war," that urged Napoleon two days later
to pen a letter to the King of Prussia urging him to make peace before
he was crushed, as he assuredly would be. In itself the letter seems
admirable--until one remembers the circumstances of the case. The King
had pledged his word to the Czar to make war; if, therefore, he now
made peace and sent the Russians back, he would once more stand
condemned of preferring dishonourable ease to the noble hazards of an
affair of honour. As Napoleon was aware of the union of the King and
Czar, this letter must be regarded as an attempt to dissolve the
alliance and tarnish Frederick William's reputation. It was viewed in
that light by that monarch; and there is not a hint in Napoleon's
other letters that he really expected peace.

He was then at Gera, pushing forward his corps towards Naumburg so as
to cut off the Prussians from Saxony and the Elbe. Great as was his
superiority, these movements occasioned such a dispersion of his
forces as to invite attack from enterprising foes; but he despised the
Prussian generals as imbeciles, and endeavoured to unsteady their rank
and file by seizing and burning their military stores at the latter
town. He certainly believed that they were all in retreat northwards,
and great was his surprise when he heard from Lannes early on October
13th that his scouts, after scaling the hills behind Jena in a dense
mist, had come upon the Prussian army. The news was only partly
correct. It was only Hohenlohe's corps: for the bulk of that army,
under Brunswick, was retreating northwards, and nearly stumbled upon
the corps of Davoust and Bernadotte behind Naumburg.

Lannes also was in danger on the Landgrafenberg. This is a lofty hill
which towers above the town of Jena and the narrow winding vale of the
Saale; while its other slopes, to the north and west, rise above and
dominate the broken and irregular plateau on which Hohenlohe's force
was encamped. Had the Prussians attacked his weary regiments in force,
they might easily have hurled them into the Saale. But Hohenlohe had
received orders to retire northwards in the rear of Brunswick, as soon
as he had rallied the detachment of Ruechel near Weimar, and was
therefore indisposed to venture on the bold offensive which now was
his only means of safety. The respite thus granted was used by the
French to hurry every available regiment up the slopes north and west
of Jena. Late in the afternoon, Napoleon himself ascend