Emperor called a council of war; the generals advised
recrossing the Danube and a retreat into Vienna. "You must mean to
Strasburg," said their chief; "for if Charles should follow, he might
drive me thither, and if he should march to cut me off at Linz, I must
march thither, too, to meet him. In either case, I must abandon the
capital, my only source of supplies." There was no reply, and it was
determined to withdraw into the Lobau, and hold it until a stronger
bridge could be constructed and Davout bring over his entire force.
After two days of terrific defensive fighting,--so terrific that the
Austrians were several times on the point of retreat,--Napoleon was
obliged to abandon the field.

The night of May twenty-second was the beginning of such bitterness
for the French emperor as he had not yet tasted. His enemy's forces
numbered about seventy thousand, his own perhaps forty-five thousand;
but this was entirely his own fault, due largely to overweening
confidence in himself and a weak contempt for foes who, after a long
and severe novitiate, now fought like veteran Frenchmen, and were led
by one who had learned the lessons of Napoleon's own strategy. Five
times Essling had been lost and won; how often Aspern had been
captured and retaken could only be estimated. Both hamlets were now
abandoned by the French. The last Austrian charge against the center
had been made and repelled with fiery valor, but in it Lannes was
mortally wounded. The grand total, therefore, of the two days was a
loss of gallant troops by the thousand, and of this marshal,
Napoleon's greatest division general, the friend of his youth, and the
only surviving one that was both fearless and honest. Worse even than
this, the "unconquerable," though not conquered, had been checked, and
that, too, not in a corner, as in Spain or at Eylau, but in the sight
of all Europe, on a field chosen by himself.

As the war-sick Emperor passed the litter on which lay his old
comrade, he threw himself on the living but maimed and half-conscious
form in an agony of tenderness; and that night, as he sat at table
before an untasted meal, briny tears rolled over cheeks which did not
often know the sensation. But the bulletin which he dictated ran, "The
enemy withdrew to their position, and we remained masters of the
field." This latter clause was exactly as true of the French at Aspern
as it had been of the Russians at Eylau--the affair was a technical
victory, a m