Then there was Friedland, the fearful trap into which the Russians, like a flight of careless sparrows, again fell; Friedland, the strategical masterpiece of that Emperor who knew everything and could do everything. At first the French left wing remained motionless and imperturbable, whilst Ney, having captured the town, was destroying the bridges; then the French left wing rushed upon the enemy's right, throwing it into the river, overwhelming it in the inextricable position into which it had been forced; and so much slaughter had to be accomplished that the French were still killing the foe at ten o'clock at night. Next there was Wagram--the Austrians wishing to cut the French off from the Danube, and repeatedly reinforcing their left wing so that they might overcome Masséna, who, being wounded, reclined in a carriage whilst commanding his troops; and meantime the artful, Titanic Napoleon allowed the Austrians to pursue this course till all at once the terrible fire of a hundred guns rained upon their weakened centre, sweeping it more than a league away; whereupon their left wing, terrified at its isolation, and already falling back before Masséna, who had retrieved his earlier reverses, carried off with it the remainder of the Austrian army with devastation akin to that caused by a breaking dyke. And at last there was the Moskowa, when the bright sun of Austerlitz shone out again for the last time, a terrible _mêlée_ of men, with all the confusion born of vast numbers of antagonists and of stubborn courage, hillocks carried under an incessant fusillade, redoubts captured by assault at the bayonet's point, repeated offensive returns of the enemy, who disputed the ground inch by inch, and such desperate bravery on the part of the Russian Guards that the furious charges of Murat, the simultaneous thunder of three hundred guns, and all the valour of Ney, the triumphant prince of the day, were needed to secure victory. But whatever the battle was, the flags were stirred by the same glorious fluttering in the evening air; the same shouts of 'Vive Napoléon!' resounded when the bivouac fires were being lighted on the conquered positions; France was everywhere at home--a conqueress who marched her invincible eagles from one end of Europe to the other, and who needed but to set her foot on the soil of foreign kingdoms for the humbled nations to sink into the ground! Less intoxicated by the white wine that sparkled in his glass than by the glorious memories carolling in his mind, Maurice was finishing his chop when his glance fell upon two ragged, mud-stained soldiers, who looked like bandits weary of roaming the highways; and on hearing them question the servant girl respecting the precise positions of the regiments encamped alongside the canal, he called out to them, 'Eh, comrades, here! You belong to the Seventh Corps, don't you?'