Among them was that prince of vanguard leaders, Lannes.  On hearing that his old friend was mortally wounded, the Emperor hurried to him, and tenderly embraced him.  The interview, says Marbot, who was supporting the Marshal’s shoulders, was most affecting, both these stern warriors displaying genuine emotion.  And yet, it is reported that, after Lannes was removed to Ebersdorf, his last words were those of reproach to the Emperor for his ambition.  At that time, however, the patient was delirious, and the words, if really uttered, were meaningless; but the inventor of the anecdote might plead that it was consonant with the recent tenor of the Marshal’s thoughts.  Like all thoughtful soldiers, who placed France before Napoleon, Lannes was weary of these endless wars.  After Jena his heart was not in the work; and he wrote thus about Napoleon during the siege of Danzig:  “I have always been the victim of my attachment to him.  He only loves you by fits and starts, that is, when he has need of you.”  His presentiment was true.  He was a victim to a war that was the outcome solely of Napoleon’s Continental System, and not of the needs of France.  He passed away, leaving a brilliant military fame and a reputation for soldierly republican frankness which was fast vanishing from the camps and salons of the Empire.[210]

As yet, however, Napoleon’s genius and the martial ardour of his soldiers sufficed to overbear the halting efforts of Austria and her well-wishers.  On retiring into Lobau Island he put forth to the utmost his extraordinary powers of organization.  Boats brought vast supplies of stores and ammunition from Vienna, which the French still held.  The menacing front of Massena and Davoust imposed on the enemy.  Reinforcements were hurried up from Bavaria.  Tyrol was denuded of Franco-Bavarian troops, so that the peasants, under the lead of the brave innkeeper, Hofer, were able to organize a systematic defence.  And a French army which had finally beaten the Austrians in Venetia, now began to drive them back into Hungary.  In Poland the white-coats were held in check, and the Franco-Russian compact deterred Frederick William from making any move against France such as Prussian patriots ardently counselled.

To have done so would have been madness, unless England sent powerful aid on the side of Hanover; and that aid was not forthcoming.  Yet the patriotic ardour of the Germans led to two daring efforts against the French.  Schill, with a Prussian cavalry regiment, sought to seize Magdeburg, and failing there moved north in hopes of British help.  His adventurous ride was ended by Napoleon’s Dutch and North German troops, who closed in on him at Stralsund, and, on May 31st, cut to pieces his brave troop.  Schill met a warrior’s death:  most of the survivors were sent to the galleys in France.  Undeterred by this failure, the young Duke of Brunswick sought to rouse Saxony and Westphalia by a dashing cavalry raid (June); but, beyond showing the weakness