The two emperors parted with reiterated demonstrations of cordiality. Napoleon handed into his carriage that monarch whom he had just called his brother, and remounted his horse to return to Austerlitz.
General Savary was sent to suspend the march of Davoust’s corps. He first proceeded to Holitsch, with the suite of the Emperor Francis, to learn whether the Emperor Alexander acceded to the proposed conditions. He saw the latter, around whom every thing was much changed since the mission on which he was sent to him a few days before. “Your master,” said Alexander to him, “has shown himself very great. I acknowledge all the power of his genius, and, as for myself, I shall retire, since my ally is satisfied.” General Savary conversed for some time with the young czar on the late battle, explained to him how the French army, inferior in number to the Russian army, had nevertheless appeared superior on all points, owing to the art of manœuvring which Napoleon possessed in so eminent a degree. He courteously added that with experience Alexander, in his turn, would become a warrior, but that so difficult an art was not to be learned in a day. After these flatteries to the vanquished monarch, he set out for Goding to stop Marshal Davoust, who had rejected all the proposals for a suspension of arms, and was ready to attack the relics of the Russian army. To no purpose he had been assured in the name of the Emperor of Russia himself that an armistice was negotiating between Napoleon and the Emperor of Austria. He would not on any account abandon his prey. But General Savary stopped him with a formal order from Napoleon. These were the last musket-shots fired during that unexampled campaign. The troops of the several nations separated to go into winter-quarters, awaiting what should be decided by the negotiators of the belligerent powers.
THE CAMP-FIRE AT JENA.
Jena was one of Napoleon’s most decisive fields. There, in the conflict of a day, Prussia, who had dared to defy a power which had brought Austria and Russia to the dust, was completely annihilated. There the descendants of the great Frederick reaped the bitter consequences of his weak presumption. At Jena, the valley of the Saale begins to widen. The right bank is low, damp and covered with meadows. The left bank presents steep heights, whose peaked tops overlook the town of Jena, and are ascended by narrow, winding ravines, overhung with wood. On the left of Jena, a gorge more open, less abrupt, called the Muhlthal, has become the passage through which the high road from Jena to Weimar has been carried. This road first keeps along the bottom of the Muhlthal[Muhlthal], then rises in form of a spiral staircase, and opens upon the plateaux in rear. It would have required a fierce assault to force this pass.
