The disaster at Austerlitz affected the Emperors Francis and Alexander very differently, Alexander was deeply dejected; but Francis was tranquil. Under the common misfortune, he had at least the consolation, that the Russians could no longer allege that the cowardice of the Austrians constituted all the glory of Napoleon. The two emperors retreated precipitately over the plain of Moravia, amidst profound darkness, separated from their household, and liable to be insulted through the barbarity of their own soldiers. Francis took it upon himself to send their gallant Prince John of LichtensteinLichtenstein to Napoleon, to solicit an armistice, with a promise to sign a peace in a few days. He commissioned him, also, to express to Napoleon, his wish to have an interview with him at the advanced posts of the army. The French Emperor, having returned to his head-quarters at Posoritz, there received Prince John. He treated him as a conqueror full of courtesy, and agreed to an interview with the Emperor of Austria. But an armistice was not to be granted until the Emperors had met and explained themselves.

Napoleon hastened to recall his columns to Nasiedlowitz and Goding. Marshal Davoust, reinforced by the junction of Friant’s whole division, and by the arrival in line of Gudin’s division, had lost no time, thanks to his nearer position to the Hungary road. He set out in pursuit of the Russians, and pressed them closely. He intended to overtake them before the passage of the Morava, and to cut off perhaps a part of their army. After marching on the 3d, he was, on the morning of the 4th, in sight of Goding and nearly up with them. The greatest confusion prevailed in Goding. Beyond that place there was a mansion belonging to the Emperor of Germany, that of Holitsch, where the two allied sovereigns had taken refuge. The perturbation there was as great as at Goding. The Russian officers continued to hold the most unbecoming language respecting the Austrians. They laid the blame of the common defeat on them, as if they ought not to have attributed it to their own presumption, to the incapacity of their generals, and to the levity of their government. The Austrians, moreover, had behaved quite as well as the Russians on the field of battle.

The two vanquished monarchs were very cool towards each other. The Emperor Francis wished to confer with the Emperor Alexander, before he went to the interview agreed upon with Napoleon. Both thought that they ought to solicit an armistice and peace, for it was impossible to continue the struggle. Alexander was desirous, though he did not acknowledge it, that himself and his army should be saved as soon as possible from the consequences of an impetuous pursuit, such as might be apprehended from Napoleon. As for the conditions, he left his ally to settle them as he pleased. The Emperor Francis alone having to defray the expenses of the war, the conditions on which peace should be signed concerned him exclusively. Some time before, the Emperor Alexander, setting himself up for the arbiter of Europe, would have insisted that those conditions concerned him also. His pride was less exigent since the battle of the 2d of December.

The Emperor Francis accordingly set out for Nasiedlowitz, a village and there, near the mill of Paleny, between Nasiedlowitz and Urschitz, amidst the French and the Austrian advanced posts, he found Napoleon waiting for him, before a bivouac fire kindled by his soldiers. Napoleon had had the politeness to arrive first. He went to meet the Emperor Francis, received him as he alighted from his carriage and embraced him. The Austrian monarch, encouraged by the welcome of his all-powerful foe, had a long conversation with him. The principal officers of the two armies, standing aside, beheld with great curiosity the extraordinary spectacle of the successor of the CÆsars vanquished and soliciting peace of the crowned soldier, whom the French Revolution had raised to the pinnacle of human greatness.

Francis wore the brilliant costume of an Austrian field-marshal, and was a monarch of dignified aspect.

Napoleon apologized to the Emperor Francis for receiving him in such a place. “Such are the palaces,” said he, “which your majesty has obliged me to inhabit for these three months.”—“The abode in them,” replied the Austrian monarch, “makes you so thriving, that you have no right to be angry with me for it.” The conversation then turned upon the general state of affairs, Napoleon insisting that he had been forced into the war against his will at a moment when he least expected it, and when he was exclusively engaged with England; the Emperor of Austria affirming that he had been urged to take arms solely by the designs of France in regard to Italy. Napoleon declared that, on the conditions already specified to M. de Giulay, and which he had no need to repeat, he was ready to sign a peace. The Emperor Francis, without explaining himself on this subject, wished to know how Napoleon was disposed in regard to the Russian army. Napoleon first required that the Emperor Francis should separate his cause from that of the Emperor Alexander, and that the Russian army should retire by regulated marches from the Austrian territories, and promised to grant him an armistice on this condition. As for peace with Russia, he added, that would be settled afterwards, for this peace concerned him alone. “Take my advice,” said Napoleon to the Emperor Francis, “do not mix up your cause with that of the Emperor Alexander. Russia alone can now wage only a fancy war in Europe. Vanquished, she retires to her deserts, and you, you pay with your provinces the costs of the war.” The forcible language of Napoleon expressed but too well the state of things in Europe between that great empire and the rest of the continent. The Emperor Francis pledged his word as a man and a sovereign not to renew the war, and above all to listen no more to the suggestions of powers which had nothing to lose in the struggle. He agreed to an armistice for himself—and for the Emperor Alexander, an armistice, the condition of which was that the Russians should retire by regulated marches—and that the Austrian cabinet should immediately send negotiators empowered to sign a separate peace with France.

The two emperors parted with reiterated demonstrations of cordiality. Napoleon handed into his carriage that monarch whom he had just called his brother, and remounted his horse to return to Austerlitz.

General Savary was sent to suspend the march of Davoust’s corps. He first proceeded to Holitsch, with the suite of the Emperor Francis, to learn whether the Emperor Alexander acceded to the proposed conditions. He saw the latter, around whom every thing was much changed since the mission on which he was sent to him a few days before. “Your master,” said Alexander to him, “has shown himself very great. I acknowledge all the power of his genius, and, as for myself, I shall retire, since my ally is satisfied.” General Savary conversed for some time with the young czar on the late battle, explained to him how the French army, inferior in number to the Russian army, had nevertheless appeared superior on all points, owing to the art of manoeuvring which Napoleon possessed in so eminent a degree. He courteously added that with experience Alexander, in his turn, would become a warrior, but that so difficult an art was not to be learned in a day. After these flatteries to the vanquished monarch, he set out for Goding to stop Marshal Davoust, who had rejected all the proposals for a suspension of arms, and was ready to attack the relics of the Russian army. To no purpose he had been assured in the name of the Emperor of Russia himself that an armistice was negotiating between Napoleon and the Emperor of Austria. He would not on any account abandon his prey. But General Savary stopped him with a formal order from Napoleon. These were the last musket-shots fired during that unexampled campaign. The troops of the several nations separated to go into winter-quarters, awaiting what should be decided by the negotiators of the belligerent powers.