At Paris, where the most confident had become anxious, Napoleon severely reprimanded the timid. He wrote, on the 19th May, to General Clarke, the minister of war: "Sir, you have alarmed Paris too much about the affairs of Prussia, even if it were true that she had attacked us. Prussia is of very small importance, and I shall never want for means to enforce her submission--all the more so when these reports are contradicted. You have not used sufficient prudence on this occasion; it produces a bad effect for any power to imagine that I am without resource. The minister of police has taken his text from this to make a lot of foolish talk, which is very much out of place." Austria had in fact sent to Prussia an ambassador with instructions to engage King Frederick William to break his chains, and take at last his part in the resistance; but that monarch had refused. "Not yet," said he; "it is too soon I am not ready; when I come, I will not come alone. Only strike one other blow." The efforts of Major Schill had not been supported, and that courageous partisan had failed under the walls of Stralsund. The secret diplomacy of Austria appeared to have met with more favor at St. Petersburg; the declaration of war by Russia against Austria remained absolutely without result; the Russian troops which were in Poland seemed more disposed to suppress the insurrection of Galicia than to second the efforts of Prince Poniatowski. It was one of the great characteristics of the genius of the Emperor Napoleon to place no importance upon reports or appearances, although he was not ignorant of their action on the public. In his public proclamations he made an effort to disguise the check he had received at Essling; but in practice, in his military operations he comprehended all the gravity of it, without allowing himself to be troubled an instant by bad fortune; he even derived original and powerful combinations from the embarrassments of his situation. Prince Eugène had already joined him near Vienna (26th May, 1809), driving back the Archduke John upon Hungary, and overthrowing the corps of the Jellachich Ban, which had in vain tried to stop his progress at Mount Saint-Michel, near Leoben. The army of Italy was not to rest long, the emperor having immediately sent his adopted son to follow the traces of the archduke. "To do the utmost harm to the archduke; to drive him back to the Danube; to intercept his communications with Chastelar and Giulay, who apparently intend to join him; to reduce the fortress of Graetz by isolating it, and to maintain your communications on the left with the duke of Auerstaedt, to construct the bridges on the Raab--these should be your aims," wrote the emperor to Prince Eugène, on the 13th June, and on the 15th: "It is probable that Raab has not sufficient fortifications for the enemy to dare to place a considerable garrison there of his best troops. If he only puts in bad