At length Napoleon was satisfied that he would be able to amass sufficient strength before noon the following day to mount a successful attack on the Prussians. The critical phase of the coming battle would occur well before midday. In order to provide room for the advancing French columns to cross the Saale and make their way through Jena, the bridgehead would have to be pushed forward. That meant that Lannes and his men were going to have to advance against the Prussians on their own at first light, and hold the enemy back long enough for the rest of the Grand Army to deploy. Napoleon stared at the map again. Not the whole of the Grand Army, he decided. There was an opportunity here for an outflanking movement by Davout and Bernadotte’s columns. If they could cross further along the Saale and move against the enemy’s left, then the Prussian army would be caught in the jaws of a vice and crushed.

Napoleon dictated the final details to Berthier, then stood up and announced his intention to return to the Landgrafenberg and spend the night there with the Imperial Guard. He took up his hat and buttoned his greatcoat and strode outside. After the warm fug of the crowded headquarters the air outside was cold and crisp and the clear heavens were scattered with the brilliant pinpoints of stars. Napoleon paused a moment, head tilted back, and admired the view. He had read that astronomers claimed that each star was like the sun and that vast distances separated them so that the earth, and all who dwelt there, were as insignificant as dust on the great scale of the universe. For the briefest instant Napoleon felt a tremor of despair in his heart, then quickly dismissed it with a snorted inhalation of the cold air, and strode towards his horse and let one of his escort help him up into the saddle.

Above the roofs of Jena loomed the dark mass of the Landgrafenberg, lit here and there by the dancing flickers of torches and campfires.There was a concentration of torches on the lower slope and by the dim loom of their light Napoleon could just make out the forms of some wagons and gun carriages. He frowned, dug his heels in and galloped down the street towards the road that led up to the heights. A short distance outside the town he came across the tail of the artillery train that had been ordered to the summit of the Landgrafenberg. On either side of the track, the battalions of the Imperial Guard were waiting to move up to the heights and some of the men stirred at the sound of approaching hoofbeats. Even in the dark the keener-sighted of the men recognised the distinctive shape of Napoleon’s hat and a voice cried out excitedly, ‘It’s the Emperor! On your feet for the Emperor!’