The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot Part 15

In effect, at this time, Prussian captains were the owners of their company or squadron: men, horses, arms and clothing all belonged to them and the whole unit was hired out to the government for a fixed fee. Obviously, since all losses fell to their account, the captains had a great interest in sparing their companies, not only on the march but on the field of battle. As the number of men they were obliged to have was fixed and there was no conscription, they enrolled for money, first any Prussians who came forward, and then all the vagabonds of Europe, whom their recruiters enlisted in neighbouring states. But this was not enough, and the Prussian recruiters pressed many men into service, who having become soldiers against their will, were compelled to serve until they were too old to bear arms; then they were given a permit to beg, for Prussia could not afford to provide a home for old soldiers or a retirement pension. For the duration of their service these men had to be mixed with true Prussians, who had to const.i.tute at least half of each company to prevent mutiny.

To maintain an army composed of such heterogeneous parts required an iron discipline; so the least fault was punished by beating. A large number of N.C.O.s, all of them Prussian, carried canes which they made use of frequently, and according to the current expression there was a cane for every seven men. The penalty for desertion by a foreign soldier was inevitably death. You can imagine the frightful position of these foreigners, who having enlisted in a moment of drunkenness, or been taken by force, found themselves far from their native land, under a glacial sky, condemned to be Prussian soldiers, that is slaves, for the rest of their lives! And what a life it was!

Given scarcely enough to eat. Sleeping on straw. Thinly clad. Without greatcoats, even in the coldest winter, and paid a sum insufficient for their needs; they did not wait to beg until they had been given a permit on their discharge, for when they were not under the eyes of their superiors, they held out their hands, and there were several occasions both at Potsdam and Berlin when Grenadiers, even those at the palace gate, begged me for alms!

The Prussian-born officers were, in general, educated men, who performed their duties very well; but half of the officers, born outside the kingdom, were poor gentlemen from almost every country in Europe who had joined the army only to have a living, and lacking patriotism, were in no way devoted to Prussia, which the majority abandoned when there was any adversity. Finally, as promotion was only by length of service, the great majority of senior Prussian officers were old and infirm, and in no state to support the fatigues of war. It was an army thus composed and commanded which was to confront the victors of Italy, Egypt, Germany and Austerlitz. This was folly. But the cabinet in Berlin, recalling the victories which Frederick the Great had won with mercenary troops, hoped things would be the same. They forgot that times had changed.

On the 6th of October Marshal Augereau and 7th Corps left Frankfurt to head, with the rest of the Grande Armee, for the frontiers of Saxony, already occupied by the Prussians. The autumn was superb; it froze a little during the night, but by day there was brilliant suns.h.i.+ne. My little troupe was well organised; I had a good batman, Francois Woirland, a former soldier in the black legion, a real rascal and a great scrounger, but these are the best servants on a campaign, for with one of them one lacks for nothing. I had three excellent horses, good weapons, a little money and good health; so I stepped out gaily to face whatever the future might bring.

We went first to Aschaffenburg and from there to Wurtzburg, where we caught up with the Emperor, who ordered a march-past by the troops of 7th Corps, who were in good heart. Napoleon who kept a dossier about all the regiments, and who skillfully used to employ extracts from it to flatter the self-esteem of each unit, said when he saw the 44th line regiment, "Of all the units of the army you are the one with the most long service chevrons, so your three battalions I count as six!"...an announcement which was greeted by cheers. To the 7th, composed mostly of men from the lower Languedoc and the Pyrenees, the Emperor said, "There are the best marchers in the army, one never sees anyone fall behind, particularly when there is a battle to be fought." Then he added, laughingly, "But, to do you justice, I must say that you are the most brawling, thieving unit in the army!" "It's true! It's true!" replied the soldiers, each of whom had a duck, a chicken or a goose in his knapsack, an abuse which had to be tolerated, because, as I have told you, Napoleon's armies, once in the field, rarely received any rations, and had to live off the country as well as they could. This system had without doubt many defects, but it had one huge benefit, that of allowing us to move forward without being held up by convoys and supply lines, which gave us a great advantage over an enemy whose movements were subordinated to the cook-house, or the arrival of bread, and to the progress of herds of cattle, etc...etc.

From Wurtzburg, 7th Corps went to Coburg, where the marshal was lodged in the prince's palace. All his family had fled on our approach, except the celebrated Austrian Field-marshal, the Prince of Coburg. This old warrior, although he had fought for many years against the French, had enough confidence in the French character to await their coming, a confidence which was not misplaced, for Marshal Augereau sent him a guard of honour, returned promptly a visit he had received, and ordered that he was to be treated with the utmost respect.

We were not very far from the Prussians, whose king was at Erfurt.

The queen was with him and rode up and down the ranks of the army on horseback, endeavouring to excite their ardour by her presence.

Napoleon did not think that this was behaviour befitting a princess, and his bulletins made some wounding comments on the subject. The French and Prussian advance-guards met eventually, at Schleitz: where there took place, in view of the Emperor, a minor action in which the enemy were defeated; it was for them an ill-omened beginning.

That same day, Prince Louis, with a body of ten thousand men, found himself stationed in Saalfeld. This town is on the bank of the River Saale, in the middle of a plain which we could reach only by crossing some steep mountains. While Marshals Lannes' and Augereau's corps were moving toward Saalfeld through these mountains, Prince Louis, who had decided to await the French, should have occupied positions in this difficult country, full of narrow pa.s.ses, where a few men could hold up a much greater number, but he failed to do this, probably because he was convinced that the Prussian soldiers were infinitely better than the French. He carried this scorn for all precautions so far as to place part of his force in front of a marshy stream, which would make their retreat very difficult in the event of a reverse. Old General Muller, a Swiss in the service of Prussia, whom the king had attached to his nephew as a steadying influence, made some observations which the prince took very badly, adding that there was no need to take precautions to beat the French, all that was needed was to fall on them the moment they appeared.

They appeared in the morning on the 10th; Marshal Lannes' corps leading and Marshal Augereau's behind him. This last did not arrive in time to take part in the action where, as it happened, their presence was not needed, for Marshal Lannes' troops were more than sufficient.

While waiting for his corps to emerge onto the plain, Marshal Augereau, accompanied by his staff, went up onto a little hill which overlooked the open country, from where we could follow all stages of the action.

Prince Louis could still have retreated to join the Prussian corps which occupied Jena; but having been the leading instigator of the war he perhaps felt he should not do so without a fight. He was most cruelly punished for his temerity. Marshal Lannes, making use of the heights, at the foot of which Prince Louis had imprudently deployed his troops, first raked them with grape-shot from his artillery, and when this had demoralised them, he advanced several ma.s.ses of infantry, which descending rapidly from the high ground, swept like a torrent onto the Prussian battalions and instantly overwhelmed them!

Prince Louis, aghast, and probably aware of his mistake, hoped to repair it by putting himself at the head of his cavalry and impetuously attacking the 9th and 10th Hussars. He had at first some success, but our Hussars having made a new and furious charge, drove the Prussians back into the marshes, while their infantry fled in disorder.

In the middle of the melee, Prince Louis found himself engaged with a sous-officier of the 10th Hussars named Guindet, who summoned him to surrender; the prince replied with a slash of his sword which cut the sous-officier's face, who thereupon ran the prince through and killed him.

After the fight and the complete rout of the enemy, the prince's body having been recognised, Marshal Lannes had it carried with honour to the chateau of Saalfeld, where it was handed to the princely family of that name, who were allied to the royal house of Prussia, and in whose residence the prince had spent the previous day and evening, looking forward to the coming of the French, and even, it is said, giving a ball for the local ladies. Now he was returned to them, vanquished and dead!... The next morning I saw the prince's body, laid out on a marble table, all traces of blood had been cleaned away, he was naked to the waist, still wearing his leather britches and his boots. He seemed to be asleep. He was a truly fine looking man, and I could not help indulging in some sad reflections on the uncertainty of human affairs, when I saw the remains of this young man, born on the steps of a throne, and, but lately, so loved, so courted and so powerful!

The news of the prince's death spread consternation in the enemy army, and also throughout Prussia, where he was highly popular.

7th Corps spent the day of the 11th at Saalfeld. On the 12th we went to Neustadt, and on the 13th to Kehla, where we encountered some remains of the Prussian troops defeated at Saalfeld. When Marshal Augereau attacked them, they put up little resistance and laid down their arms. Amongst those captured was the regiment of Prince Henry in which Augereau had once served as a soldier, and since, unless one was of high birth, it was very difficult to become a senior officer in the Prussian army, and as sergeants never became second lieutenants, his former company still had the same captain and the same sergeant-major. Placed by a quirk of fate in the presence of his one-time soldier, now a marshal, the Prussian captain, who remembered Augereau perfectly well, acted as a man of discretion and spoke always to the marshal as if he had never seen him before.

Augereau invited him to dinner and seated him next to himself, then, learning that the officer's baggage had been seized, he lent him all the money he needed and gave him letters of introduction to take to France. What must have pa.s.sed through the captain's mind! But nothing can describe the astonishment of the old Prussian sergeant-major at seeing his former soldier covered with decorations, surrounded by a numerous staff and in command of an army corps! All of which seemed like a dream! The marshal was more expansive toward this man than he had been toward the captain. Addressing the sergeant by name, he shook him by the hand, and arranged for him to be given twenty-five louis for himself and two for every soldier who had been in the ranks with him and was still there. We thought this behaviour was in the best of taste.

The marshal had expected to sleep at Kehla, which is only three leagues from Jena; but just as night was falling 7th Corps was ordered to go immediately to this last town which the Emperor had just entered, at the head of his guard and the troops of Marshal Lannes, without striking a blow.

The Prussians had abandoned Jena in silence, but some candles, forgotten in the stables, had probably started the fire, the spreading flames of which were consuming part of the unfortunate town when Marshal Augereau's corps entered it at about midnight. It was a sorry spectacle to see the inhabitants, women and old people, half naked, carrying their children and seeking to escape by flight from the scene of destruction, while our soldiers, kept in their ranks by discipline and the nearness of the enemy, remained unmoved, their arms at the ready, regarding the fire as a small matter in comparison to the dangers they would soon have to face.

The part of the town through which our troops arrived was not affected by the fire and so they could move around freely, and while they were gathering in the squares and main streets, the marshal set up his headquarters in a nice looking mansion. I was about to enter, on returning from delivering an order, when I heard loud shrieks coming from a nearby house, the door of which was open. I hurried there and guided by the cries I found my way to a well-appointed apartment where I saw two charming girls, of about eighteen to twenty years of age, dressed only in their chemises, struggling against the advances of four or five soldiers from Hesse-Darmstadt, belonging to the regiments which the landgrave had attached to the French troops of 7th Corps. Although these men, who were drunk, understood not a word of French, and I spoke little German, my appearance and my threats took them aback, and being used to beatings from their own officers, they made no retaliation to the kicks and cuffs which in my indignation I distributed freely in driving them downstairs. In this I was perhaps a little imprudent, for in the middle of the night, in a town in utter confusion there was a risk that they might turn on me and even kill me; but they ran away, and I put a platoon of the marshal's escort in one of the lower rooms.

I went up to the apartment where the two young girls had hurriedly dressed themselves, and was rewarded by their warmest expressions of grat.i.tude. They were the daughters of a university professor, who had gone with his wife and the domestic staff to the aid of one of their sisters, who had recently given birth in that part of the town where the fire was raging, and they had been alone when the Hessian soldiers arrived. One of these young ladies said to me with great emotion, "You are going into battle at a time when you have just saved our honour. G.o.d will reward you, you may be sure that no harm will come to you." The father and the mother, who came back at this moment with the new mother and her child were at first much surprised to find me there; but when they learned the reason for my presence they too showered me with blessings. I tore myself away from the thanks of this grateful family to rejoin Marshal Augereau, who was reposing in the nearby mansion, awaiting the Emperor's orders.

Chap. 30.

The town of Jena is dominated by a height called the Landgrafenberg, at the foot of which runs the Saale River. The approaches to Jena are very precipitous, and at that time there was only one road, which ran to Wiemar via Muhlthal, a long and difficult pa.s.s, the outlet of which was covered by a small wood and guarded by Saxon troops, allies of the Prussians; a part of whose army was drawn up in line behind them at the distance of a cannon shot.

The Emperor, having only this one route by which he could reach his enemies, expected to suffer heavy losses in a frontal attack, for there seemed to be no way in which they could be outflanked. But Napoleon's lucky star once more came to his aid, in an unexpected way, which I do not believe has been related by any historian, although I can vouch for the truth of it happening.

We have seen that the King of Prussia compelled the elector of Saxony to join forces with him. The people of Saxony saw themselves, with regret, drawn into a war which could procure them no advantage in the future, and which for the present brought desolation to the countryside, which was the theatre for the hostilities. The Prussians were therefore detested in Saxony; and Jena, a Saxon town, shared in this detestation.

A priest who belonged to the town, angered at the fire which was consuming it, and regarding the Prussians as enemies of his king and fatherland, believed he could give Napoleon the means of clearing them out of the country, by showing him a little pathway by which a body of infantrymen might climb the steep slopes of the Landgrafenberg. He led there a platoon of light infantry and some officers of the general staff. The Prussians, who thought this pathway impracticable, had not bothered to guard it, but Napoleon thought differently. As a result of the report given him by his officers, he went up himself, guided by the Saxon cure, and accompanied by Marshal Lannes; he saw that, between the heights of the path and the plain occupied by the enemy, there was a small stony plateau, and he decided to concentrate there a body of troops who would sally from it, as if from a citadel, to attack the Prussians.

The undertaking would have been of unsurmountable difficulty for anyone but a Napoleon in command of French soldiers; but he ordered the tools used by the pioneers to be taken from the wagons of the engineers and the artillery and distributed to the infantry battalions, who worked in rotation for one hour each at widening and levelling the pathway, and when they had finished their task, each battalion formed up in silence on the Landgrafenberg, while another took its place. The work was carried on by the light of torches, whose flames were confused in the eyes of the enemy with the fires in Jena.

The nights are very long at this time of year, so that we were able to make the path accessible not only for foot-soldiers but also for the wagons of the artillery, with the result that, before daybreak, the corps of Marshals Lannes and Soult, the first division of Augereau's, as well as the foot guards, were ma.s.sed on the Landgrafenberg. Never has the term ma.s.sed been used with more exact.i.tude, for the chest of each man was almost touching the back of the man in front of him; but the troops were so well disciplined that, in spite of the darkness and the crowding together of more than forty thousand men, there was not the least disorder; and although the enemy were occupying villages less than half a cannon shot away, they heard nothing.

On the morning of October 14th, a thick mist covered the countryside, which favoured our movements; Augereau's second division, making a diversionary attack, advanced from Jena via Muhlthal on the road to Weimar. As the enemy believed that this was the only way by which we could come from Jena, they had placed a considerable force there; but while they prepared to conduct a vigourous defence of this pa.s.s, Napoleon, bringing down from the Landgrafenberg the troops which he had acc.u.mulated there during the night, drew them up in battle order on the plain. A light breeze having dispersed the mist, which was followed by brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, the Prussians were stupefied to see the lines of the French army deployed opposite them and advancing to engage them in battle. They could not understand how we had got there when they thought we were down in the valley of Jena, with no other means of reaching them but the road to Wiemar, which they were guarding so thoroughly.

The battle began immediately and the first lines of the Prussians and Saxons, commanded by Prince Hohenlohe, were forced to retreat.

They advanced their reserves, but we received a powerful reinforcement. Marshal Ney's corps and Murat's cavalry which had been held up in the pa.s.s, burst out into the plain and took part in the action. However a Prussian army corps commanded by General Ruchel stopped our columns for a time; but charged by French cavalry it was almost entirely wiped out and General Ruchel was killed.

Marshal Augereau's 1st division, coming down from the Landgrafenberg, joined with the 2nd, arriving from Muhlthal, and with the troops of Marshals Lannes and Soult, they proceeded down the road to Wiemar, capturing enemy positions as they went.

The Prussian infantry, whose poor composition I have already described, fought very badly, and the cavalry not much better. One saw them on several occasions advance, with loud shouts, towards our battalions; but, intimidated by their calm bearing, they never dared charge home; at a distance of fifty paces from our line they shamefully turned about, amid a hail of bullets and the jeers of our men.

The Saxons fought with courage; they resisted Marshal Augereau's corps for a long time, and it was not until after the retreat of the Prussian troops that, having formed themselves into two large squares, they began to withdraw while continuing to fire. Marshal Augereau admired the courage of the Saxons, and to prevent further loss of life, he had just sent an envoy to persuade them to surrender, since they had no longer any hope of relief, when Prince Murat arrived with his cavalry and mounted an attack with his Cuira.s.siers and dragoons, who charging impetuously the Saxon squares, overwhelmed them and forced them to lay down their arms. The next day, however, the Emperor set them at liberty and restored them to their sovereign, with whom he hastened to make peace.

All the Prussian troops who had fought before Jena, retreated in a complete rout along the road to Weimar, at whose gates the fugitives, their baggage and artillery had piled up, when suddenly the squadrons of the French cavalry appeared! At the sight of them, panic spread through the crowd of Prussians, who fled in utter disorder, leaving us with a great number of prisoners, flags, guns and baggage.

The town of Weimar, called by some the new Athens, was inhabited at this period by a great number of scholars, artists and distinguished authors, who had gathered there under the patronage of the ruling duke, an enlightened protector of the arts and sciences.

The noise of guns, the pa.s.sage of the fugitives and the entry of the victors caused a great stir in this peaceful and studious population; but Marshals Lannes and Soult maintained a firm discipline, and apart from having to provide food for the soldiers, the town suffered no outrage. The Prince of Weimar served in the Prussian army, nevertheless his palace, where the princess, his wife, was living, was respected and none of the marshals took up residence there.

Marshal Augereau's headquarters were established at the town gates, in the house of the prince's head gardener. All the inhabitants of the house having taken flight, the general staff found nothing to eat, and had to sup on some pineapples and plums from the hot-houses. This was a very light diet for people who, without food for twenty-four hours, had spent the preceding night on foot and all day fighting! But we were the victors, and that magical word enabled us to support all our privations.

The Emperor went back to sleep at Jena, where he learned of a success no less great than that which he had just achieved himself.

The battle of Jena was a double battle, if one may use the expression, for neither the French nor the Prussian armies were united at Jena, they were each divided into two parts and fought two different battles: so that while the Emperor, at the head of the corps of Augereau, Lannes, Soult and Ney, his guard and the cavalry of Murat, was defeating the corps of Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel. The King of Prussia, at the head of his main army, commanded by the celebrated Prince of Brunswick, Marshals Mollendorf and Kalkreuth had left Weimar, and on their way to Naumburg had settled for the night at the village of Auerstadt, not far from the French corps of Davout and Bernadotte, who were in the villages around Naumburg. In order to rejoin the Emperor, who was at Apolda, in the plain beyond Jena, Davout and Bernadotte had to cross the Saale before Naumburg and traverse the narrow hilly pa.s.s of Kosen.

Although Davout thought that the King of Prussia with the main body of his army was facing the Emperor, and not so close to him at Auerstadt, this vigilant warrior secured, during the night, the Kosen pa.s.s and its steep slopes which the King of Prussia and his marshals had neglected to occupy, thus making the same mistake as Prince Hohenlohe made at Jena in failing to guard the Landgrafenberg. The combined forces of Bernadotte and Davout did not amount to more than forty-four thousand men, while the King of Prussia had eighty thousand at Auerstadt.

From daybreak on the 14th, the two French marshals realised that they had to face much superior numbers; it was their duty then to act in unison. Davout, aware of this necessity, volunteered to put himself under the command of Bernadotte, but the latter jibbed at the idea of a shared victory, and unwilling to subordinate his personal interests to the welfare of his country, he decided to act on his own; and on the pretext that the Emperor had ordered him to be at Dornburg on the 13th, he decided to make his way there on the 14th, although Napoleon had written to him during the night to say that, if he was still in Naumburg, he should stay there and support Davout.

Not finding the situation to his liking, Bernadotte left Davout to defend himself as best he could and, going down the Saale, he settled himself at Dornburg where, although he came across no enemies, he could see from the elevated position which he occupied, the desperate battle being fought by the gallant Davout some two leagues away. Meanwhile he ordered his men to set up their bivouacs and to start preparing a meal. His generals complained to him in vain at this culpable inaction; Bernadotte would not budge, so that Marshal Davout, with no more than twenty-five thousand men, comprising the divisions of Friant, Morland and Gudin, faced almost eighty thousand Prussians animated by the presence of their king.

The French, after emerging from the narrow pa.s.s of Kosen, formed up near the village of Ha.s.senhausen; it was here that the real battle took place, because the Emperor was mistaken when he thought that he had before him at Jena the king and the bulk of the Prussian army.

The action fought by Davout's men was one of the most terrible in our annals. His divisions, having successfully resisted all the attacks of the enemy infantry, formed into squares and repelled numerous cavalry charges, and not content with this, they advanced with such resolution that the Prussians fell back at every point leaving the ground strewn with dead and wounded. The Prince of Brunswick and General Schmettau were killed, Marshal Mollendorf was seriously wounded and taken prisoner.

The King of Prussia and his troops at first carried out their retreat towards Weimar in reasonably good order, hoping to rally there behind the forces of Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel, whom they supposed to have been victorious, while the latter, having been defeated by Napoleon, were for their part, on their way to seek support from the troops led by the king. Those two enormous ma.s.ses of soldiers, beaten and demoralised, met on the road to Erfurt; it needed only the appearance of some French regiments to throw them into utter confusion. The rout was total, and was a just punishment for the bragging of the Prussian officers. The results of this victory were incalculable, and made us masters of almost all Prussia.

The Emperor showed his great satisfaction with Marshal Davout and with the divisions of Morand, Friant and Gudin by an order of the day, which was read out to all companies and even in the ambulances carrying the wounded. The following year Napoleon created Davout Duke of Auerstadt, although he had fought less there than in the village of Ha.s.senhausen; but the King of Prussia had had his headquarters at Auerstadt, and the Prussians had given this name to the battle which the French called the battle of Jena.

The army expected to see Bernadotte severely punished, but he got away with a sharp reprimand; Napoleon was afraid of upsetting his brother Joseph, whose sister-in-law, Mlle. Clary, Bernadotte had just married. We shall see later how Bernadotte's behaviour during the battle of Auerstadt served, in a way, as a first step towards mounting the throne of Sweden.

I was not wounded at Jena, but I was tricked in a way that still rankles after forty years. At a time when Augereau's corps was attacking the Saxons, the marshal sent me to carry a message to General Durosnel, who commanded a brigade of Cha.s.seurs, ordering him to charge the enemy cavalry. It was my job to guide the brigade along a route which I had already reconnoitred. I hurried away and put myself at the head of our Cha.s.seurs, who threw themselves on the Saxon squadrons. The Saxons put up a stiff resistance and there was a general melee, but eventually our adversaries were forced to retreat with losses. Towards the end of the fighting, I found myself facing an officer of Hussars, wearing the white uniform of Prince Albert of Saxony's regiment. I held the point of my sabre against him and called on him to surrender, which he did, handing me his sword. As the fighting was over, I generously gave it back to him, as was the usual practice among officers in these circ.u.mstances, and I added that although his horse, under the conventions of war, belonged to me, I did not wish to deprive him of it. He gave me many thanks for this kind treatment and followed me as I returned to the marshal, very pleased with myself for bringing back a prisoner. But when we were about five hundred paces from the Cha.s.seurs, this confounded Saxon officer, who was on my left, drew his sabre, wounded my horse on the shoulder and was about to strike me if I had not thrown myself on him. Although I had no sabre in my hand, our bodies were so close that he did not have room to swing his sabre at me, so he grabbed my epaulet, and pulled me off balance, my saddle slipped under my horse's belly and there I was with one leg in the air and my head hanging down, while the Saxon made off at full speed to rejoin the remains of the enemy army. I was furious, partly at the position I was in, and partly at the ingrat.i.tude with which this foreigner had repaid my courtesy. So when the Saxon army had been made prisoners, I went to look for my Hussar officer, to teach him a lesson, but he had disappeared.

I have said that the Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, our new ally, had joined his troops to the Emperor's. This brigade had uniforms exactly like those of the Prussians, so several of their soldiers were killed or wounded mistakenly during the action. The young Lieutenant De Stoch, my friend, was on the point of meeting the same fate, and had already been seized by our Hussars, when, having seen me, he called out to me and I had him released.

The Emperor rewarded most generously the priest of Jena, and the elector of Saxony, having become king as a result of the victories of his ally Napoleon, rewarded him also; so that he lived very comfortably until 1814 when he took refuge in France to escape from the vengeance of the Prussians. They, however, had him taken up and shut away in a fortress where he spent two or three years.

Eventually, the King of Saxony having interceded on his behalf with Louis XVIII, the latter reclaimed the priest on the grounds that he had been arrested without proper authority, and the Prussians having released him, he came to live in Paris.

After the victory at Jena, the Emperor ordered a general pursuit of our enemies, and our columns took an enormous number of prisoners.

The King of Prussia had great difficulty in reaching Magdeburg and getting from there to Berlin, and it was said that the queen nearly fell into the hands of the scouts of our advance-guard.