Both lakes were drained only a few days after the battle, _at Napoleon's orders_; in the lower lake not a single corpse was found; in the upper lake 150 corpses of horses, but only two, some say three, of men, were found.

Probably Napoleon invented the catastrophe for the sake of dramatic effect, and others followed the lead given in his bulletin.

The Czar may have adopted the story because it helped to excuse his defeat.

(See my article in the "Eng.

Hist.