The old jealousies, thus artfully awakened, had been sufficient to prevent a declaration of war from immediately following on the violation of the territory of Anspach and Bareuth.

The intervention of the Czar had, it is not to be doubted, at length determined the Court of Berlin to close their unworthy neutrality:--but Haugwitz had no Prussian army in his train; and, seeing what was before him, he certainly did prudently to defer that which had been so unwisely as well as ungenerously put off from month to month, for one day more.
At one o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of December, Napoleon, having slept for an hour by a watch-fire, got on horseback, and proceeded to reconnoitre the front of his position.

He wished to do so without being recognised, but the soldiery penetrated the secret, and, lighting great fires of straw all along the line, received him from post to post with shouts of enthusiasm.

They reminded him that this was the anniversary of his coronation, and assured him they would celebrate the day in a manner worthy of its glory.

"Only promise us," cried an old grenadier, "that you will keep yourself out of the fire." "I will do so," answered Napoleon, "I shall be with the reserve _until you need us._" This pledge, which so completely ascertains the mutual confidence of the leader and his soldiers, he repeated in a proclamation issued at daybreak.