ted at Vienna in 1815
that 20,000 Russians had been drowned there. But the local
evidence (kindly furnished to me by Professor Fournier of Vienna)
seems to prove that the story is a myth. Both lakes were drained
only a few days after the battle, _at Napoleon's orders_; in the
lower lake not a single corpse was found; in the upper lake 150
corpses of horses, but only two, some say three, of men, were
found. Probably Napoleon invented the catastrophe for the sake of
dramatic effect, and others followed the lead given in his
bulletin. The Czar may have adopted the story because it helped to
excuse his defeat. (See my article in the "Eng. Hist. Rev." for
July, 1902.)

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIV

PRUSSIA AND THE NEW CHARLEMAGNE

An eminent German historian, who has striven to say some kind words
about Frederick William's Government before the collapse at Jena,
prefaces his apology by the axiom that from a Prussian monarch one
ought to expect, not French, English, or Russian policy, but only
Prussian policy. The claim may well be challenged. Doubtless, there
are some States concerning which it would be true. Countries such as
Great Britain and Spain, whose areas are clearly defined by nature,
may with advantage be self-contained until their peoples overflow into
new lands: before they become world Powers, they may gain in strength
by being narrowly national. But there are other States whose fortunes
are widely different. They represent some principle of life or energy,
in the midst of mere political wreckage. If the binding power, which
built up an older organism, should decline, as happened to the Holy
Roman Empire after the religious wars, fragments will fall away and
join bodies to which they are now more akin.

Of the States that throve among the crumbling masses of the old Empire
the chief was Brandenburg-Prussia. She had a twofold energy which the
older organism lacked: she was Protestant and she was national; she
championed the new creed cherished by the North Germans, and she felt,
though dimly as yet, the strength that came from an almost single kin.
Until she seized on part of the spoils of Poland, her Slavonic
subjects were for the most part germanized Slavs; and even after
acquiring Posen and Warsaw at the close of the eighteenth century, she
could still claim to be the chief Germanic State. A generation
earlier, Frederick the G