As we have seen, the King of Prussia had compelled the Elector of Saxony to join forces with him. The Saxon people saw with regret that they were involved in a war which could bring them no advantage in the future, and which in the present was bringing ruin on their country. The Prussians were therefore detested in Saxony, and the Saxon town of Jena shared the feeling. A priest of the town, excited by the sight of the conflagration which was devouring it and regarding the Prussians as the enemies of his sovereign and his country, thought he might give Napoleon the means of driving them from the land by pointing out to him a little path which infantry could use to climb the steep sides of the Landgrafenberg. He therefore guided a detachment of voltigeurs and some staff officers to the place, which the Prussians, thinking the passage impracticable, had omitted to guard. Napoleon, however, took a different view, and on the strength of the report which the officers made went up there himself, accompanied by Marshal Lannes and guided by the Saxon parson. Having observed that between the highest point of the path and the plain which the enemy-occupied there existed a little rocky platform, the Emperor resolved to assemble there a portion of his troops, who might issue from it as from a citadel to attack the Prussians. The difficulty of the task was such that no one but Napoleon, commanding Frenchmen, could have surmounted it, but he sent at once for 4,000 pioneering tools from the wagons of the engineers and artillery, and ordered that every battalion should work in turn for an hour at widening and levelling the path, and that as each finished its task it should go and form up silently on the Landgrafenberg, while another took its place. They were lighted at their work by torches, the light of which was concealed from the enemy's eyes by the blaze of Jena. The nights being long at this period of the year, we had time to make the climb accessible not only to the columns of infantry but even to the wagons and the artillery, so that before daylight the corps of Lannes and Soult, and Augereau's first division, together with the foot guards, were massed on the Landgrafenberg. The term massed was never more correct, for the breasts of the men of each regiment were almost touching the backs of those in front of them. But the troops were so well disciplined that, in spite of the darkness and the packing of more than 10,000 men on that narrow platform, there was not the least disorder, and although the enemy, who were occupying Cospoda and Closevitz, were only half a cannon-shot off, they perceived nothing.

On the morning of October 14 a thick fog covered the country and favoured our movements. Augereau's second division made a feigned attack, advancing from Jena through the Mühlthal by the Weimar road. Believing this to be the only point by which we could issue from Jena, the enemy had massed a considerable force there. But while he was preparing to defend the narrow passage with vigour, the Emperor Napoleon caused the troops which he had assembled on the Landgrafenberg during the night to debouch into the plain, and drew them up in order of battle. The first cannon-shots, aided by a light breeze, dispersed the fog, the sun shone out brilliantly, and the Prussians were aghast at seeing the French army deployed in line in their front and advancing to the contest. They could not understand how we had arrived on the plateau while they believed us at the farther end of the Jena valley, with no other means of getting at them but the Weimar road, which they were carefully watching. We engaged without loss of time, and the first line of the Prussians and Saxons, under the Prince of Hohenlohe, was forced to give way. Their reserve was advancing, but we received a strong reinforcement on our side. Ney's corps and Murat's cavalry, which had been delayed in the defile, emerging into the plain came into action. A Prussian army corps commanded by General Ruchel checked our columns for a moment, but it was charged by the French cavalry and almost annihilated, General Ruchel being killed.

Augereau's first division, on descending from the Landgrafenberg into the plain, joined the second arriving by the Mühlthal, and the corps, following the road from Vienna to Weimar, captured Cospoda and then the wood of Iserstädt, while Lannes took Vierzehnheiligen, and Soult Hermstädt. The Prussian infantry fought badly and the cavalry did not do much better. We often saw it coming on with loud shouts, but, intimidated by the calm attitude of our battalions, it never dared to push the charge home. On getting within fifty paces of our line it would wheel about, pursued by a hail of bullets and the hoots of our soldiers. The Saxons fought with courage; they resisted Augereau's corps for a long time, and only after the retreat of the Prussian troops did they form in two great squares and begin to retire firing. Augereau, admiring the courage of the Saxons, and wishing to spare these brave fellows unnecessary bloodshed, sent a flag of truce to invite them to surrender, as they had no longer any hope of support. But just at that moment Prince Murat, coming up with his cavalry, launched his cuirassiers and dragoons on the Saxon squares; by their resolute charge they broke them and compelled them to lay down their arms. But the next day the Emperor let them go free and sent them back to their sovereign, with whom he lost no time in making peace.

The whole Prussian force retired completely routed along the Weimar road. The fugitives, with their artillery and baggage, were crowded at the gates of the city when the French appeared. Panic-stricken at the sight of them, the whole mob fled in the greatest disorder, leaving a great number of prisoners, flags, guns, and baggage in our hands.

The town of Weimar, which has been called the 'modern Athens,' was at that period inhabited by many distinguished artists and men of science and letters, assembled there from all parts of Germany under the enlightened patronage of the reigning duke. The noise of the cannon, the passage of the fugitives, the entry of the conquerors caused a lively emotion in this peaceable and studious population. Marshals Lannes and Soult preserved perfect order, and beyond having to supply the necessary provisions for the troops, the town underwent no exactions. The Prince of Weimar was serving in the Prussian army, nevertheless his palace, in which the princess had remained, was respected, and none of the marshals took up his quarters there. Marshal Augereau's were established near the gate of the town, in the house of the prince's chief gardener. All the servants of the establishment having fled, the staff found nothing to eat, and was reduced to sup off pineapples and hothouse plums—light food for people who had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, had passed the previous night on their legs, and the whole day in fighting. But we had won, and that magic word makes privation easy to bear.

The Emperor returned to sleep at Jena, where he received news of a success no less than that which he had himself won. The peculiarity of the battle of Jena was that it was, if one may so say, double, for neither the French nor the Prussian army was wholly before Jena. Both were divided into two parts and fought two separate battles. While the Emperor, issuing from Jena at the head of the corps under Augereau, Lannes, Soult, and Ney, with his Guard and Murat's cavalry, was beating in the manner described the Prussian force under Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel, the King of Prussia, at the head of his main army, commanded by the famous Duke of Brunswick and Marshals Mollendorf and Kalkreuth, had marched from Weimar towards Naumburg, and slept at the village of Auerstädt, not far from the French corps of Bernadotte and Davout, who were in Naumburg and the neighbouring villages. In order to rejoin the Emperor on the side towards Apolda, in the level ground beyond Jena, Bernadotte and Davout had to pass the Saale in front of Naumburg and traverse the narrow hilly defile of Kösen. Although Davout supposed the King of Prussia and the bulk of his army to be in front of the Emperor, and had no idea that they were so close to him as Auerstadt, the careful soldier took possession during the night of the defile of Kösen and the steep hills enclosing it. The King of Prussia and his marshals had omitted to occupy them, imitating the mistake which the Prince of Hohenlohe had committed at Jena in not guarding the Landgrafenberg. The united troops of Bernadotte and Davout amounted only to 44,000 men, while the King of Prussia had 80,000. At daybreak on the 14th the French marshals learnt the superiority of the forces which they had to fight, so on all accounts it was their duty to act in concert. Davout, realising this, declared that he was quite willing to put himself under the orders of Bernadotte; but the latter, making small account of laurels which he had to share with another, and unable to make a sacrifice in the interest of his country, thought fit to act independently. His pretext was that as the Emperor had ordered him to be at Dornburg by the 13th, he must proceed there on the 14th, although Napoleon had written to him in the night that, if by any chance he was still at Naumburg, he was to stay there and support Davout. 2Bernadotte, thinking this duty below his reputation, left to Davout the task of defending himself as best he could while he marched along the Saale to Dornburg. Though he did not find a single enemy there, and from the high position which he occupied could see the terrible combat which the intrepid Davout was waging two leagues away, Bernadotte ordered his division to bivouac and quietly prepare their soup. In vain did his generals reproach him with this culpable inaction; he would not stir. When it happened that Davout, having with him only the 25,000 men composing the divisions of Friant, Morand, and Gudin, had to oppose them to more than 80,000 Prussians, inspirited by the presence of their king.

Issuing from the Köen defile the French had drawn up near the village of Hasenhausen, and it was really at this point that the battle took place, for the Emperor was mistaken in thinking that he had in front of him at Jena the King and the bulk of the Prussian army. The fight sustained by Davout's troops was one of the most terrible in our history. His divisions, after having triumphantly resisted all the attacks of the enemy's infantry, formed square, repelled numerous cavalry charges, and, not content with that, advanced with such resolution that the Prussians gave way at all points, leaving the ground strewn with dead and wounded. The Duke of Brunswick 3and General Schmettau were killed, Marshal Mollendorf severely wounded and taken prisoner. The King of Prussia and his troops executed a retreat on Weimar in pretty good order, expecting to rally in rear of the victorious corps, as they supposed, of Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel. These, meanwhile, beaten by Napoleon, were from their side coming to seek a support from the troops under the King. The two huge bodies of beaten and demoralised troops having come together on the Erfurt road, the appearance of some French regiments was sufficient to throw them into the greatest confusion. The rout was complete. Thus the bragging of the Prussian officers was punished. The results of this victory were incalculable and made us masters of nearly the whole of Prussia.

The Emperor expressed his great satisfaction with Marshal Davout and the divisions under him in a general order which was read to all the companies and even to the wounded in the ambulances. In the following year Napoleon created Davout Duke of Auerstädt, although the battle was fought less in that village than in Hasenhausen; but the King of Prussia had had his head-quarters at Auerstädt, and the enemy had given that name to the battle which the French call Jena. The army expected to see Bernadotte severely punished, but he got off with a smart reprimand. The Emperor feared as it would seem to vex his brother Joseph, whose sister-in-law, Mademoiselle Clary, Bernadotte had married. We shall see later on how Bernadotte's behaviour on the day of that battle was in some sense his first step to the throne of Sweden.

I was not wounded at Jena, but I was taken in in a way which after forty years it still awakens my wrath to remember. At the moment when Augereau's corps was attacking the Saxons, the marshal sent me to General Durosnel, commanding a brigade of chasseurs, with orders to charge the enemy's cavalry. I was to guide the brigade by a road which I had already reconnoitred. I hastened to place myself at the head of our chasseurs, who were dashing on the Saxon squadrons. These latter resisted bravely, but after a short melee were compelled to retire with loss. Towards the end of the fight I found myself face to face with a hussar officer in the white uniform of Prince Albert of Saxony's regiment. I Summoned him at the sabre's point to surrender, which he did by handing me his weapon. The combat over, I was generous enough to give it back to him, as is the practice in such cases between officers, and I added that, although by the laws of war his horse belonged to me, I did not wish to deprive him of it. He thanked me warmly and followed me in the direction which I was taking to return to the marshal, to whom I looked forward to presenting my prisoner. But as soon as we were 500 paces from the French chasseurs, the confounded Saxon officer, who was on my left, drew his sabre, laid open my horse's shoulder, and was on the point of striking me had I not thrown myself upon him, although I had not my sabre in my hand. But as our bodies were in contact he had not room to bring his blade to bear on me, seeing which he caught me by my epaulette—for I was in full uniform that day—and pulled hard enough to make me lose my balance. My saddle turned round, and there I was with one leg in the air and my head downwards, while the Saxon going off at full gallop, returned to what remained of the enemy's army. I was furious both at the position in which I found myself and at the ingratitude with which the stranger repaid my kind treatment of him. So, as soon as the Saxon army was captured, I went to look for my hussar officer and give him a good lesson, but he had disappeared.

I have said that our new ally, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, had united his troops to those of the Emperor. This brigade, which was attached to the 7th corps, had a uniform exactly like that of the Prussians, so that during the action many Hessians were killed or wounded. My young friend, Lieutenant Stoch, was on the point of meeting the same fate, our hussars having already got hold of him, when he recognised me and called to me, and I made them let him go.

The Emperor richly rewarded the parson of Jena, and the Elector of Saxony, when, as the result of the victories of his new ally Napoleon, he had become king, also rewarded this priest, who lived very peaceably till 1814, at which time he took refuge in France to escape the vengeance of the Prussians. They carried him off and imprisoned him in a fortress for two or three years, then the King of Saxony interceded in his favour with Louis XVIII., and he claimed the priest as having been arrested without authority. The Prussians agreed to release him, and he came to live at Paris.

After the victory of Jena the Emperor gave orders to pursue the enemy in every direction, and our columns made a vast number of prisoners. The King of Prussia only reached Berlin by way of Magdeburg with great difficulty, and it is even asserted that the Queen was on the point of falling into the hands of our advanced guard.

Augereau's corps crossed the Elbe near Dessau. It would take too long to recount the disasters of the Prussian army; it must be sufficient to say that of the troops which had marched against the French not one battalion escaped: they were all captured before the end of the month. The fortresses of Torgau, Erfurt, and Wittenberg opened their gates to the conquerors, who marched on Berlin. Napoleon halted at Potsdam and visited the tomb of Frederick the Great; then he went on to Berlin, where, contrary to his practice, Davout's corps marched at the head of the procession, an honour which it well deserved, for it had done the most fighting of all; Augereau's corps followed, and then the Guard.