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Europe could not dispense with British goods or colonial produce carried in British vessels. The law was deliberately set aside by a regular licensing system, and evaded by wholesale smuggling; neutral ships continued to ply between continental ports, and Napoleon did not disdain to clothe his troops with 50,000 British overcoats during the Eylau campaign.
What I had recently seen in the campaigns of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau had convinced me of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of marching an army in deployed lines in either two or three ranks, to attack an enemy in position. It was this conviction which led me to publish the pamphlet above referred to.
Under any other circumstances the case would have been serious; but the Emperor had just returned to Paris, where he had been welcomed more heartily than ever before by the acclamations of the people on the occasion of the fetes celebrated in honor of peace, and this old Guard was returning home resplendent with glory, and after most admirable behavior at Eylau.
"The gloomy pictures that have been drawn of our situation," wrote Napoleon to Fouche on April 13th, "have for authors a few gossips of Paris, who are simply blockheads. Never has the position of France been grander or finer. As to Eylau, I have said and resaid that the bulletin exaggerated the loss; and, for a great battle, what are 2000 men slain?
The shock of Eylau and the inclemency of the spring, no less than the political complications that thickened on every horizon, held back the military movements until the beginning of summer. But at length the crisis came. On the fourteenth of June was fought the great battle of Friedland and the allied army was virtually destroyed.
"A pretty hole!" exclaimed Philippe, looking round the room. "In the name of thunder! what are you doing here, you who charged with poor Colonel Chabert at Eylau? You a gallant officer!" "Well, yes! broum! broum! a gallant officer keeping the accounts of a little newspaper," said Giroudeau, settling his black silk skull-cap.
"Well, marshal, have, you news for me?" said the beggar. "Yes, sire," said the other sadly. "And what are they?" "Such that I could wish it were anyone but myself to announce them to your Majesty " "So the Emperor refuses my services! He forgets the victories of Aboukir, Eylau, and Moscow?"
The army now being in pursuit of the Russians, we passed through Eylau. The fields which we had left three months previously covered with snow and dead bodies, were now overspread by a delightful carpet of green, bedecked with flowers. What a contrast! How many soldiers lay beneath those verdant meadows?
The "Plague at Jaffa" and the "Field of Eylau" are of this type, and the first is disgusting. Among his best works is "Francis I. and Charles V. visiting the Tombs at St. Denis." But although he received many honors, and was made a baron by Charles X., he could not bear the criticism which was made upon his pictures, and finally drowned himself in the Seine near Meudon.
Bernadotte at length arrived, but too late. He met the enemy, who were retreating without the fear of being molested towards Konigsberg, the only capital remaining to Prussia. The King of Prussia was then at Memel, a small port on the Baltic, thirty leagues from Konigsberg. After the battle of Eylau both sides remained stationary, and several days elapsed without anything remarkable taking place.
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