Note 143 — Chapter XXXII
Reading edition
From Elchingen, Oct. 21, Napoleon issued the following address to the army:—"Soldiers of the Grand Army! In a fortnight we have finished a campaign: we have expelled the troops of the house of Austria from Bavaria, and re-established our ally in the sovereignty of his estates. That army which, with equal ostentation and imprudence, had posted itself on our frontiers, is annihilated. Soldiers! you owe this success to your unbounded confidence in your Emperor; to your patience in supporting fatigues and privations of every description; and to your singular intrepidity. But we will not stop here. You are impatient to commence a second campaign. We are about to make the Russian army, which the gold of England has transported from the extremities of the universe, undergo the same fate. Here there are no generals in combating against whom I can have any glory to acquire. All my care shall be to obtain the victory with the least possible effusion of blood. My soldiers are my children."