CHAPTER I.

AFTER ESSLINGEN.


It was the evening of the 22d of May, 1809, the fatal day inscribed in
blood-stained letters upon the pages of history, the day which brought to
Napoleon the first dimming of his star of good fortune, to Germany, and
especially to Austria, the first ray of dawn after the long and gloomy
night.

After so many victories and triumphs; after the battles of Tilsit,
Austerlitz, and Jena, the humiliation of all Germany, the triumphal days
of Erfurt, when the great imperial actor saw before him a whole "parterre
of kings;" after a career of victory which endured ten years, Napoleon on
the 22d of May, 1809, had sustained his first defeat, lost his first
battle. True, he had made this victory cost dearly enough. There had been
two days of blood and carnage ere the conflict was decided, but now, at the
close of these two terrible days, the fact could no longer be denied: the
Austrians, under the command of the Archduke Charles, had vanquished the
French at Aspern, though they were led by Napoleon himself.

Terrible indeed had been those two days of the battle of Aspern or
Esslingen. The infuriated foes hurled death to and fro from the mouths of
more than four hundred cannon. The earth shook with the thunder of their
artillery, the stamping of their steeds; the air resounded with the shouts
of the combatants, who assailed each other with the fury of rage and hate,