After the bloody struggle of Eylau, in which thirty thousand men were placed hors de combat, the Russians seemed desirous of avoiding a conflict until they had received large reinforcements. In the mean time, Napoleon collected about two hundred thousand men between the Vistula, and the Memel, besieged and captured Dantzic, and was again in a condition to strike a tremendous blow at the inferior forces of the enemy. Early in June, 1807, the Russian general, Bennigsen, made the first offensive movement. The division of Marshal Ney, stationed at Gustadt, was attacked by a superior force, and that intrepid officer retreated, fighting, as far as Deppen. But on the 8th of June, Napoleon moved forward to extricate his lieutenant, and the Russians then fell back upon Heilsberg. There a desperate action occurred, in which both armies suffered terribly. The Russians were compelled to retreat, but they retired unmolested. On the 13th, Bennigsen approached the town of Friedland, situated on the west bank of the Alle, communicating with the eastern bank by long wooden bridges. Here the decisive battle of the next day was fought.

The course of the Alle, near the spot where the two armies were about to meet, exhibits numerous windings. The French came up by the woody hills, beyond which the ground gradually sinks to the banks of the Alle. The ground at this season was covered with rye of great height. To the right of the French, the river was seen pursuing its way through the plain, then turning round Friedland, coming to the left, thus forming an elbow. At daybreak on the morning of the 14th, Lannes, who commanded the advanced division of the French army, reached Posthenen, whence he could see the Russians marching across the bridges to deploy into the plain, and drawing up in a line of battle facing the heights. A rivulet, called the Mill Stream, there formed a small pond, after dividing the plain into two unequal halves. Bennigsen imagined that he had to contend with but one division of the French army, and, for the time, he had this advantage. But the whole force under Napoleon’s immediate command was coming up to support the gallant Lannes, and by crossing the bridges, the Russian general fairly placed himself in the power of the Emperor. For this Napoleon had manoeuvred several days, and he now saw that the victory would be one of that complete, decisive kind he loved.

Marshal Lannes, in his haste to march, had brought with him only Oudinot’s voltigeurs and grenadiers, the 9th hussars, Grouchy’s dragoons, and two regiments of Saxon cavalry. He could not oppose more than ten thousand men to the enemy’s advanced guard, which, successively reinforced, was treble that number, and was soon to be followed by the whole Russian army. Fortunately for the French, the soil afforded numerous resources to the skill and courage of their illustrious marshal. In the centre of the position which it was necessary to occupy, in order to bar the way against the Russians, was a village, that of Posthenen, through which ran the Mill Stream to pursue its course to Friedland. Somewhat in rear rose a plateau, from which the plain of the Alle might be battered. Lannes placed his artillery there, and several battalions of grenadiers to protect it. On the right, a thick wood, that of Sortlack, protruded in a salient, and divided into two the space comprised between the village of Posthenen and the banks of the Alle. There Lannes posted two battalions of voltigeurs, which, dispersed as tirailleurs, would be able to stop for a long time troops not numerous and not very resolute. The 9th hussars, Grouchy’s dragoons, the Saxon cavalry, amounted to three thousand horse, ready to fall upon any column which should attempt to penetrate that curtain of tirailleurs. On the left of Posthenen, the line of woody heights extended, gradually lowering in the village of Heinrichsdorf, through which ran the high road from Friedland to Konigsberg. This point was of great importance, for the Russians, desirous to reach Konigsberg, would, of course, obstinately dispute the road thither. Besides, this part of the field of battle being more open, was naturally more difficult to defend. Lannes, who had not yet troops sufficient to establish himself there, had placed on his left, taking advantage of the woods and heights, the rest of his battalions, thus approaching the houses of Heinrichsdorf without being able to occupy them.

The fire, commenced at three in the morning, became all at once extremely brisk. The artillery, placed on the plateau of Posthenen, under the protection of Oudinot’s grenadiers, kept the Russians at a distance, and made considerable havoc among them. On the right, the voltigeurs, scattered on the skirt of the wood of Sortlack, stopped their infantry by an incessant tirailleur fire, and the Saxon horse, directed by General Grouchy, had made several unsuccessful charges against their cavalry. The Russians having become threatening towards Heinrichsdorf, General Grouchy, moving from the right to the left, galloped thither, to dispute with them the Konigsberg road, the important point for the possession of which torrents of blood were about to be spilt.

Though, in these first moments, Marshal Lannes had but ten thousand men to oppose twenty-five or thirty thousand, he maintained his ground, thanks to great skill and energy, and also to the able concurrence of General Oudinot, commanding the grenadiers, and of General Grouchy, commanding the cavalry. But the enemy reinforced himself from hour to hour, and General Bennigsen, on arriving at Friedland, had suddenly formed the resolution to give battle—a very rash resolution, for it would have been much wiser for him to have continued to descend the Alle to the junction of that river with the Pregel, and to take a position behind the latter, with his left to Wehlau, his right to KonigsbergKonigsberg. It would have taken him, it is true, another day to reach Konigsberg; but he would not have risked a battle against an army superior in number, in quality, better officered, and in a very unfavorable situation for him, since he had a river at his back, and he was very likely to be pushed into the elbow of the Alle, with all that vigor of impulsion of which the French army was capable.

He lost no time in having three bridges thrown over the Alle, one above and two below Friedland, in order to accelerate the passage of his troops, and also to furnish them with means of retreat. He lined with artillery the right bank, by which he arrived, and which commanded the left bank. Then, nearly his whole army having debouched, he disposed it in the following manner:—In the plain around Heinrichsdorf, on the right for him, on the left for the French, he placed four divisions of infantry, under Lieutenant-General Gortschakoff, and the better part of the cavalry under General Ouwarroff. The infantry was formed in two lines. In the first were two battalions of each regiment deployed, and a third drawn up in close column behind the two others, closing the interval which separated them. In the second, the field of battle gradually narrowing the further it extended into the angle of the Alle, a single battalion was deployed and two were formed in close column. The cavalry, ranged on the side and a little in advance, flanked the infantry. On the left (the right of the French,) two Russian divisions, of which the imperial guard formed part, increased by all the detachments of chasseurs, occupied the portion of the ground comprised between the Mill Stream and the Alle. They were drawn up in two lines, but very near each other, on account of the want of room. Prince Bagration commanded them. The cavalry of the guard was there, under General Kollogribow. Four flying bridges had been thrown across the Mill Stream, that it might interrupt the communications between the two wings as little as possible. The fourth Russian division had been left on the other side of the Alle, on the ground commanding the left bank, to collect the army in case of disaster or to come and decide the victory, if it obtained any commencement of success. The Russians had more than two hundred pieces of cannon upon their front, besides those which were either in reserve or in battery on the right bank. Their army, reduced to eighty or eighty-two thousand men after Heilsberg, separated at this time from Kamenski’s corps and from some detachments sent to Wehlau to guard the bridges of the Alle, still amounted to seventy-two or seventy-five thousand men. General Bennigsen caused the mass of the Russian army to be moved forward in the order just described, so that, on getting out of the elbow of the Alle, it might deploy, extend its fires, and avail itself of the advantages of number which it possessed at the beginning of the battle.

The situation of Lannes was perilous, for he had the whole Russian army upon his hands. Fortunately, the time which had elapsed had procured him some reinforcements. General Nansouty’s division of heavy cavalry, composed of three thousand five hundred cuirassiers and carbineers, Dupas’s division, which was the first of Mortier’s corps, and numbered six thousand foot soldiers, lastly, Verdier’s division, which contained seven thousand, and was the second of Lannes’s corps, marched off successively, had come with all possible expedition. It was a force of twenty-six or twenty-seven thousand men, to fight seventy-five thousand. It was seven in the morning, and the Russians, preceded by a swarm of Cossacks, advanced towards Heinrichsdorf, where they already had infantry and cannon. Lannes, appreciating the importance of that post, sent thither the brigade of Albert’s grenadiers, and ordered General Grouchy to secure possession of it at any cost. General Grouchy, who had been reinforced by the cuirassiers, proceeded immediately to the village. Without stopping to consider the difficulty, he dispatched the brigade of Milet’s dragoons to attack Heinrichsdorf, while Carrie’s brigade turned the village, and the cuirassiers marched to support this movement. Milet’s brigade passed through Heinrichsdorf at a gallop, drove out the Russian foot-soldiers at the point of the sword, while Carrie’s brigade, going round it, took or dispersed those who had saved themselves by flight. Four pieces of cannon were taken. At this moment, the enemy’s cavalry, coming to the assistance of the infantry, expelled from Heinrichsdorf, rushed upon the dragoons and drove them back. But Nansouty’s cuirassiers charged it in their turn, and threw it upon the Russian infantry, which in this fray was obliged to withhold its fire.

During these occurrences, Dupas’s division entered into line. Marshal Mortier, whose horse was killed by a cannon-ball, the moment he appeared on the field of battle, placed that division between Heinrichsdorf and Posthenen, and opened on the Russians a fire of artillery which, poured upon deep masses, made prodigious havoc in their ranks. The arrival of Dupas’s division rendered disposable those battalions of grenadiers which had at first been drawn up to the left of Posthenen. Lannes drew them nearer to him, and could oppose their closer ranks to the attacks of the Russians, either before Posthenen or before the wood of Sortlack. General Oudinot, who commanded them, taking advantage of all the accidents of ground, sometimes from clumps of wood scattered here and there, sometimes from pools of water, produced by the rains of the preceding days, sometimes from above the corn, disputed the ground with equal skill and energy. By turns he hid or exhibited his soldiers, dispersed them as tirailleurs, or exposed them in a mass, bristling with bayonets, to all the efforts of the Russians. Those brave grenadiers, notwithstanding their inferiority in number, kept up the fight, supported by their general, when, luckily for them, Verdier’s division arrived. Marshal Lannes divided it into two movable columns, to be sent alternately to the right, to the centre, to the left, wherever the danger was most pressing. It was the skirt of the wood of Sortlack and the village of the same name, situated on the Alle, that were the most furiously disputed. In the end, the French remained masters of the village, the Russians of the skirts of the wood.

Lannes was enabled to prolong till noon this conflict of twenty-six thousand men against seventy-five thousand. But it was high time for Napoleon to arrive with the rest of his army. Lannes, anxious to apprize him of what was passing, had sent to him almost all his aides-de-camp, one after another, ordering them to get back to him without loss of time, if they killed their horses. They found him coming at a gallop to Friedland, and full of a joy that was expressed in his countenance. “This is the 14th of June,” he repeated to those whom he met; “it is the anniversary of Marengo; it is a lucky day for us!” Napoleon, outstripping his troops through the speed of his horse, had successively passed the long files of the guard, of Ney’s corps, of Bernadotte’s corps, all marching for Posthenen. He had saluted in passing, Dupont’s fine division, which from Ulm to Braunsberg, had never ceased to distinguish itself, though never in his presence, and he had declared that it would give him great pleasure to see it fight for once.

The presence of Napoleon at Posthenen fired his soldiers and his generals with fresh ardor. Lannes, Mortier, Oudinot, who had been there since morning, and Ney, who had just arrived, surrounded him with the most lively joy. The brave Oudinot hastening up with his coat perforated by balls, and his horse covered with blood, exclaimed to the Emperor: “Make haste, Sire, my grenadiers are knocked up; but, give me a reinforcement, and I will drive all the Russians into the water.” Napoleon, surveying with his glass the plain, where the Russians, backed in the elbow of the Alle, were endeavoring in vain to deploy, soon appreciated their perilous situation and the unique occasion offered him by Fortune, swayed, it must be confessed, by his genius; for the fault which the Russian army were committing had been inspired, as it were, by him, when he pushed them from the other side of the Alle, and thus forced them to pass in before him, in going to the relief of Konigsberg. The day was far advanced, and it would take several hours to collect all the French troops. Some of Napoleon’s lieutenants were, therefore, of opinion that they ought to defer fighting a decisive battle till the morrow. “No, no,” replied Napoleon, “one does not catch an enemy twice in such a scrape.” He immediately made his dispositions for the attack. They were worthy of his marvellous perspicacity.

To drive the Russians into the Alle was the aim which every individual, down to the meanest soldier, assigned to the battle. But how to set about it, how to ensure that result, and how to render it as great as possible, was the question. At the farthest extremity of the elbow of the Alle, in which the Russian army was engulphed, there was a decisive point to occupy, namely, the little point of Friedland itself, situated on the right, between the Mill Stream and the Alle. There were the four bridges, the sole retreat of the Russian army, and Napoleon purposed to direct his utmost efforts against that point. He destined for Ney’s corps the difficult and glorious task of plunging into that gulf, of carrying Friedland at any cost, in spite of the desperate resistance which it would not fail to make, of wresting the bridges from them, and thus barring against them the only way of safety. But at the same time he resolved, while acting vigorously on his right, to suspend all efforts on his left, to amuse the Russian army on that side with a feigned fight, and not to push it briskly on the left till, the bridges being taken on the right, he should be sure, by pushing it, to fling it into a receptacle without an outlet.

Surrounded by his lieutenants, he explained to them, with that energy and that precision of language which were usual with him, the part which each of them had to act in that battle. Grasping the arm of Marshal Ney, and pointing to Friedland, the bridges, the Russians crowded together in front, “Yonder is the goal,” said he; “march to it without looking about you: break into that thick mass whatever it costs you; enter Friedland, take the bridges, and give yourself no concern about what may happen on your right, on your left, or on your rear. The army and I shall be there to attend to that.” Ney, boiling with ardor, proud of the formidable task assigned to him, set out at a gallop to arrange his troops before the wood of Sortlack. Struck with his martial attitude, Napoleon, addressing Marshal Mortier, said, “That man is a lion!”

On the same ground, Napoleon had his dispositions writtenwritten down from his dictation, that each of his generals might have them bodily present to his mind, and not be liable to deviate from them. He ranged, then, Marshal Ney’s corps on the right, so that Lannes, bringing back Verdier’s division upon Posthenen, could present two strong lines with that and the grenadiers. He placed Bernadotte’s corps (temporarily Victor’s) between Ney and Lannes, a little in advance of Posthenen, and partly hidden by the inequalities of the ground. Dupont’s fine division formed the head of this corps. On the plateau, behind Posthenen, Napoleon established the imperial guard, the infantry in three close columns, the cavalry in two lines. Between Posthenen and Henrichsdorf was the corps of Marshal Mortier, posted as in the morning, but more concentrated and augmented by the young fusiliers of the imperial guard. A battalion of the 4th light infantry, and the regiment of the municipal guard of Paris, had taken the place of the grenadiers of the Albert brigade in Heinrichsdorf. Dumbrowski’s Polish division had joined Dupas’s division, and guarded the artillery. Napoleon left to General Grouchy the duty of which he had already so ably acquitted himself, that of defending the plain of Heinrichsdorf. To the dragoons and the cuirassiers commanded by that general he added the light cavalry of Generals Beaumont and Colbert, to assist him to rid himself of the Cossacks. Lastly, having two more divisions of dragoons to dispose of, he placed that of General Latour Maubourg, reinforced by the Dutch cuirassiers, behind the corps of Marshal Ney, and that of General La Houssaye, reinforced by the Saxon cuirassiers, behind Victor’s corps. The French in this imposing order amounted to no fewer than eighty thousand men. The order was repeated to the left not to advance, but merely to keep back the Russians till the success of the right was decided. Napoleon required that before the troops recommenced firing, they should wait for the signal from a battery of twenty pieces of cannon placed above Posthenen.

The Russian general, struck by this deployment, discovered the mistake which he had committed in supposing that he had to do with but the single corps of Marshal Lannes; he was surprised, and naturally hesitated. His hesitation had produced a sort of slackening in the action. Scarcely did occasional discharges of artillery indicate the continuance of the battle. Napoleon, who desired that all his troops should have got into line, rested for at least an hour, and being abundantly supplied with ammunition, was in no hurry to begin, and resisted the impatience of his generals, well knowing that, at this season, in this country, it was light till ten in the evening, he should have time to subject the Russian army to the disaster that he was preparing for it. At length, the fit moment appeared to him to have arrived, he gave the signal. The twenty pieces of cannon of the battery of Posthenen fired at once; the artillery of the army answered them along the whole line; and at this impatiently awaited signal, Marshal Ney moved off his corps d’armee.

From the wood of Sortlack issued Marchand’s division, advancing the first to the right, Bisson’s division the second to the left. Both were preceded by a storm of tirailleurs, who, as they approached the enemy, fell back and returned into the ranks. These troops marched resolutely up to the Russians, and took from them the village of Sortlack, so long disputed. Their cavalry, in order to stop the offensive movement, made a charge on Marchand’s division. But Latour Maubourg’s dragoons and the Dutch cuirassiers, passing through the intervals of the battalions, charged that cavalry in their turn, drove it back upon its infantry, and, pushing the Russians against the Alle, precipitated a great number into the deeply embanked bed of that river. Some saved themselves by swimming; many were drowned. His right once appuyed on the Alle, Marshal Ney slackened his march, and pushed forward his left, formed by Bisson’s division, in such a manner as to thrust back the Russians into the narrow space comprised between the Mill Stream and the Alle. When arrived at this point, the fire of the enemy’s artillery redoubled. The French had to sustain not only the fire of the batteries in front, but also the fire of those on the right bank of the Alle; and it was impossible to get rid of the latter by taking them, as they were separated from them by the deep bed of the river. The columns, battered at once in front and flank by the balls, endured with admirable coolness this terrible convergence of fires. Marshal Ney, galloping from one end of the line to the other, kept up the courage of his soldiers by his heroic bearing. Meanwhile, whole files were swept away, and the fire became so severe that the very bravest of the troops could no longer endure it. At this sight, the cavalry of the Russian guard, commanded by General Kollogribow, dashed off at a gallop, to try to throw into disorder the infantry of Bisson’s division, which appeared to waver. Staggered for the first time, that valiant infantry gave ground, and two or three battalions threw themselves in rear. General Bisson, who, from his stature, overlooked the lines of his soldiers, strove in vain to detain them. They retired, grouping themselves around their officers. The situation soon became most critical. Luckily, General Dupont, placed at some distance on the left of Ney’s corps, perceived this commencement of disorder, and without waiting for directions to march, moved off his division, passing in front of it, reminding it of Ulm, Dirnstein and Halle, and taking it to encounter the Russians. It advanced, in the finest attitude, under the fire of that tremendous artillery, while Latour Maubourg’s dragoons, returning to the charge, fell upon the Russian cavalry, which had scattered in pursuit of the foot soldiers, and succeeded in the attempt to drive it back. Dupont’s division, continuing its movement on that open ground, and, supporting its left on the Mill Stream, brought the Russian infantry at a stand. By its presence it filled Ney’s soldiers with confidence and joy. Bisson’s battalions formed anew, and the whole line, re-invigorated, began to march forward again. It was necessary to reply to the formidable artillery of the enemy, and Ney’s artillery was so very inferior in number, that it could scarcely stand in battery before that of the Russians. Napoleon ordered General Victor to collect all the guns of his division, and to range them in mass on the front of Ney. The skilful and intrepid General Senarmont commanded that artillery. He moved it off at full trot, joined it to that of Marshal Ney, took it some hundred paces ahead of the infantry, and, daringly placing himself in front of the Russians, opened upon them a fire, terrible from the number of the pieces and the accuracy of aim. Directing one of his batteries against the right bank, he soon silenced those which the enemy had on that side. Then, pushing forward his line of artillery, he gradually approached to within grape-shot range, and, firing upon the deep masses, crowding together as they fell back into the elbow of the Alle, he made frightful havoc among them. The line of infantry followed this movement, and advanced under the protection of General Senarmont’s numerous guns. The Russians, thrust further and further back into this gulf, felt a sort of despair, and made an effort to extricate themselves. Their imperial guard, placed upon the Mill Stream, issued from that retreat, and marched, with bayonet fixed, upon Dupont’s division, also placed along the rivulet. The latter, without waiting for the imperial guard, went to meet it, repulsed it with the bayonet, and forced it back to the ravine. Thus driven, some of the Russians threw themselves beyond the ravine, the others upon the suburbs of Friedland. General Dupont, with part of his division, crossed the Mill Stream, drove before him all that he met, found himself on the rear of the right wing of the Russians engaged with the left in the plain of Heinrichsdorf, turned Friedland, and attacked it by the Konigsberg road; while Ney, continuing to march straight forward, entered by the Eylau road. A terrible conflict ensued at the gates of the town. The assailants pressed the Russians in all quarters; they forced their way into the street in pursuit of them; they drove them upon the bridges of the Alle, which General Senarmont’s artillery, left outside, enfiladed with its shot. The Russians crowded upon the bridges to seek refuge in the ranks of the fourteenth division, left, in reserve, on the other side of the Alle, by General Bennigsen. That unfortunate general, full of grief, had hurried to this division, with the intention of taking it to the bank of the river to the assistance of his endangered army. Scarcely had some wrecks of his left wing passed the bridges, when those bridges were destroyed—set on fire by the French, and, by the Russians themselves, in their anxiety to stop pursuit. Ney and Dupont, having performed their task, met in the heart of Friedland in flames, and congratulated one another on this glorious success.

Napoleon, placed in the centre of the divisions which he kept in reserve, had never ceased to watch this grand sight. While he was contemplating it attentively, a ball passed at the height of the bayonets, and a soldier, from an instinctive movement, stooped his head. “If that ball was intended for you,” said Napoleon, smiling, “though you were to burrow a hundred feet under ground, it would be sure to find you there.” Thus he wished to give currency to that useful belief that Fate strikes the brave and the coward without distinction, and that the coward who seeks a hiding-place disgraces himself to no purpose.

On seeing that Friedland was occupied and the bridges of the Alle destroyed, Napoleon at length pushed forward his left upon the right wing of the Russian army, deprived of all means of retreat, and having behind it a river without bridges. General Gortschakoff, who commanded that wing, perceived the danger with which he was threatened, and, thinking to dispel the storm, made an attack on the French line, extending from Posthenen to Heinrichsdorf, formed by the corps of Marshal Lannes, by that of Mortier, and by General Grouchy’s cavalry. But Lannes, with his grenadiers, made head against the Russians. Marshal Mortier, with the 15th and the fusiliers of the guard, opposed to them an iron barrier. Mortier’s artillery, in particular, directed by Colonel Balbois and an excellent Dutch officer, M. Vanbriennen, made incalculable havoc among them. At length, Napoleon, anxious to take advantage of the rest of the day, carried forward his whole line. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, started all at once. General Gortschakoff, while he found himself thus pressed, was informed that Friedland was in the possession of the French. In hopes of retaking it, he dispatched a column of infantry to the gates of the town. That column penetrated into it, and for a moment drove back Dupont’s and Ney’s soldiers; but these repulsed in their turn the Russian column. A new fight took place in that unfortunate town, and the possession of it was disputed by the light of the flames that were consuming it. The French finally remained masters, and drove Gortschakoff’s corps into that plain without thoroughfare which had served it for field of battle. Gortschakoff’s infantry defended itself with intrepidity, and threw itself into the Alle rather than surrender. Part of the Russian soldiers were fortunate enough to find fordable passages, and contrived to escape. Another drowned itself in the river. The whole of the artillery was captured. A column, the furthest on the right (right of the Russians) fled and descended the Alle, under General Lambert, with a portion of the cavalry. The darkness of the night and the disorder of victory facilitated its retreat, and enabled it to escape.

It was half-past ten at night. The victory was complete on the right and on the left. Napoleon, in his vast career, had not gained a more splendid one. He had for trophies eighty pieces of cannon, few prisoners, it is true, for the Russians chose rather to drown themselves, than to surrender, but twenty-five thousand men, killed, wounded, or drowned, covered with their bodies both banks of the Alle. The right bank, to which great numbers of them had dragged themselves, exhibited almost as frightful a scene of carnage as the left bank. Several columns of fire, rising from Friedland and the neighboring villages, threw a sinister light over that place, a theatre of anguish for some, of joy for others. The French had to regret upwards of eight thousand men, killed or wounded. The Russian army, deprived of twenty-five thousand combatants, weakened, moreover, by a great number of men who had lost their way, was thenceforward incapable of keeping the field.

The French Emperor slept near the camp-fire, surrounded by his soldiers, who continued to shout “Vive l’Empereur!” They had eaten nothing but a ration of bread, which they had carried in their knapsacks, during their hurried march. But their souls had drunk deeply of the intoxicating nectar of glory, and they felt not the pang of hunger. The night was clear and beautiful. The Russians were not pursued. If Napoleon had had his entire cavalry, with Murat at their head, he could have captured the whole force which, under command of General Lambert, descended the Alle. But only half the cavalry were with the army, and the Russians were left to escape as speedily as possible.

Friedland was a decisive field. Konigsberg surrendered soon afterwards; and the Russians were pursued till they took refuge beyond the Niemen. Here ended that daring march of the French Emperor—the new Alexander—from Boulogne to the Niemen, to crush the only power which could offer any effectual resistance to his arms. In the transport of triumph, the Emperor issued the following noble proclamation to his soldiers:

Then followed the interview of Napoleon and Alexander upon the Niemen, and the treaty of Tilsit, by which the two emperors parcelled out Europe as if it were their own. The star of Napoleon had reached its zenith, and truly its lustre dazzled the eyes of the world.