The night of the seventh was spent in indecision as to any one or all of these ideas, but in active preparation for the actual movements of the retreat, however it should be conducted; any contingency might be met or a resolve taken when the necessity arose. During that night the Emperor took two warm baths. The habit of drinking strong coffee to prevent drowsiness had induced attacks of nervousness, and these were not diminished by his load of care. To allay these and other ailments, he had had recourse for some time to frequent tepid baths. Much has been written about a mysterious malady which had been steadily increasing, but the burden of testimony from the Emperor's closest associates at this time indicates that in the main he had enjoyed excellent health throughout the second Saxon campaign. He was, on the whole, calm and self-reliant, exhibiting signs of profound emotion only in connection with important decisions. He was certainly capable of clear insight and of severe application in a crisis; he could still endure exhausting physical exertion, and rode without discomfort, sitting his horse in the same stiff, awkward manner as of old. There were certainly intervals of self-indulgence and of lassitude, of excessive emotion and depressing self-examination, which seemed to require the offset of a physical stimulus; but on the whole there do not appear to have been such sharp attacks of illness, or even of morbid depression, as amount to providential interference; natural causes, complex but not inexplicable, sufficiently account for the subsequent disasters.