e barrier to the
ambition of the common enemy. But the genius and energy of Napoleon
prevailed. While the English troops were preparing to embark for
Germany, while the Russian troops were slowly coming up from Poland, he,
with rapidity unprecedented in modern war, moved a hundred thousand men
from the shores of the Ocean to the Black Forest, and compelled a great
Austrian army to surrender at Ulm. To the first faint rumours of this
calamity Pitt would give no credit. He was irritated by the alarms of
those around him. "Do not believe a word of it," he said: "It is all
a fiction." The next day he received a Dutch newspaper containing the
capitulation. He knew no Dutch. It was Sunday; and the public offices
were shut. He carried the paper to Lord Malmesbury, who had been
minister in Holland; and Lord Malmesbury translated it. Pitt tried to
bear up; but the shock was too great; and he went away with death in his
face.

The news of the battle of Trafalgar arrived four days later, and seemed
for a moment to revive him. Forty-eight hours after that most glorious
and most mournful of victories had been announced to the country came
the Lord Mayor's day; and Pitt dined at Guildhall. His popularity had
declined. But on this occasion the multitude, greatly excited by the
recent tidings, welcomed him enthusiastically, took off his horses in
Cheapside, and drew his carriage up King Street. When his health was
drunk, he returned thanks in two or three of those stately sentences of
which he had a boundless command. Several of those who heard him laid
up his words in their hearts; for they were the last words that he ever
uttered in public: "Let us hope that England, having saved herself by
her energy, may save Europe by her example."

This was but a momentary rally. Austerlitz soon completed what Ulm had
begun. Early in December Pitt had retired to Bath, in the hope that he
might there gather strength for the approaching session. While he was
languishing there on his sofa arrived the news that a decisive battle
had been fought and lost in Moravia, that the coalition was dissolved,
that the Continent was at the feet of France. He sank down under the
blow. Ten days later he was so emaciated that his most intimate friends
hardly knew him. He came up from Bath by slow journeys, and, on the 11th
of January 1806, reached his villa at Putney. Parliament was to meet on
the 21st. On the 20th was to be the parliamentary dinner at the house