"General Benningsen with his Russians."
"And these Russians, nevertheless, are audacious enough to claim a victory!" exclaimed General von Köckeritz. "These fellows regard it such when Napoleon, instead of pressing them on their retreat, remains where he is, and gives them time to escape."
"They are in ecstasies, because they infer from this delay of Napoleon, and from his unwonted inactivity, that he also stands in need of repose and recreation," said General von Zastrow. "The severe winter, bad quarters, hunger, and thirst, have greatly exhausted the strength of the grand army, and the lion would like to rest a little. For this reason—and now I come to the point concerning which I requested your excellency to call on me—for this reason, the great Napoleon desires to make peace. The conqueror of Jena himself offers it to the vanquished King of Prussia."
"What? Do you really think that to be true?" asked General von Köckeritz.
"I do not only think, but know it to be true," said Zastrow. "General Bertrand arrived here an hour ago, and called on me with the request to present him to the king, that he might deliver him an autograph letter from the Emperor Napoleon. I told the general that I should return his visit in half an hour, and then conduct him to his majesty. I wished to profit by this half hour, my dear friend, to confer with you about this matter."
"And did General Bertrand inform you that Napoleon would offer peace to our king?"
"Yes, your excellency. He communicated to me the contents of the imperial letter. The lion of Jena magnanimously offers once more to make peace."
"We must strain every nerve to induce the king to accept these overtures," exclaimed Köckeritz, quickly.
"Your excellency is the only man sufficiently powerful to induce the king to come to such a decision," said Zastrow. "You must be so kind as to prove to him that to continue the war with France is to bring about the ruin of Prussia. If he does not accept the offer of Napoleon, he is ruined, for the emperor would not forgive such obstinate hostility; and, if Prussia will not live with him on terms of friendship, he will annihilate her in order to be done with her."
"I shall not threaten the king by laying too much stress on the strength of his enemy," said Köckeritz, "for that would wound the pride of his majesty, and provoke his sense of honor to renewed resistance. But I shall call his attention to the weakness and fickleness of Russia, informing him that our friends, the Russians, are behaving in the most shameful manner in those parts of Prussia which they are occupying, and committing so many outrages that the inhabitants are praying on their knees to God to grant victory to the French, so that they might deliver them from the Russians. I shall tell him that the distress and the extortions the Prussian farmers have to suffer at the hands of our allies are perfectly incredible; that the peasants in the villages have been stripped of every thing, to such an extent that they beg the Cossacks, who have robbed them of their provisions, for their daily bread; that many of them are dying of hunger, and that unburied corpses have been found in the houses of several villages now occupied by our troops. And, above all, I shall beseech his majesty to repose no confidence in the Russian friendship! Whatever the czar may say about his fidelity, he has not the power of carrying his point, and all his resolutions will be frustrated by the resistance of his generals and of his brother. The Grand-Duke Constantine and the larger and more powerful part of the Russian nobility are anxious for peace; and Constantine, whose views are shared by Benningsen, will leave no intrigues, no cabals untried in order to gain the czar over to his opinion, and plunge him into difficulties from which he will finally be able to extricate himself only by making peace—a peace concluded at the expense of Prussia. Russia and France will be reconciled over the corpse of Prussia! Even now it is distinctly to be seen what we have to expect from the czar's assistance. Our allies are doing nothing really to help us, but whatever steps they are taking are exclusively for their own safety. It is true, they advanced at first, but only in order to prevent the French from approaching their frontier. Since that time, however, in spite of the battle of Pultusk, the Russians have steadily retreated, although the enemy did not compel them to do so. They accomplished thus their own purpose, that is, to devastate a province of Prussia, and protect themselves by this desert from a French invasion."