France. Napoleon follows Blucher to Laon and attacks. But he greatly underestimates the size of the Allied contingent, once again due to a lack of cavalry. The assault fails. The Allied counterattack comes as a surprise, at night, and defeats Marmont. Only Blucher’s nervous breakdown saves Napoleon’s army. Field Marshal Blucher, 72, suffers a mental breakdown, with a peculiar side effect: the hallucination of giving birth to an elephant. He is completely absent and cannot tolerate light. Yorck seizes the opportunity to assume the role of prima donna. Blucher, however, even when he recovers, falls prey to a congenital weakness for a week: the belief that the Allies are plotting to betray Prussia.
