Throwing himself upon some straw in his hut, Napoleon slept till far into the night. Then he mounted his horse, and once more went the rounds to see that all was right. He went too near the Russian lines: roused some Cossacks, and escaped capture by the speed of his horse. Getting back into his own lines, he was stumbling along on foot in the darkness when he fell over a log. A grenadier, to light his way, made a torch of some straw. The blaze showed to other soldiers the Emperor. Upon a sudden impulse, more torches were made of straw, while the shout arose, “Live the Emperor!” It was the anniversary of the coronation, and the troops remembered. The one torch became a score, the score a hundred, then thousands, until a blaze of light ran along the line for miles, while the shout of “Live the Emperor!” roused even the Russian hordes. It was such an ovation as only a Cæsar could inspire. It was so unstudied, so heartfelt, so martial and dramatic, that Napoleon was profoundly moved. “It is the grandest evening of my life,” he exclaimed. At dawn he called his staff to the hut, ate with them standing, and then, buckling on his sword, said, “Now, gentlemen, let us go and begin a great day!” A moment later he sat his horse on a hill that overlooked the field, his staff and his marshals around him. As the sun cleared itself of the mists, “the sun of Austerlitz,” the final orders were given, the marshals galloped to their posts, and the famous battle began. By four o’clock that evening the Russo-Austrian army was a wreck--outgeneralled, outfought, knocked to pieces. Napoleon had ended “_this_ war by a clap of thunder.” The Czar fled with the remnant of his host, escaping capture at the hands of Davoust by the well-worn falsehood of an armistice. The Emperor Francis came in person to Napoleon to sue for peace, was kindly received, and was granted terms far more liberal than he had any right to expect. On December 27, 1805, the Treaty of Presburg was signed. Austria ceded Venice, Friuli, Istria, and Dalmatia to Italy; Tyrol to Bavaria, which Napoleon erected into an independent kingdom; Würtemberg and Baden received cities and territory as rewards for adherence to France. Austria sanctioned all of Napoleon’s recent encroachments in Italy, and agreed to pay an indemnity of $8,000,000. In the battle of Austerlitz the Allies lost about fifteen thousand men, killed and wounded, besides twenty thousand prisoners. The French loss was about twelve thousand. Marbot relates an incident which illustrates the character of Napoleon. One of the familiar episodes of the battle of Austerlitz was the retreat of the Russians over the frozen lakes. Napoleon himself ordered the cannoneers to cease shooting at the fugitives, and to elevate their pieces so that the balls would fall upon the ice. The balls fell, the ice cracked, and some two thousand Russians sank to watery graves.