"IT TAKES A VERY FEEBLE MIND... TO GIVE IN HEADLONG TO THE BELIEF THAT PRUSSIA IS DECLARING WAR ON US...". NAPOLEON I. Letter signed "Nap" with the archchancellor Jean-Jacques-Régis Cambaceres. Ebersdorf [today Kaiserebersdorf, in the South-East of Vienna, vis-a-vis the island of Lobau], May 20, 1809. 3/4 p. in-4. Letter written on the eve of the battle of Essling. Vienna taken on 14 May, Napoleon I was looking for a way to reach the Austrian army deployed on the other bank of the Danube when the bridges had been destroyed. Most of his own troops were stationed on the island of Lobau. "My cousin, I have received your letter of the 14th. I see with pity the lack of consistency of opinion in Paris, the perpetual fears, and all the effects of idle talk and malice. I am sorry for the people of Paris, and for you who are there. You have to have very little spirit to believe this nonsense and to give in headlong to the belief that Prussia is declaring war on us. It is also true that the Minister of War has done everything he could to alarm the public [General Henri Clarke], and that rumours that are not in the common sense [allusion to the alleged army raised by Major von Schill] have been given as reliable...". Prussia, defeated in 1806 and 1807, was still working on rebuilding its army and was not yet ready to act - it would not resume the fight against Napoleon I until 1813. Napoleon I, Correspondance générale, Paris, Fayard, vol. IX, 2013, no. 21052. An export certificate for a cultural object will be issued with this letter.