dictions had been fulfilled.

"Peace! peace with France!" was the cry resounding in the ears of the
Emperor Alexander and of King Frederick William. Alexander promised that
he would comply with the request. Frederick William listened to it in
sullen silence. The queen, who had remained at Memel, and was no longer
with her husband, veiled her head and wept.

But Napoleon triumphantly thanked his army for this new and decisive
victory.

"Soldiers," he said, "we are victorious. On the 5th of June we were
attacked in our cantonments by the Russian army. The enemy had mistaken
our inactivity. He perceived too late that our repose was that of the
lion: he repents of having disturbed it. In the battles of Guttstadt and
Heilsberg, and in that ever-memorable one of Friedland, in a campaign of
ten days, we have taken one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, and
seven colors. The killed, wounded, or made prisoners, are sixty thousand
Russians. We have taken all the magazines, hospitals, ambulances, the
fortress of Koenigsberg, the three hundred vessels which were in that
port, laden with military stores, and one hundred and sixty thousand
muskets, which England had sent to arm our enemies.

"From the Vistula to the Niemen we have come with the flight of the
eagle. You celebrated at Austerlitz the anniversary of the coronation;
this year, you celebrate that of the battle of Marengo, which put an end
to the war of the second coalition.

"Frenchmen, you have been worthy of yourselves and of me. You will
return to France crowned with laurels, and, after obtaining a glorious
peace, which carries with it the guaranty of its duration, it is high
time for our country to repose, protected from the malignant influence
of England. My bounties shall prove to you my gratitude, and the extent
of the love I feel for you."

Napoleon thus promised peace to his army, while thanking it for the new
victory. And he had a right to do so, for peace and its conditions were
now in his grasp. Alexander and Frederick William felt this, and hence
they were under the necessity of making advances to the conqueror; they
were obliged to sacrifice their pride and to conciliate their powerful
enemy. Frederick William was still hesitating. The tears of his wife,
the prayers and remonstrances of Hardenberg restrained him; he was
unwilling to listen to the urgent appeals of Generals von Koeckeritz and
Zastrow, and of Field-Marshal von Kalkreuth, who, now that D