The Russians, being incited to this campaign by the remembrance of the defeat of Austerlitz, and by the fear of seeing Poland snatched from their grasp, were not deterred by the winter season, and resolved to open the attack on the Emperor at once; and as the latter was not the man to allow himself to be forestalled, he consequently abandoned his winter quarters, and quitted Warsaw at the end of January.  On the 8th of February the two armies met at Eylau; and there took place, as is well known, a bloody battle, in which both sides showed equal courage, and nearly fifteen thousand were left dead on the field of battle, equally divided in number between the French and Russians.  The gain, or rather the loss, was the same to both armies; and a ‘Te Deum’ was chanted at St. Petersburg as well as at Paris, instead of the ‘De Profundis’, which would have been much more appropriate.  His Majesty complained bitterly on returning to his headquarters that the order he had sent to General Bernadotte had not been executed, and in consequence of this his corps had taken no part in the battle, and expressed his firm conviction that the victory, which remained in doubt between the Emperor and General Benningsen, would have been decided in favor of the former had a fresh army-corps arrived during the battle, according to the Emperor’s calculations.  Most unfortunately the aide-de-camp bearing the Emperor’s orders to the Prince of Ponte-Corvo had fallen into the hands of a party of Cossacks; and when the Emperor was informed of this circumstance the day after the battle, his resentment was appeased, though not his disappointment.  Our troops bivouacked on the field of battle, which his Majesty visited three times, for the purpose of directing the assistance of the wounded, and removal of the dead.

Generals d’Hautpoult, Corbineau, and Boursier were mortally wounded at Eylau; and it seems to me I can still hear the brave d’Hautpoult saying to his Majesty, just as he dashed off at a gallop to charge the enemy:  “Sire, you will now see my great claws; they will pierce through the enemy’s squares as if they were butter” An hour after he was no more.  One of his regiments, being engaged in the interval with the Russian army, was mowed down with grape-shot, and hacked to pieces by the Cossacks, only eighteen men being left.  General d’Hautpoult, forced to fall back three times with his division, led it back twice to the charge; and as he threw himself against the enemy the third time shouted loudly, “Forward, cuirassiers, in God’s name! forward, my brave cuirassiers?” But the grapeshot had mowed down too many of these brave fellows; very few were left to follow their chief, and he soon fell pierced with wounds in the midst of a square of Russians into which he had rushed almost alone.