when the disciplined armies of Greece and Rome overthrew in single battles and campaigns the mightiest thrones of the East, the world had never seen actions of war attended by such rapid and brilliant results; and the conquering troops, from the princely marshal down to the humblest soldier, might also be excused if they deemed themselves invincible in arms, the chosen people of Mars, and believed that victory was chained to

their standard by the magic power of their leader. But a leader who claimed to be great, who wished to be looked upon as the "man of destiny," ought not to have been so deceived; he should have seen the vast aid he derived from Fortune, should have known that she was a woman and capricious. The lastnamed actions should have checked his pride, and suggested the question, Whence had arisen such splendid results with little loss at the opening of the campaign, and the heavy losses without results at its very close? A fair answer to this simple question might still have set bounds to that overweening vanity yet destined to strew whole empires with the bones of slaughtered armies, and to send him a discrowned captive to a barren rock of the ocean.

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Napoleon, having placed the troops in what were deemed permanent winter-quarters, retired with his guards to Warsaw. A tenth corps, composed of German auxiliaries and newly raised Poles, was assembling under the orders of Marshal Le Fevre, and was intended to undertake the siege of Dantzig; but no one expected that the operations in the field were to be resumed, when on the 24th January information arrived that the Russians were again in full march to assume the offensive.

At a meeting of the Russian generals held at Novogorod, on the 2d of January, and which resembled a meeting of the captains of free-bands of the olden time far more than any known to the officers of disciplined armies, it had been resolved that Field-marshal Kaminski should be removed from the command. But as those who took upon themselves the exercise of this act of sovereignty could not agree about a successor to the deposed general, the army remained for a time in the face of the enemy without a commander, the regular rule of seniority being either not known or acknowledged in the Russian service. The French were probably ignorant of the advantage the circumstance would have given them, and on the 18th General Benningsen received the appointment of commander-in chief. As he was not the senior general present with the army, it is believed that the so-called victory of Pultusk proved his prin