long fuming at their inaction, marched forward with a stern joy.  As at Steinkirk the French Household Brigade disdained to fire on the bull-dogs, so now the Guards rushed on the Muscovites with the cold steel.  The shock was terrible; but the pent-up fury of the French carried all before it, and the grenadiers were wellnigh destroyed.  The battle might still have ended in a French victory; for Davoust was obstinately holding the village which he had seized in the morning, and even threatened the rear of Bennigsen’s centre.  But when both sides were wellnigh exhausted, the Prussian General Lestocq with 8,000 men, urged on by the counsels of Scharnhorst, hurried up from the side of Koenigsberg, marched straight on Davoust, and checked his forward movements.  Ney followed Lestocq, but at so great a distance that his arrival at nightfall served only to secure the French left.

Thus darkness closed over some 100,000 men, who wearily clung to their posts, and over snowy wastes where half that number lay dead, dying, or disabled.  Well might Ney exclaim:  “What a massacre, and without any issue!” Each side claimed the victory, and, as is usual in such cases, began industriously to minimize its own and to magnify the enemy’s losses.  The truth seems to be that both sides had about 25,000 men hors de combat; but, as Bennigsen lacked tents, supplies, and above all, the dauntless courage of Napoleon, he speedily fell back, and this enabled the Emperor to claim a decisive victory.[124]

Exhausted by this terrific strife, the combatants now relaxed their efforts for a brief space; but while Napoleon used the time of respite in hurrying up troops from all parts of his vast dominions, the allies did little to improve their advantage.  This inertness is all the more strange as Prussia and Russia came to closer accord in the Treaty of Bartenstein (April 26th, 1807).[125]

The two monarchs now recur to the generous scheme of a European peace, for which the Czar and William Pitt had vainly struggled two years before.  The present war is to be fought out to the end, not so as to humble France and interfere in her internal concerns, but in order to assure to Europe the blessings of a solid peace based on the claims of justice and of national independence.  France must be satisfied with reasonable boundaries, and Prussia be restored to the limits of 1805 or their equivalent.  Germany is to be freed from the dictation of the French, and become a “constitutional federation,” with a boundary “parallel to the Rhine.”  Austria is to be asked to join the present league, regaining Tyrol and the Mincio frontier.  England and Sweden must be rallied to the common cause.  The allies will also take steps to cause Denmark to join the league.  For the rest, the integrity of Turkey is to be maintained, and the future of Italy decided in concert with Austria and England, the Kings of Sardinia and Naples being restored.  Even should Austria, England, and Sweden not join them, yet Russia and Prussia will continue the struggle and not lay down their arms save by mutual consent.