The army was eager to be gone from these sickening sights. But Bennigsen had technically admitted defeat by his withdrawal, which the Prussians characterized as "a sin and a shame." Napoleon, therefore, waited to secure his victory, and formally despatched a few parties in pursuit. Murat advanced to within touch of Bennigsen, who had taken his position under the walls of Koenigsberg. At the same time the Emperor dictated a glowing account of the French triumph and of the admirable condition of the army. It was at once despatched for publication in the official journals of Paris. Soon afterward, on February thirteenth, a messenger carried to Frederick William verbal proposals for either an armistice or a separate peace on most favorable terms. In these Napoleon set forth that the relation of Prussia to Russia was mere vassalage, and that her rehabilitation as an independent power was essential to the peace of Europe, agreeing to restore her lands as far as the Elbe, and saying that as to Poland he cared nothing whatever. The confident feeling of the allies was shown by the Prussian king's prompt refusal to accept such overtures, and by his determination to abide by the issue. On the other hand, the mere fact of the proposition was evidence of Napoleon's anxiety. It is said on good authority that the French emissary verbally offered the complete restoration of Prussia if she would desert her ally. Stern necessity would wait no longer on Napoleon's bravado; in a few days his troops withdrew to the tableland behind the river Passarge. There they found better cantonments, but the food was neither better nor more abundant. The Emperor had only a thatched hovel for his headquarters at Osterode, and, as he wrote to his brother Joseph, lived in snow and filth, without wine, brandy, or bread. "We shall be in fine condition when we get bread," he said to Soult. "My position would be fine if I had food; the lack of food makes it only moderate," he wrote, on February twenty-seventh, to Talleyrand. This was true, because now the army was more concentrated than before; and when headquarters were moved in the spring to Finkenstein the Emperor was more comfortable. The movements culminating in Pultusk clearly prove that Napoleon could not until then adapt his means to the novel conditions of warfare he found in Poland. But in the movements antecedent to Eylau there are, in spite of virtual defeat, a clear apprehension of the difficulties, and an evident ability to surmount them. While Bennigsen constantly assumes the offensive, Napoleon always seizes the initiative, and in the retreat his choice of the plateau around Osterode as a rallying-point displays a continued mastery of all the conditions.