Chapter I (1)

Napoleon, satisfied with his preparations, at length declared himself. "Soldiers," said he, "the second Polish war is commenced. The first was concluded at Friedland and at Tilsit. At Tilsit, Russia swore eternal alliance with France, and war with England. She now violates her oaths. She will give no explanation of her capricious conduct, until the French eagles have repassed the Rhine; by that means leaving our allies at her mercy. Russia is hurried away by fatality; her destiny must be accomplished. Does she then believe us to be degenerated? Are we not still the soldiers of Austerlitz? She places us between war and dishonour; the choice cannot be doubtful. Let us advance, then; let us pass the Niemen, and carry the war into her territory! The second Polish war will be as glorious for the French arms as the first; but the peace we shall this time conclude will carry with it its own guarantee; it will put an end to the fatal influence which Russia for the last fifty years has exercised over the affairs of Europe."

This tone, which was at that time deemed prophetic, befitted an expedition of an almost fabulous character. It was quite necessary to invoke Destiny, and give credit to its empire, when the fate of so many human beings, and so much glory, were about to be consigned to its mercy.

The Emperor Alexander also harangued his army, but in a very different manner. The difference between the two nations, the two sovereigns, and their reciprocal position, were remarked in these proclamations. In fact, the one which was defensive was unadorned and moderate; the other, offensive, was replete with audacity and the confidence of victory. The first sought support in religion, the other in fatality; the one in love of country, the other in love of glory; but neither of them referred to the liberation of Poland, which was the real cause of contention.

We marched towards the east, with our left towards the north, and our right towards the south. On our right, Volhynia invoked us with all her prayers; in the centre, were Wilna, Minsk, and the whole of Lithuania, and Samogitia; in front of our left, Courland and Livonia awaited their fate in silence.

The army of Alexander, composed of 300,000 men, kept those provinces in awe. From the banks of the Vistula, from Dresden, from Paris itself, Napoleon had critically surveyed it. He had ascertained that its centre, commanded by Barclay, extended from Wilna and Kowno to Lida and Grodno, resting its right on Vilia, and its left on the Niemen.

That river protected the Russian front by the deviation which it makes from Grodno to Kowno; for it was only in the interval between these two cities, that the Niemen, running toward the north, intersected the line of our attack, and served as a frontier to Lithuania. Before reaching Grodno, and on quitting Kowno, it flows westward.

To the south of Grodno was Bagration, with 65,000 men, in the direction of Wolkowisk; to the north of Kowno, at Rossiana and Keydani, Wittgenstein, with 26,000 men, substituted their bayonets for that natural frontier.

At the same time, another army of 50,000 men, called the reserve, was assembled at Lutsk, in Volhynia, in order to keep that province in check, and observe Schwartzenberg; it was confided to Tormasof, till the treaty about to be signed at Bucharest permitted Tchitchakof, and the greater part of the army in Moldavia, to unite with it.

Alexander, and, under him, his minister of war, Barclay de Tolly, directed all these forces. They were divided into three armies, called, the first western army, under Barclay; the second western army, under Bagration; and the army of reserve, under Tormasof. Two other corps were forming; one at Mozyr, in the environs of Bobruisk; and the other at Riga and Dünabourg. The reserves were at Wilna and Swentziany. In conclusion, a vast entrenched camp was erected before Drissa, within an elbow of the Düna.

The French emperor's opinion was, that this position behind the Niemen was neither offensive nor defensive, and that the Russian army was no better off for the purpose of effecting a retreat; that this army, being so much scattered over a line of sixty leagues, might be surprised and dispersed, as actually happened to it; that, with still more certainty, the left of Barclay, and the entire army of Bagration, being stationed at Lida and at Wolkowisk, in front of the marshes of the Berezina, which they covered, instead of being covered by them, might be thrown back on them and taken; or, at least, that an abrupt and direct attack on Kowno and Wilna would cut them off from their line of operation, indicated by Swentziany and the entrenched camp at Drissa.

In fact, Doctorof and Bagration were already separated from that line; for, instead of remaining in mass with Alexander, in front of the roads leading to the Düna, to defend them and profit by them, they were stationed forty leagues to the right.

For this reason it was that Napoleon separated his forces into five armies. While Schwartzenberg, advancing from Gallicia with his 30,000 Austrians, (whose numbers he had orders to exaggerate,) would keep Tormasof in check, and draw the attention of Bagration towards the south; while the King of Westphalia, with his 80,000 men, would employ that general in front, towards Grodno, without pressing him too vehemently at first; and while the Viceroy of Italy, in the direction of Pilony, would be in readiness to interpose between the same Bagration and Barclay; in fine, while at the extreme left, Macdonald, debouching from Tilsit, would invade the north of Lithuania, and fall on the right of Wittgenstein; Napoleon himself, with his 200,000 men, was to precipitate himself on Kowno, on Wilna, and on his rival, and destroy him at the first shock.

Should the Emperor of Russia give way, he would press him hard, and throw him back upon Drissa, and as far as the commencement of his line of operations; then, all at once, propelling his detachments to the right, he would surround Bagration, and the whole of the corps of the Russian left, which, by this rapid irruption, would be separated from their right.

I will shortly sketch a brief and rapid summary of the history of our two wings, being anxious to return to the centre, and to be enabled uninterruptedly to exhibit the great scenes which were enacted there. Macdonald commanded the left wing; his invasion, supported by the Baltic, overcame the right wing of the Russians; it threatened Revel first, next Riga, and even Petersburgh. He soon reached Riga. The war became stationary under its walls; although of little importance, it was conducted by Macdonald with prudence, science, and glory, even in his retreat, to which he was neither compelled by the winter nor by the enemy, but solely by Napoleon's orders.

With regard to his right wing, the emperor had counted on the support of Turkey, which failed him. He had inferred that the Russian army of Volhynia would follow the general movement of Alexander's retreat; but, on the contrary, Tormasof advanced upon our rear. The French army was thus uncovered, and menaced with being turned on those vast plains. Nature not supplying it in that quarter with any support, as she did on the left wing, it was necessarily compelled to rely entirely on itself. Forty thousand Saxons, Austrians, and Poles, remained there in observation.

Tormasof was beaten; but another army, rendered available by the treaty of Bucharest, arrived and formed a junction with the remnant of the first. From that moment, the war upon that point became defensive. It was carried on feebly, as was to be expected, notwithstanding some Polish troops and a French general were left with the Austrian army. That general had been long and strenuously cried up for ability, although he had met with reverses, and his reputation was not undeserved.

No decisive advantage was gained on either side. But the position of this corps, almost entirely Austrian, became more and more important, as the grand army retreated upon it. It will be seen whether Schwartzenberg deceived its confidence,--whether he left us to be surrounded on the Berezina,--and whether it be true, that he seemed on that occasion to aspire to no other character than that of an armed witness to the great dispute.

CHAP. II.

Between these two wings, the grand army marched to the Niemen, in three separate masses. The king of Westphalia, with 80,000 men, moved upon Grodno; the viceroy of Italy, with 75,000 men, upon Pilony; Napoleon, with 220,000 men, upon Nogaraiski, a farm situated three leagues beyond Kowno. The 23d of June, before daylight, the imperial column reached the Niemen, but without seeing it. The borders of the great Prussian forest of Pilwisky, and the hills which line the river, concealed the great army, which was about to cross it.

Napoleon, who had travelled in a carriage as far as that, mounted his horse at two o'clock in the morning. He reconnoitred the Russian river, without disguising himself, as has been falsely asserted, but under cover of the night crossing this frontier, which five months afterwards he was only enabled to repass under cover of the same obscurity. When he came up to the bank, his horse suddenly stumbled, and threw him on the sand. A voice exclaimed, "This is a bad omen; a Roman would recoil!" It is not known whether it was himself, or one of his retinue, who pronounced these words.

His task of reconnoitring concluded, he gave orders that, at the close of the following day, three bridges should be thrown over the river, near the village of Poniémen; he then retired to his head-quarters, where he passed the whole day, sometimes in his tent, sometimes in a Polish house, listlessly reclined, in the midst of a breathless atmosphere, and a suffocating heat, vainly courting repose.

On the return of night, he again made his approaches to the river. The first who crossed it were a few sappers in a small boat. They approached the Russian side with some degree of apprehension, but found no obstacle to oppose their landing. There they found peace; the war was entirely on their own side; all was tranquil on that foreign soil, which had been described to them as so menacing. A single officer of cossacks, however, on patrole, presented himself to their view. He was alone, and appeared to consider himself in full peace, and to be ignorant that the whole of Europe in arms was at hand. He inquired of the strangers who they were?--"Frenchmen!" they replied.--"What do you want?" rejoined the officer; "and wherefore do you come into Russia?"--A sapper briskly replied, "To make war upon you; to take Wilna; to deliver Poland."--The cossack then withdrew; he disappeared in the woods, into which three of our soldiers, giving vent to their ardour, and with a view to sound the forest, discharged their fire-arms.

Thus it was, that the feeble report of three muskets, to which there was no reply, apprised us of the opening of a new campaign, and the commencement of a great invasion.

Either from a feeling of prudence, or from presentiment, this first signal of war threw the emperor into a state of violent irritation. Three hundred voltigeurs immediately passed the river, in order to cover the erection of the bridges.

The whole of the French columns then began to issue from the valleys and the forest. They advanced in silence to the river, under cover of thick darkness. It was necessary to touch them in order to recognize their presence. Fires, even to sparks, were forbidden; they slept with arms in their hands, as if in the presence of an enemy. The crops of green rye, moistened with a profuse dew, served as beds to the men, and provender to the horses.

The night, its coolness preventing sleep, its obscurity prolonging the hours, and augmenting wants; finally, the dangers of the following day, every thing combined to give solemnity to this position. But the expectation of a great battle supported our spirits. The proclamation of Napoleon had just been read; the most remarkable passages of it were repeated in a whisper, and the genius of conquest kindled our imagination.

Before us was the Russian frontier. Our ardent gaze already sought to invade the promised land of our glory athwart the shades of night. We seemed to hear the joyful acclamations of the Lithuanians, at the approach of their deliverers. We pictured to ourselves the banks of the river lined with their supplicating hands. Here, we were in want of every thing; there, every thing would be lavished upon us! The Lithuanians would hasten to supply our wants; we were about to be encircled by love and gratitude. What signified one unpleasant night? The day would shortly appear, and with it its warmth and all its illusions. The day did appear! and it revealed to us dry and desert sands, and dark and gloomy forests. Our eyes then reverted sadly upon ourselves, and we were again inspired by pride and hope, on observing the imposing spectacle of our united army.

Three hundred yards from the river, on the most elevated height, the tent of the emperor was visible. Around it the hills, their slopes, and the subjacent valleys, were covered with men and horses. As soon as the earth exhibited to the sun those moving masses, clothed with glittering arms, the signal was given, and instantly the multitude began to defile off in three columns, towards the three bridges. They were observed to take a winding direction, as they descended the narrow plain which separated them from the Niemen, to approach it, to reach the three passages, to compress and prolong their columns, in order to traverse them, and at last reach that foreign soil, which they were about to devastate, and which they were soon destined to cover with their own enormous fragments.

So great was their ardour, that two divisions of the advanced guard disputed for the honour of being the first to pass, and were near coming to blows; and some exertions were necessary to quiet them. Napoleon hastened to plant his foot on the Russian territory. He took this first step towards his ruin without hesitation. At first, he stationed himself near the bridge, encouraging the soldiers with his looks. The latter all saluted him with their accustomed acclamations. They appeared, indeed, more animated than he was; whether it was that he felt oppressed by the weight of so great an aggression, or that his enfeebled frame could not support the effect of the excessive heat, or that he was already intimidated by finding nothing to conquer.

At length he became impatient; all at once he dashed across the country into the forest which girt the sides of the river. He put his horse to the extremity of his speed; he appeared on fire to come singly in contact with the enemy. He rode more than a league in the same direction, surrounded throughout by the same solitude; upon which he found it necessary to return in the vicinity of the bridges, whence he re-descended the river with his guard towards Kowno.

Some thought they heard the distant report of cannon. As we marched, we endeavoured to distinguish on which side the battle was going on. But, with the exception of some troops of cossacks on that, as well as the ensuing days, the atmosphere alone displayed itself in the character of an enemy. In fact, the emperor had scarcely passed the river, when a rumbling sound began to agitate the air. In a short time the day became overcast, the wind rose, and brought with it the inauspicious mutterings of a thunder-storm. That menacing sky and unsheltered country filled us with melancholy impressions. There were even some amongst us, who, enthusiastic as they had lately been, were terrified at what they conceived to be a fatal presage. To them it appeared that those combustible vapours were collecting over our heads, and that they would descend upon the territory we approached, in order to prevent us from entering it.

It is quite certain, that the storm in question was as great as the enterprise in which we were engaged. During several hours, its black and heavy masses accumulated and hung upon the whole army: from right to left, over a space of fifty leagues, it was completely threatened by its lightnings, and overwhelmed by its torrents: the roads and fields were inundated; the insupportable heat of the atmosphere was suddenly changed to a disagreeable chillness. Ten thousand horses perished on the march, and more especially in the bivouacs which followed. A large quantity of equipages remained abandoned on the sands; and great numbers of men subsequently died.

A convent served to shelter the emperor against the first fury of the tempest. From hence he shortly departed for Kowno, where the greatest disorder prevailed. The claps of thunder were no longer noticed; those menacing reports, which still murmured over our heads, appeared forgotten. For, though this common phenomenon of the season might have shaken the firmness of some few minds, with the majority the time of omens had passed away. A scepticism, ingenious on the part of some, thoughtless or coarse on the part of others, earth-born passions and imperious wants, have diverted the souls of men from that heaven whence they are derived, and to which they should return. The army, therefore, recognized nothing but a natural and unseasonable accident in this disaster; and far from interpreting it as the voice of reprobation against so great an aggression, for which, moreover, it was not responsible, found in it nothing but a motive of indignation against fortune or the skies, which whether by chance, or otherwise, offered it so terrible a presage.

That very day, a particular calamity was added to this general disaster. At Kowno, Napoleon was exasperated, because the bridge over the Vilia had been thrown down by the cossacks, and opposed the passage of Oudinot. He affected to despise it, like every thing else that opposed him, and ordered a squadron of his Polish guard to swim the river. These fine fellows threw themselves into it without hesitation. At first, they proceeded in good order, and when out of their depth redoubled their exertions. They soon reached the middle of the river by swimming. But there, the increased rapidity of the current broke their order. Their horses then became frightened, quitted their ranks, and were carried away by the violence of the waves. They no longer swam, but floated about in scattered groups. Their riders struggled, and made vain efforts; their strength gave way, and they, at last, resigned themselves to their fate. Their destruction was certain; but it was for their country; it was in her presence, and for the sake of their deliverer, that they had devoted themselves; and even when on the point of being engulphed for ever, they suspended their unavailing struggles, turned their faces toward Napoleon, and exclaimed, "_Vive l'Empereur!_" Three of them were especially remarked, who, with their heads still above the billows, repeated this cry and perished instantly. The army was struck with mingled horror and admiration.

As to Napoleon, he prescribed with anxiety and precision the measures necessary to save the greater number, but without appearing affected: either from the habit of subduing his feelings; from considering the ordinary emotions of the heart as weaknesses in times of war, of which it was not for him to set the example, and therefore necessary to suppress; or finally, that he anticipated much greater misfortunes, compared with which the present was a mere trifle.

A bridge thrown over this river conveyed Marshal Oudinot and the second corps to Keydani. During that time, the rest of the army was still passing the Niemen. The passage took up three entire days. The army of Italy did not pass it till the 29th, in front of Pilony. The army of the king of Westphalia did not enter Grodno till the 30th.

From Kowno Napoleon proceeded in two days as far as the defiles which defend the plain of Wilna. He waited, in order to make his appearance there, for news from his advanced posts. He was in hopes that Alexander would contest with him the possession of that capital. The report, indeed, of some musketry, encouraged him in that hope; when intelligence was brought him that the city was undefended. Thither he advanced, ruminating and dissatisfied. He accused his generals of the advanced guard of suffering the Russian army to escape. It was the most active of them, Montbrun, whom he reproached, and against whom his anger rose to the point of menace. A menace without effect, a violence without result! and less blameable than remarkable, in a warrior, because they contributed to prove all the importance which he attached to an immediate victory.

In the midst of his anger, he displayed address in his dispositions for entering Wilna. He caused himself to be preceded and followed by Polish regiments. But more occupied by the retreat of the Russians than the grateful and admiring acclamations of the Lithuanians, he rapidly passed through the city, and hurried to the advanced posts. Several of the best hussars of the 8th, having ventured themselves in a wood, without proper support, had just perished in an action with the Russian guard; Segur[16], who commanded them, after a desperate defence, had fallen, covered with wounds.

[Footnote 16: Brother of the Author.]

The enemy had burnt his bridges and his magazines, and was flying by different roads, but all in the direction of Drissa. Napoleon ordered all which the fire had spared to be collected, and restored the communications. He sent forward Murat and his cavalry, to follow the track of Alexander: and after throwing Ney upon his left, in order to support Oudinot, who had that day driven back the lines of Wittgenstein, from Deweltowo as far as Wilkomir, he returned to occupy the place of Alexander at Wilna. There, his unfolded maps, military reports, and a crowd of officers requiring his orders, awaited his arrival. He was now on the theatre of war, and at the moment of its most animated operations; he had prompt and urgent decisions to make; orders of march to give; hospitals, magazines, and lines of operations, to establish.

It was necessary to interrogate, to read, and then compare; and at last to discover and grasp the truth, which always appeared to fly and conceal itself in the midst of a thousand contradictory answers and reports.

This was not all: Napoleon, at Wilna, had a new empire to organize; the politics of Europe, the war of Spain, and the government of France, to direct. His political, military, and administrative correspondence, which he had suffered to accumulate for some days, imperiously demanded his attention. Such, indeed, was his custom, on the eve of a great event, as that would necessarily decide the character of many of his replies, and impart a colouring to all. He therefore established himself at his quarters, and in the first instance threw himself on a bed, less for the sake of sleep than of quiet meditation; whence, abruptly starting up shortly after, he rapidly dictated the orders which he had conceived.

Intelligence was just then brought him from Warsaw and the Austrian army. The discourse at the opening of the Polish diet displeased the emperor; and he exclaimed, as he threw it from him, "This is French! It ought to be Polish!" As to the Austrians, it was never dissembled to him that, in their whole army, there was no one on whom he could depend but its commander. The certainty of that seemed sufficient for him.

CHAP. III.

Meantime, every thing was rekindling at the bottom of the hearts of the Lithuanians a patriotism which was still burning, though almost extinguished. On one side, the precipitate retreat of the Russians, and the presence of Napoleon; on the other, the cry of independence emitted by Warsaw, and more especially the sight of those Polish heroes, who returned with liberty to the soil whence they had been expelled along with her. The first days, therefore, were entirely devoted to joy: the happiness appeared general--the display of feeling universal.

The same sentiments were thought to be traceable everywhere; in the interior of the houses, as well as at the windows, and in the public places. The people congratulated and embraced each other on the high-roads; the old men once more resumed their ancient costume, reviving ideas of glory and independence. They wept with joy at the sight of the national banners which had been just re-erected; an immense crowd followed them, rending the air with their acclamations. But this enthusiasm, unreflecting in some, and the mere effect of excitement in others, was but of short duration.

On their side, the Poles of the grand duchy were always animated by the noblest enthusiasm: they were worthy of liberty, and sacrificed to it that property for which liberty is sacrificed by the greater part of mankind. Nor did they belie themselves on this occasion: the diet of Warsaw constituted itself into a general confederation, and declared the kingdom of Poland restored; it convened the dietins; invited all Poland to unite; summoned all the Poles in the Russian army to quit Russia; caused itself to be represented by a general council; maintained the established order; and, finally, sent a deputation to the king of Saxony, and an address to Napoleon.

The senator Wibicki presented this address to him at Wilna. He told him "that the Poles had neither been subjected by peace nor by war, but by treason; that they were therefore free _de jure_, before God and man; that being so now _de facto_, that right became a duty; that they claimed the independence of their brethren, the Lithuanians, who were still slaves; that they offered themselves to the entire Polish nation as the centre of a general union; but that it was to him who dictated his history to the age, in whom resided the force of Providence, they looked to support the efforts which he could not but approve; that on that account they came to solicit Napoleon the Great to pronounce these few words, "_Let the kingdom of Poland exist!_" and that it then would exist; that all the Poles would devote themselves to the orders of the founder of the fourth French dynasty, to whom ages were but as a moment, and space no more than a point."

Napoleon replied: "Gentlemen deputies of the confederation of Poland, I have listened with deep interest to what you have just told me. Were I a Pole, I should think and act like you; I should have voted with you in the assembly of Warsaw: the love of his country is the first duty of civilized man.

"In my position, I have many interests to reconcile, and many duties to fulfil. Had I reigned during the first, second, or third partition of Poland, I would have armed my people in her defence. When victory supplied me with the means of re-establishing your ancient laws, in your capital, and a portion of your provinces, I did so without seeking to prolong the war, which might have continued to waste the blood of my subjects.

"I love your nation! For sixteen years I have found your soldiers by my side on the plains of Italy and Spain. I applaud what you have done; I authorize your future efforts; I will do all which depends on me to second your resolutions. If your efforts be unanimous, you may cherish the hope of compelling your enemies to recognize your rights; but in countries so distant and extensive, it must be entirely on the exertions of the population which inhabits them, that you can justly ground hopes of success.

"From the first moment of my entering Poland, I have used the same language to you. To this it is my duty to add, that I have guaranteed to the emperor of Austria the integrity of his dominions, and that I cannot sanction any manoeuvre, or the least movement, tending to disturb the peaceable possession of what remains to him of the Polish provinces.

"Only provide that Lithuania, Samogitia, Witepsk, Polotsk, Mohilef, Volhynia, the Ukraine, Podolia, be animated by the same spirit which I have witnessed in the Greater Poland; and Providence will crown your good cause with success. I will recompense that devotion of your provinces which renders you so interesting, and has acquired you so many claims to my esteem and protection, by every means that can, under the circumstances, depend upon me."

The Poles had imagined that they were addressing the sovereign arbiter of the world, whose every word was a law, and whom no political compromise was capable of arresting. They were unable to comprehend the cause of the circumspection of this reply. They began to doubt the intentions of Napoleon; the zeal of some was cooled; the lukewarmness of others confirmed; all were intimidated. Even those around him asked each other what could be the motives of a prudence which appeared so unseasonable, and with him so unusual. "What, then, was the object of this war? Was he afraid of Austria? Had the retreat of the Russians disconcerted him? Did he doubt his good fortune, or was he unwilling to contract, in the face of Europe, engagements which he was not sure of being able to fulfil?

"Had the coldness of the Lithuanians infected him? or rather, did he dread the explosion of a patriotism which he might not be able to master? Was he still undecided as to the destiny he should bestow upon them?"

Whatever were his motives, it was obviously his wish that the Lithuanians should appear to liberate themselves; but as, at the same time, he created a government for them, and gave a direction to their public feeling, that circumstance placed him, as well as them, in a false position, wherein every thing terminated in errors, contradictions, and half measures. There was no reciprocal understanding between the parties; a mutual distrust was the result. The Poles desired some positive guarantees in return for the many sacrifices they were called upon to make. But their union in a single kingdom not having been pronounced, the alarm which is common at the moment of great decisions increased, and the confidence which they had just lost in him, they also lost in themselves. It was then that he nominated seven Lithuanians to the task of composing the new government. This choice was unlucky in some points; it displeased the jealous pride of an aristocracy at all times difficult to satisfy.

The four Lithuanian provinces of Wilna, Minsk, Grodno, and Bialystok, had each a government commission and national sub-prefects. Each commune was to have its municipality; but Lithuania was, in reality, governed by an imperial commissioner, and by four French auditors, with the title of intendants.

In short, from these, perhaps inevitable, faults, and from the disorders of an army placed between the alternative of famishing, or plundering its allies, there resulted a universal coolness. The emperor could not remain blind to it; he had calculated on four millions of Lithuanians; a few thousands were all that joined him! Their pospolite, which he had estimated at more than 100,000 men, had decreed him a guard of honour; only three horsemen attended him! The population of Volhynia remained immoveable, and Napoleon again appealed from them to victory. When fortunate, this coolness did not disturb him sufficiently; when unfortunate, whether through pride or justice, he did not complain of it.

As for us, ever confident in him and in ourselves, the disposition of the Lithuanians at first affected us very little; but when our forces diminished, we looked about us, and our attention was awakened by our danger. Three Lithuanian generals, distinguished by their names, their property, and their sentiments, followed the emperor. The French generals at last reproached them with the coolness of their countrymen. The ardour of the people of Warsaw, in 1806, was held out to them as an example. The warm discussion which ensued, passed, like several others similar, which it is necessary to record, at Napoleon's quarters, near the spot where he was employed; and as there was truth on both sides; as, in these conversations, the opposite allegations contended without destroying each other; and as the first and last causes of the coolness of the Lithuanians were therein revealed, it is impossible to omit them.

These generals then replied, "That they considered they had received becomingly the liberty which we brought them; that, moreover, every one expressed regard according to his habitual character; that the Lithuanians were more cold in their manner than the Poles, and consequently less communicative; that, after all, the sentiment might be the same, though the expression was different.

"That, besides, there was no similarity in the cases; that in 1806, it was after having conquered the Prussians, that the French had delivered Poland; that now, on the contrary, if they delivered Lithuania from the Russian yoke, it was before they had subjugated Russia. That, in this manner, it was natural for the first to receive a victorious and certain freedom with transport; and equally natural for the last to receive an uncertain and dangerous liberty with gravity; that a benefit was not purchased with the same air as if it were gratuitously accepted; that six years back, at Warsaw, there was nothing to be done but to prepare festivals; while at Wilna, where the whole power of Russia had just been exhibited, where its army was known to be untouched, and the motives of its retreat understood, it was for battles that preparation was to be made.

"And with what means? Why was not that liberty offered to them in 1807? Lithuania was then rich and populous. Since that time the continental system, by sealing up the only vent for its productions, had impoverished it, while Russian foresight had depopulated it of recruits, and more recently of a multitude of nobles, peasants, waggons, and cattle, which the Russian army had carried away with it."

To these causes they added "the famine resulting from the severity of the season in 1811, and the damage to which the over-rich wheats of those countries are subject. But why not make an appeal to the provinces of the south? In that quarter there were men, horses, and provisions of all kinds. They had nothing to do but to drive away Tormasof and his army from them. Schwartzenberg was, perhaps, marching in that direction; but was it to the Austrians, the uneasy usurpers of Gallicia, that they ought to confide the liberation of Volhynia? Would they station liberty so near slavery? Why did not they send Frenchmen and Poles there? But then it would be necessary to halt, to carry on a more methodical war, and allow time for organization; while Napoleon, doubtless urged by his distance from his own territory, by the daily expense of provisioning his immense army, depending on that alone, and hurrying after victory, sacrificed every thing to the hope of finishing the war at a single blow."

Here the speakers were interrupted: these reasons, though true, appeared insufficient excuses. "They concealed the most powerful cause of the immobility of their countrymen; it was to be discovered in the interested attachment of their grandees to the crafty policy of Russia, which flattered their self-love, respected their customs, and secured their right over the peasants, whom the French came to set free. Doubtless, national independence appeared too dear a purchase at such a price."

This reproach was well founded, and although it was not personal, the Lithuanian generals became irritated at it. One of them exclaimed, "You talk of our independence; but it must be in great peril, since you, at the head of 400,000 men, are afraid to commit yourselves by its recognition; indeed, you have not recognized it either by your words or actions. You have placed auditors, men quite new, at the head of an administration equally new, to govern our provinces. They levy heavy contributions, but they forget to inform us for whom it is that we make such sacrifices, as are only made for our country. They exhibit to us the emperor everywhere, but the republic hitherto nowhere. You have held out no object to set us in motion, and you complain of our being unsteady. Persons whom we do not respect as our countrymen, you set over us as our chiefs. Notwithstanding our entreaties, Wilna remains separated from Warsaw; disunited as we thus are, you require of us that confidence in our strength which union alone can give. The soldiers you expect from us are offered you; 30,000 would be now ready; but you have refused them arms, clothing, and the money in which we are deficient."

All these imputations might still have been combated; but he added: "True, we do not market for liberty, but we find that in fact it is not disinterestedly offered. Wherever you go, the report of your disorders precedes your march; nor are they partial, since your army marches upon a line of fifty leagues in front. Even at Wilna, notwithstanding the multiplied orders of your emperor, the suburbs have been pillaged, and it is natural that a liberty which brings such licence with it should be mistrusted.

"What then do you expect from our zeal? A happy countenance, acclamations of joy, accents of gratitude?--when every day each of us is apprised that his villages and granaries are devastated; for the little which the Russians did not carry away with them, your famishing columns have devoured. In their rapid marches, a multitude of marauders of all nations, against whom it is necessary to keep on the watch, detach themselves from their wings.

"What do you require more? that our countrymen should throng your passage; bring you their grain and cattle; that they should offer themselves completely armed and ready to follow you? Alas! what have they to give you? Your pillagers take all; there is not even time for them to make you the offer. Turn your eyes round towards the entrance of the imperial head-quarters. Do you see that man? He is all but naked; he groans and extends towards you a hand of supplication. That unhappy man who excites your pity, is one of those very nobles whose assistance you look for: yesterday, he was hurrying to meet you, full of ardour, with his daughter, his vassals, and his wealth; he was coming to present himself to your emperor; but he met with some Wurtemberg pillagers on his way, and was robbed of every thing; he is no longer a father,--he is scarcely a man."

Every one shuddered, and hurried to assist him; Frenchmen, Germans, Lithuanians, all agreed in deploring those disorders, for which no one could suggest a remedy. How, in fact, was it possible to restore discipline among such immense masses, so precipitately propelled, conducted by so many leaders of different manners, characters, and countries, and forced to resort to plunder for subsistence?

In Prussia, the emperor had only caused the army to supply itself with provisions for twenty days. This was as much as was necessary for the purpose of gaining Wilna by a battle. Victory was to have done the rest, but that victory was postponed by the retreat of the enemy. The emperor might have waited for his convoys; but as by surprising the Russians he had separated them, he did not wish to forego his grasp and lose his advantage. He, therefore, pushed forward on their track 400,000 men, with twenty days' provisions, into a country which was incapable of feeding the 20,000 Swedes of Charles XII.

It was not for want of foresight; for immense convoys of oxen followed the army, either in herds, or attached to the provision cars. Their drivers had been organized into battalions. It is true that the latter, wearied with the slow pace of these heavy animals, either slaughtered them, or suffered them to die of want. A great number, however, got as far as Wilna and Minsk; some reached Smolensk, but too late; they could only be of service to the recruits and reinforcements which followed us.

On the other hand, Dantzic contained so much corn, that she alone might have fed the whole army; she also supplied Königsberg. Its provisions had ascended the Pregel in large barges up to Vehlau, and in lighter craft as far as Insterburg. The other convoys went by land-carriage from Königsberg to Labiau, and from thence, by means of the Niemen and the Vilia, to Kowno and Wilna. But the water of the Vilia having shrunk so much through drought as to be incapable of floating these transports, it became necessary to find other means of conveyance.

Napoleon hated jobbers. It was his wish that the administration of the army should organize the Lithuanian waggons; 500 were assembled, but the appearance of them disgusted him. He then permitted contracts to be made with the Jews, who are the only traders in the country; and the provisions stopped at Kowno at last arrived at Wilna, but the army had already left it.

CHAP. IV.

It was the largest column, that of the centre, which suffered most; it followed the road which the Russians had ruined, and of which the French advanced guard had just completed the spoliation. The columns which proceeded by lateral routes found necessaries there, but were not sufficiently careful in collecting and in economizing them.

The responsibility of the calamities which this rapid march occasioned ought not, therefore, to be laid entirely on Napoleon, for order and discipline were maintained in the army of Davoust; it suffered less from dearth: it was nearly the same with that of Prince Eugene. When pillage was resorted to in these two corps, it was always with method, and nothing but necessary injury was inflicted; the soldiers were obliged to carry several days' provisions, and prevented from wasting them. The same precautions should have been taken elsewhere; but, whether it was owing to the habit of making war in fertile countries, or to habitual ardour of constitution, many of the other chiefs thought much less of administering than of fighting.

On that account, Napoleon was frequently compelled to shut his eyes to a system of plunder which he vainly prohibited: too well aware, also, of the attraction which that mode of subsistence had for the soldier; that it made him love war, because it enriched him; that it pleased him, in consequence of the authority which it frequently gave him over classes superior to his own; that in his eyes it had all the charm of a war of the poor against the rich; finally, that the pleasure of being, and proving that he was the strongest, was under such circumstances incessantly repeated and brought home to him.

Napoleon, however, grew indignant at the intelligence of these excesses. He issued a threatening proclamation, and he directed moveable columns of French and Lithuanians to see to its execution. We, who were irritated at the sight of the pillagers, were eager to pursue and punish them; but when we had stripped them of the bread, or of the cattle which they had been robbing, and when we saw them, slowly retiring, sometimes eyeing us with a look of condensed despair, sometimes bursting into tears; and when we heard them murmuring, that, "not content with giving them nothing, we wrested every thing from them, and that, consequently, our intention must be to let them perish of hunger;" We, then, in our turn, accusing ourselves of barbarity to our own people, called them back, and restored their prey to them. Indeed, it was imperious necessity which impelled to plunder. The officers themselves had no other means of subsistence than the share which the soldiers allowed them.

A position of so much excess engendered fresh excesses. These rude men, with arms in their hands, when assailed by so many immoderate wants, could not remain moderate. When they arrived near any habitations, they were famished; at first they asked, but, either for want of being understood, or from the refusal or impossibility of the inhabitants to satisfy their demands, and of their inability to wait, altercations generally arose; then, as they became more and more exasperated with hunger, they became furious, and after tumbling either cottage or palace topsy-turvy, without finding the subsistence they were in quest of, they, in the violence of their despair, accused the inhabitants of being their enemies, and revenged themselves on the proprietors by destroying their property.

There were some who actually destroyed themselves, rather than proceed to such extremities; others did the same after having done so: these were the youngest. They placed their foreheads on their muskets, and blew out their brains in the middle of the high-road. But many became hardened; one excess led them to another, as people often grow angry with the blows which they inflict. Among the latter, some vagabonds took vengeance of their distresses upon persons; in the midst of so inauspicious an aspect of nature, they became denaturalized; abandoned to themselves at so great a distance from home, they imagined that every thing was allowed them, and that their own sufferings authorized them in making others suffer.

In an army so numerous, and composed of so many nations, it was natural also to find more malefactors than in smaller ones: the causes of so many evils induced fresh ones; already enfeebled by famine, it was necessary to make forced marches in order to escape from it, and to reach the enemy. At night when they halted, the soldiers thronged into the houses; there, worn out with fatigue and want, they threw themselves upon the first dirty straw they met with.

The most robust had barely spirits left to knead the flour which they found, and to light the ovens with which all those wooden houses were supplied; others had scarcely strength to go a few paces in order to make the fires necessary to cook some food; their officers, exhausted like themselves, feebly gave orders to take more care, and neglected to see that their orders were obeyed. A piece of burnt wood, at such times escaping from an oven, or a spark from the fire of the bivouacs, was sufficient to set fire to a castle or a whole village, and to cause the deaths of many unfortunate soldiers who had taken refuge in them. In other respects, these disorders were very rare in Lithuania.

The emperor was not ignorant of these details, but he had committed himself too far. Even at Wilna, all these disorders had taken place; the Duke of Treviso, among others, informed him, "that he had seen, from the Niemen to the Vilia, nothing but ruined habitations, and baggage and provision-waggons abandoned; they were found dispersed on the highways and in the fields, overturned, broke open, and their contents scattered here and there, and pillaged, as if they had been taken by the enemy: he should have imagined himself following a defeated army. Ten thousand horses had been killed by the cold rains of the great storm, and by the unripe rye, which had become their new and only food. Their carcases were lying encumbering the road: they sent forth a mephitic smell impossible to breathe: it was a new scourge, which some compared to famine, but much more terrible: several soldiers of the young guard had already perished of hunger."

Up to that point Napoleon listened with calmness, but here he abruptly interrupted the speaker. Wishing to escape from distress by incredulity, he exclaimed, "It is impossible! where are their twenty days' provisions? Soldiers well commanded never die of hunger."

A general, the author of this last report, was present. Napoleon turned towards him; appealed to him, and pressed him with questions; and that general, either from weakness or uncertainty, replied, "that the individuals referred to had not died of hunger, but of intoxication."

The emperor then remained convinced that the privations of the soldiers had been exaggerated to him. As to the rest, he exclaimed, "The loss of the horses must be borne with; of some equipages, and even some habitations; it was a torrent that rolled away: it was the worst side of the picture of war; an evil exchanged for a good; to misery her share must be given; his treasures, his benefits would repair the loss: one great result would make amends for all; he only required a single victory; if sufficient means remained for accomplishing that, he should be satisfied."

The duke remarked, that a victory might be overtaken by a more methodical march, followed by the magazines; but he was not listened to. Those to whom this marshal (who had just returned from Spain,) complained, replied to him, "That, in fact the emperor grew angry at the account of evils, which he considered irremediable, his policy imposing on him the necessity of a prompt and decisive victory."

They added, "that they saw too clearly that the health of their leader was impaired; and that being compelled, notwithstanding, to throw himself into positions more and more critical, he could not survey, without ill temper, the difficulties which he passed by, and suffered to accumulate behind him; difficulties which he then affected to treat with contempt, in order to disguise their importance, and preserve the energy of mind which he himself required to surmount them. This was the reason that, being already disturbed and fatigued by the new and critical situation into which he had thrown himself, and impatient to escape from it, he kept marching on, always pushing his army forward, in order to bring matters sooner to a termination."

Thus it was that Napoleon was constrained to shut his eyes to facts. It is well known that the greater part of his ministers were not flatterers. Both facts and men spoke sufficiently; but what could they teach him? Of what was he ignorant? Had not all his preparations been dictated by the most clear-sighted foresight? What could be said to him, which he had not himself said and written a hundred times? It was after having anticipated the minutest details; having prepared for every inconvenience, having provided every thing for a slow and methodical war, that he divested himself of all these precautions, that he abandoned all these preparations, and suffered himself to be hurried away by habit, by the necessity of short wars, of rapid victories, and sudden treaties of peace.

CHAP. V.

It was in the midst of these grave circumstances that Balachoff, a minister of the Russian emperor, presented himself with a flag of truce at the French advanced posts. He was received, and the army, now become less ardent, indulged anticipations of peace.

He brought this message from Alexander to Napoleon, "That it was not yet too late to negotiate; a war which the soil, the climate, and the character of Russia, rendered interminable, was begun; but all reconciliation was not become impossible, and from one bank of the Niemen to the other they might yet come to an understanding." He, moreover, added, "that his master declared, in the face of Europe, that he was not the aggressor; that his ambassador at Paris, in demanding his passports, did not consider himself as having broken the peace; that thus, the French had entered Russia without a declaration of war." There were, however, no fresh overtures, either verbal or written, presented by Balachoff.

The choice of this flag of truce had been remarked; he was the minister of the Russian police; that office required an observant spirit, and it was thought that he was sent to exercise it amongst us. What rendered us more mistrustful of the character of the negotiator was, that the negotiation appeared to have no character, unless it were that of great moderation, which, under the actual circumstances, was taken for weakness.