Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia | Page 2

of
bleeding victims to the ground, was now entirely deserted. Night had
thrown its pall over the horrors of this Calvary of Prussian glory: the
howling storm alone sang a requiem to the unfortunate soldiers, who,
with open wounds and features distorted with pain, lay in endless rows
on the blood-stained ground.
At length the night of horror is over--the storm dies away--the thick
veil of darkness is rent asunder, and the sun of a new day arises pale
and sad; pale and sad he illuminates the battle-field, reeking with the
blood of so many thousands.
What a spectacle! How many mutilated corpses lie prostrate on the
ground with their dilated eyes staring at the sky--and among them, the
happy, the enviable! how many living, groaning, bleeding men,
writhing with pain, unable to raise their mutilated bodies from the gory
bed of torture and death!
The sun discloses the terrible picture hidden by the pall of night; it
illuminates the faces of the stark dead, but awakens the living and
suffering, the wounded and bleeding, from their benumbed slumber,
and recalls them to consciousness and the dreadful knowledge of their
wretched existence.
With consciousness return groans and wails; and the dreadful
conviction of their wretched existence opens their lips, and wrings from
them shrieks of pain and despair.
How enviable and blissful sleep the dead whose wounds bleed and ache

no longer! How wretched and pitiable are the living as they lie on the
ground, tortured by the wounds which the howling night wind has dried
so that they bleed no more! Those poor deserted ones in the valley and
on the hills the sun has awakened, and the air resounds with their
moans and cries and despairing groans, and heart-rending entreaties for
relief. But no relief comes to them; no cheerful voice replies to their
wails. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, had been placed in the ambulances,
and, during the sudden panic, the surgeons had left the battle-field with
them. But hundreds, nay thousands, remained behind, and with no one
to succor them!
From among the crowds of wounded and dead lying on the battle-field
of Auerstadt, rose up now an officer, severely injured in the head and
arm. The sun, which had aroused him from the apathetic exhaustion
into which he had sunk from loss of blood and hunger, now warmed his
stiffened limbs, and allayed somewhat the racking pain in his wounded
right arm, and the bleeding gash in his forehead. He tried to extricate
himself from under the carcass of his horse, that pressed heavily on him,
and felt delighted as he succeeded in loosing his foot from the stirrup,
and drawing it from under the steed. Holding with his uninjured left
arm to the saddle, he raised himself slowly. The effort caused the blood
to trickle in large drops from the wound in his forehead, which he
disregarded under the joyful feeling that he had risen again from his
death-bed, and that he was still living and breathing. For a moment he
leaned faint and exhausted against the horse as a couch; and feeling a
burning thirst, a devouring hunger, his dark, flaming eyes wandered
around as if seeking for a refreshing drink for his parched palate, or a
piece of bread to appease his hunger.
But his eye everywhere met only stiffened corpses, and the misery and
horror of a deserted battle-field. He knew that no food could be found,
as the soldiers had not, for two days, either bread or liquor in their
knapsacks. Hunger had been the ally that had paved the way for the
French emperor--it had debilitated the Prussians and broken their
courage.
"I must leave the battle-field," murmured the wounded soldier; "I must

save myself while I have sufficient strength; otherwise I shall die of
hunger. Oh, my God, give me strength to escape from so horrible a
death! Strengthen my feet for this terrible walk!"
He cast a single fiery glance toward heaven, one in which his whole
soul was expressed, and then set out on his walk. He moved along
slowly and with tottering steps amid the rows of corpses, some of
which were still quivering and moaning, as death drew near, while
others writhed and wailed with their wounds. Unable to relieve their
racking pains, and to assist them in their boundless misery, it only
remained for him to sink down among them, or to avert his eyes, to
close his ears to their supplications, and escape with hurried steps from
this atmosphere of blood and putrefaction, in order to rescue his own
life from the clutches of death.
He hastened, therefore, but his tearful eyes greeted the poor sufferers
whom he passed on his way, and his quivering lips muttered a prayer
for them.
At length the first and