so well,
and for whom he fought so bravely. They seized the corpse and dragged it
along the street in order to present it to their general. His hands were
besmeared with mire; his uniform torn by the brutal grasp of the
conquerors, and his gory head trailed along the pavement. He was at last
deposited in the vestibule of the city hall, where the meat-merchants of
Stralsund trade on market days.

A butcher's bench was the catafalque of unfortunate Ferdinand von
Schill, the martyr of German liberty! There he lay, a horrible
spectacle, with broken limbs, a face deformed by bruises and
sabre-gashes, and his eyes glaring to heaven as if in accusation of the
ignominy of his death and the brutality of his enemies.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE PARADE AT SCHOeNBRUNN.

Napoleon's great victory at Wagram had put an end to the war with
Austria, and destroyed only too speedily the hopes which the battle of
Aspern or Esslingen had awakened in the hearts of the Germans.

The Archduke Charles had gained at Aspern half a victory; and the fact
that the Austrians had not been beaten--that Napoleon had been compelled
to fall back with his army and to take refuge on the island of Lobau,
was regarded as a victory, which was announced in the most boastful
manner. But if it was a victory, the Austrians did not know how to
profit by it. Instead of uniting their forces and attacking Lobau, where
the French army was encamped, huddled together, and exhausted by the
long and murderous struggle--where the French grenadiers were weeping
over the death of their brave leader, Marshal Lannes, Duke of
Montebello--where the wounded and defeated were cursing for the first
time the emperor's insatiable thirst for conquest--instead of
surrounding the French army, or opening a cannonade upon them, the
Archduke Charles fell farther back from the right bank of the Danube,
and allowed his exhausted troops to rest and recover from the fatigue of
the terrible battle that had lasted two days. While the Austrians were
dressing their wounds, the French profited by the delay, and built new
bridges, procured barges, left the island that might have been a
graveyard for them, and reorganized their shattered forces.

On the 6th of July, Napoleon took revenge at Wagram for the two days of
Aspern, and wrested again from the Archduke Charles the laurels won at
the latter place. Germany was in ecstasies after the battle of Aspern,
but she bowed her head mournfully afte