“Soldiers—You have justified my expectations; you have made up for numbers by your courage; you have gloriously marked the difference which exists between the soldiers of Cæsar and the armies of Xerxes.
“In a few days, we have triumphed in the three battles of Tann, Abensberg and Eckmuhl, and the affairs of Peissing, Landshut and Ratisbon. One hundred pieces of cannon, fifty thousand prisoners, three equipages, three thousand baggage wagons, all the funds of the regiments, are the result of the rapidity of your your courage.
“The enemy intoxicated by a perjured cabinet, appeared to have lost all recollection of us; they have been promptly awakened; you have appeared to them more terrible than ever. But lately, they had crossed the Inn, and invaded the territory of our allies; but lately they had promised themselves to carry the war into the bosom of our country. Now, defeated, dismayed they fly in disorder; already my advance-guard has passed the Inn; before a month we shall be at Vienna.”
As Sir Walter Scott says: “It was no wonder that others, nay, that he himself, should have annexed to his person the degree of superstitious influence claimed for the chosen instruments of Destiny, whose path must not be crossed, and whose arms cannot be arrested.” When before had Europe witnessed such a campaign? So much glory was enough to intoxicate even Napoleon, and we have yet to see that his deep draught of the nectar was fatal.
BATTLE OF ESSLING. Page 275.
