Go yourself to him, Timm, and inform him of my orders. This one
courier will be sufficient," said the king, turning again to
Hardenberg, after Timm had left the room. "Natzmer will first repair
to the headquarters of the King of Naples, deliver my letter to him,
show him the orders intended for Kleist and York, and then go to the
Russian camp in order to deliver these orders to my generals."
"Will your majesty not write also a letter to the Emperor Alexander,
begging him to spare your troops, whom Wittgenstein henceforth will
consider enemies, and to address a word of consolation and
encouragement to the emperor, whose magnanimous heart will bitterly
feel this new disappointment?"
"Very well," said the king, after a brief reflection, "I will write
such a letter to Alexander, and Natzmer shall himself take it after
previously seeing Murat, Wittgenstein, and York."
An hour afterward the king wrote his letters, and Hardenberg drew up
the decree removing York from the command of the army. The
chancellor of state then left the king's cabinet to repair to the
residence of the French ambassador, and inform him of the
resolutions of his majesty. The king looked after him long and
musingly, and, folding his hands behind him, paced his room. A
profound silence reigned around him; the storm of the cold January
night swept dense masses of snow against the windows, making them
rattle as if spectral hands were tapping at the panes: the wax-
tapers on the silver candelabra, standing on the king's desk, had
burned low, and their flickering light flashed on the noble portrait
of the queen.
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