Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV

"We are at a loss to gather the truth of the news about the army."

"Bah!" replied the Emperor; "the army is in a superb condition. I have 120,000 men – I have beat the Russians in every action – they are no longer the soldiers of Friedland and Eylau. The army will recruit at Wilna – I am going to bring up 300,000 men – Success will render the Russians fool-hardy – I will give them battle twice or thrice upon the Oder, and in a month I will be again on the Niemen – I have more weight when on my throne, than at the head of my army. – Certainly I quit my soldiers with regret; but I must watch Austria and Prussia, and I have more weight seated on my throne than at the head of my army. All that has happened goes for nothing – a mere misfortune, in which the enemy can claim no merit – I beat them every where – they wished to cut me off at the Beresina – I made a fool of that ass of an admiral" – (He could never pronounce the name Tchitchagoff) – "I had good troops and cannon – the position was superb – 500 toises of marsh – a river" – This he repeated twice, then run over the distinction in the 29th bulletin between men of strong and feeble minds, and proceeded. "I have seen worse affairs than this – At Marengo I was beaten till six o'clock in the evening – next day I was master of Italy – At Essling, that archduke tried to stop me – He published something or other – My army had already advanced a league and a half – I did not even condescend to make any disposition. All the world knows how such things are managed when I am in the field. I could not help the Danube rising sixteen feet in one night – Ah! without that, there would have been an end of the Austrian monarchy. But it was written in Heaven that I should marry an archduchess." (This was said with an air of much gaiety.) "In the same manner, in Russia, I could not prevent its freezing. They told me every morning that I had lost 10,000 horses during the night. Well, farewell to you!" He bade them adieu five or six times in the course of the harangue, but always returned to the subject. "Our Norman horses are less hardy than those of the Russians – they sink under ten degrees of cold (beneath zero.) It is the same with the men. Look at the Bavarians; there is not one left. Perhaps it may be said that I stopped too long at Moscow; that may be true, but the weather was fine – the winter came on prematurely – besides, I expected peace. On the 5th October, I sent Lauriston to treat. I thought of going to St. Petersburgh, and I had time enough to have done so, or to have gone to the south of Russia, or to Smolensk. Well, we will make head at Wilna; Murat is left there. Ha, ha, ha! It is a great political game. Nothing venture, nothing win – It is but one step from the sublime to the ludicrous. The Russians have shown they have character – their Emperor is beloved by his people – they have clouds of Cossacks – it is something to have such a kingdom – the peasants of the crown love their government – the nobility are all mounted on horseback. They proposed to me to set the slaves at liberty, but that I would not consent to – they would have massacred every one. I made regular war upon the Emperor Alexander, but who could have expected such a blow as the burning of Moscow? Now they would lay it on us, but it was in fact themselves who did it. That sacrifice would have done honour to ancient Rome."

He returned to his favourite purpose of checking the Russians, who had just annihilated his grand army, by raising a large body of Polish lancers, to whom, as things stood, it would have been difficult to have proposed any adequate motive for exertion. The fire went out, and the counsellors listened in frozen despair, while, keeping himself warm by walking up and down, and by his own energies, the Emperor went on with his monologue; now betraying, in spite of himself, feelings and sentiments which he would have concealed; now dwelling upon that which he wished others to believe; and often repeating, as the burden of his harangue, the aphorism which he has rendered immortal, concerning the vicinity of the sublime and the ludicrous.

His passage through Silesia being mentioned, he answered in a doubtful tone, "Ha, Prussia?" as if questioning the security of that route. At length he decided to depart in good earnest; cut short the respectful wishes for the preservation of his health with the brief assurance, that he "could not be in better health were the very devil in him;" and threw himself into the humble sledge which carried Cæsar and his fortunes. The horses sprung forward, nearly overturning the carriage as it crossed the courtyard gate, and disappeared in the darkness. Such is the lively account of the Abbé de Pradt, who declares solemnly, that on taxing his memory to the utmost, he accuses himself of neither want of accuracy nor forgetfulness. Napoleon does not deny that such a long conversation took place, but alleges that the abbé has caricatured it. In the meanwhile, he said he scratched an order for Monsieur l'Ambassadeur to return immediately to Paris;229 which, considering what had happened in Russia, and was about to happen in Poland, could not but be a most welcome mandate, especially as it was likely to be soon enforced by the lances of the Cossacks.

NAPOLEON LEAVES WARSAW

Napoleon continued to pass on with as much speed as possible. He said, when at St. Helena, that he was nigh being arrested in Silesia.230 "But the Prussians," he said, "passed the time in consulting which they ought to have employed in action. They acted like the Saxons, of whom Charles XII. said gaily, when he left Dresden, 'They will be deliberating to-day whether they should have arrested me yesterday.'" If such an idea was entertained by any one, it may have been by some of the Tugend-Bund, who might think it no crime to seize on one who made universal liberty his spoil. But we do not believe that Frederick ever harboured the thought, while he continued in alliance with France.

Meanwhile, Napoleon continued his journey in secrecy, and with rapidity. On the 14th December he was at Dresden, where he had a long private conference with the good old King, who did not feel his gratitude to the Emperor, as a benefactor, abated by his accumulated misfortunes. The interview – how different from their last – was held in the hotel where Buonaparte alighted, and where Augustus came to visit him incognito. On the 18th, in the evening, he arrived at Paris, where the city had been for two days agitated by the circulation of the Twenty-ninth Bulletin, in which the veil, though with a reluctant hand, was raised up to show the disasters of the Russian war.

It may not be thought minute to mention, that Napoleon and his attendant had difficulty in procuring admittance to the Tuileries at so late an hour. The Empress had retired to her private apartment. Two figures muffled in furs entered the anteroom, and one of them directed his course to the door of the Empress's sleeping chamber. The lady in waiting hastened to throw herself betwixt the intruder and the entrance, but, recognising the Emperor, she shrieked aloud, and alarmed Maria Louisa, who entered the anteroom. Their meeting was extremely affectionate, and showed, that, amidst all his late losses, Napoleon had still domestic happiness within his reach.

DREADFUL STATE OF GRAND ARMY

We return to the grand army, or rather to the assemblage of those who had once belonged to it, for of an army it had scarce the semblance left. The soldiers of the Imperial Guard, who had hitherto made it their pride to preserve some degree of discipline, would, after the departure of Napoleon, give obedience to no one else. Murat, to whom the chief command had been delegated, seemed scarcely to use it, nor when he did was he obeyed. If Ney, and some of the Maréchals, still retained authority, they were only attended to from habit, or because the instinct of discipline revived when the actual battle drew near. They could not, however, have offered any effectual defence, nor could they have escaped actual slaughter and dispersion, had it not been for Loison's troops, who continued to form the rear-guard, and who, never having been on the eastern side of the fatal Beresina, had, amid great suffering, still preserved sufficient discipline to keep their ranks, behave like soldiers, and make themselves be respected, not only by the Cossacks, but by Tschaplitz, Witgenstein, and the Russians detached from the main army, who followed them close, and annoyed them constantly. The division of Loison remained like a shield, to protect the disorderly retreat of the main body.

Still, some degree of order is so essential to human society, that, even in that disorganised mass, the stragglers, which now comprehended almost the whole army, divided into little bands, who assisted each other, and had sometimes the aid of a miserable horse, which, when it fell down under the burden of what they had piled on it, was torn to pieces and eaten, while life was yet palpitating in its veins. These bands had chiefs selected from among themselves. But this species of union, though advantageous on the whole, led to particular evils. Those associated into such a fraternity, would communicate to none save those of their own party, a mouthful of rye-dough, which, seasoned with gunpowder for want of salt, and eaten with a bouillé of horse-flesh, formed the best part of their food. Neither would they permit a stranger to warm himself at their fires, and when spoil was found, two of these companies often, especially if of different countries, fought for the possession of it; and a handful of meal was a sufficient temptation for putting to death the wretch who could not defend his booty. The prisoners, it is said (and we heartily wish the fact could be refuted,) were parked every night, without receiving any victuals whatever, and perished, like impounded cattle, from want of food, cold, and the delirious fury which such treatment inspired. Among these unfortunates some became cannibals, and the same horrible reproach has been cast on the French themselves.231

To enhance misfortunes so dreadful, the cold, which had been for some time endurable, increased on the 6th December to the most bitter degree of frost, being twenty-seven or twenty-eight degrees below zero. Many dropped down and expired in silence, the blood of others was determined to the head by the want of circulation; it gushed at length from eyes and mouth, and the wretches sunk down on the gory snow, and were relieved by death. At the night bivouacs, the soldiers approached their frozen limbs to the fire so closely, that, falling asleep in that posture, their feet were scorched to the bone, while their hair was frozen to the ground. In this condition they were often found by the Cossacks, and happy were those upon whom the pursuers bestowed a thrust with the lance to finish their misery. Other horrors there were, which are better left in silence. Enough has been said to show, that such a calamity, in such an extent, never before darkened the pages of history. In this horrible retreat, 20,000 recruits had joined the army since crossing the Beresina, where, including the corps of Oudinot and Victor, they amounted to 80,000 men. But of this sum of 80,000 men, one-half perished betwixt the Beresina and the walls of Wilna.232

In such a plight did the army arrive at Wilna, where great provision had been made for their reception. The magazines were groaning with plenty, but, as at Smolensk, the administrators and commissioners, terrified for their own responsibility, dared not issue provisions to a disorderly mob, who could neither produce authority for drawing rations, nor give a regular receipt. The famished wretches fell down in the streets before the magazines, and died there, cursing with their latest breath the ill-timed punctiliousness of office, which refused to starving men the morsel that might have saved their lives. In other places of the town, stores both of provision and liquor were broken open by the desperate soldiery, plundered and wasted. Numbers became intoxicated, and to those, as they sunk down in the street, death came before sobriety. The sick who went to the hospitals found them crowded, not only with the dying, but with the dead, whose corpses were left to freeze or to putrefy on the stairs and in the corridors, and sometimes in the apartments of those who yet survived. Such were the comforts of Wilna, from which so much had been hoped.

Still, however, some of the citizens, moved by pity or terror, or from desire of gain (for many soldiers had still about their persons some remnants of the spoils of Moscow,) were willing to give lodging and food to these exhausted phantoms, who begged such relief sometimes with furious threats and imprecations, sometimes in the plaintive tone of men ready to perish. Distributions began also to be made at the public stores; and men who for long had not eat a morsel of bread, or reposed themselves upon any better lair than the frozen earth, or under any other canopy save that of the snow-fraught sky, deemed it Paradise to enjoy the most common household comforts, of which we think so little while we enjoy them, yet are miserable when they are abridged or withdrawn. Some wept for joy at receiving an ordinary loaf of bread, and finding themselves at liberty to eat it, seated, and under a roof.

On a sudden the repast, which seemed earnest of a return to safety and to social life, was disturbed by a distant cannonade, which came nigher and nigher – then by the fire of musketry – at length by their own drums beating to arms in the streets. Every alarm was in vain; even the Imperial Guard no longer attended to the summons. The soldiers were weary of their lives, and it seemed as if they would have been contented to perish like the Jews in the wilderness, with their food betwixt their teeth. At length the distant hourra, and the nearer cry of Cossacks! Cossacks! which for some time had been their most available signal for marching, compelled them to tear themselves from their refreshment, and rush into the street. There they found their rear-guard and Loison, although they had been reinforced by the body of Bavarians commanded by Wrede, who had been left on the verge of Volhynia, hurrying into the town in disorder like men defeated, and learned that they had been driven back by Witgenstein, with Platoff and other partisan leaders, who had followed them up to the gates.

WILNA – KOWNO

Wilna, besides the immense magazines belonging to the French army, contained a vast deposit of wealth and property, which had been left there in the advance upon Moscow, and, in particular, a quantity of treasure belonging to Napoleon. The town, though open, might have been made good till the magazines were destroyed and the baggage removed; but such was the confusion of the moment, that the Russians forced their way into the town by one access, whilst the French left it by another, directing their flight upon Kowno, with the most valuable part of their baggage, or such as could be most speedily harnessed. The inhabitants of the town, the lower orders that is, and particularly the Jews, now thought of propitiating the victors by butchering the wretches whom they had received into their houses; or, at best, stripping and thrusting them naked into the streets. For this inhumanity the Jews are said to have been afterwards punished by the Russians, who caused several of them to be hanged.

Meanwhile, the flying column had attained a hill and defile, called Ponari, when the carriages became entangled, and at length one of the treasure-waggons being overturned, burst, and discovered its contents. All shadow of discipline was then lost; and, as if to anticipate the Russians, the French soldiers themselves fell upon the baggage, broke open the wains, and appropriated their contents. The Cossacks rode up during the fray, and so rich was the booty, that even they were content to plunder in company, suspending for the instant their national animosity, where there seemed wealth enough for all, and no time to lose in fighting. Yet it is said that the privates of the Imperial Guard displayed a rare example of honour and discipline. The Count de Turenne, having beaten off the Cossacks who pressed in, distributed the private treasure of Napoleon among his guard, the individuals of which afterwards restored them. "Not a single piece of money," says Ségur, "was lost." This, however, must be partly imagination; for many of the guard fell after this, and the Cossacks, who became their executors, could have had little idea of making restitution.

It is not worth while to trace further the flight of this miserable body of wanderers. They arrived at length at Kowno, the last town of Russian Poland, Ney alone endeavouring to give them some military direction and assistance, while they were at every instant deserting him and themselves. At Kowno, it seems that about 1000 men were still under arms, about twenty times that number in total dispersion. The pursuit of the Russians appeared to cease after the fugitives had recrossed the Niemen on the ice; they did not choose to push the war into Prussia.

At Gumbinnen, the remaining maréchals and commanders held a council, in which Murat gave way to the stifled resentment he had long entertained against his brother-in-law. He had been displeased with Napoleon, for not severely repressing the insolence with which, as he conceived, he had been treated by Davoust, and at another time by Ney; and he openly inveighed against his relative as a madman, upon whose word no reliance was to be placed. In these moments of anger and mutiny, Murat blamed himself for rejecting the proposals of the English. Had he not done so, he said, he might still have been a great king, like the sovereigns of Austria and Russia. "These kings," answered Davoust, bitterly, "are monarchs by the grace of God, by the sanction of time, and the course of custom. But you – you are only a king by the grace of Napoleon, and through the blood of Frenchmen. You are grossly ungrateful, and as such I will denounce you to the Emperor."233 Such was this strange scene, of which the maréchals were silent witnesses. It served to show how little unity there was in their councils when the Master Spirit ceased to preside among them.

From Gumbinnen the French went to show their miseries at Königsberg. Every where they were coldly, yet not coarsely, treated by the Prussians, who had before felt their oppression, but did not consider them in their present state as becoming objects of vengeance. At Königsberg they learnt the fate of their two extreme wings, which was of a nature to close all hopes.

On the right of the French original line of advance, Schwartzenberg had no sooner learned that the Emperor was totally defeated, and his army irretrievably dispersed, than, in the quality of a mere auxiliary, he thought himself no longer entitled to hazard a single Austrian life in the quarrel. There was an armistice concluded between the Austrians and Russians, by the terms of which they agreed to manœuvre as at a game of chess, but not to fight. Thus, when the Russians should gain such a position, as in actual war would have given them an advantage, the Austrians were under the engagement to retreat; and the campaign resembled nothing so much as a pacific field-day, in which two generals in the same service venture upon a trial of skill. Schwartzenberg, by his manœuvres, protected the French corps under Regnier as long as possible, obtained good terms for Warsaw, and gained for Regnier three days advantage, when at last he ceased to cover the place. Having thus protected his allies to the last, he retired into the Austrian territories; and although Regnier was finally overtaken and surprised at Khalish, it could not be imputed to Schwartzenberg's desertion of him, but to his own making too long a halt to protect some Polish depôts. The relics of Regnier's army, such at least as fled into the Austrian territories, were well received there, and afterwards restored to their own banners. Still the alliance with Austria, which in one sense had cost Napoleon so dear, was now dissolved, and his right wing totally dissipated by the defection of his allies. On the left wing matters had no better, or rather, they had a much worse appearance.

PRECARIOUS STATE OF MACDONALD

During the eventful six months of the Russian campaign, Macdonald, who commanded the left wing, had remained in Courland, with an army of about 30,000 men, of whom 22,000 were Prussians, the rest Germans of different countries. It would seem that Napoleon had been averse from the beginning to employ these unwilling auxiliaries upon any service where their defection might influence the other parts of his army. Yet they behaved well upon several occasions, when Macdonald had occasion to repel the attacks and sallies of the numerous garrison of Riga, and their active exertions enabled him to save the park of heavy artillery destined for the siege of that place, which had almost fallen into the hands of the Russian general Lewis, at Mittau, on the 29th of September. But on this occasion, though having every reason to be pleased with the soldiers, Macdonald saw room to suspect their leader, D'Yorck, of coldness to the French cause. That officer was, indeed, engaged in a service which at heart he detested. He was one of the Tugend-Bund, so often mentioned, an ardent Prussian patriot, and eager to free his native country from a foreign yoke. He therefore eagerly watched for a plausible opportunity when he might, without dishonour, disunite his forces from those of the French maréchal.

About the beginning of December, the situation of Macdonald became precarious. Nothing was heard on every side, save of the rout and disasters of the French grand army, and the maréchal anxiously expected orders for a retreat while it was yet open to him. But such was the confusion at the headquarters after the Emperor's departure, that neither Murat nor Berthier thought of sending the necessary authority to Macdonald; and when they did, though the order to retreat might have reached him in five days, it was ten days on the road.

He commenced his retreat upon Tilsit, his vanguard consisting of Massenbach's Prussian division, chiefly cavalry, he himself following with the Bavarians, Saxons, &c., and D'Yorck bringing up the rear with 15,000 Prussians, the residue of that auxiliary army. In this order, with the Prussians divided into two corps, and his own posted between them, as if to secure against their combining, the maréchal marched on in sufficient anxiety, but without complaint on his side, or difficulties on that of the Prussian general. But when the maréchal, upon 28th January, arrived at Tilsit, which was in the line of their retreat, and had sent forward the cavalry of Massenbach as far as Regnitz, the troops of D'Yorck in the rear had detached themselves so far that Macdonald was obliged to halt for them. He sent letters to D'Yorck, pressing him to come up – he sent to the cavalry of Massenbach in the van, commanding them to return. From D'Yorck came no answer. At Regnitz, the French general, Bachelu, who had been sent to act as adjutant-general with Massenbach's corps, could find no obedience. The colonels of the Prussian cavalry objected to the weather, and the state of the roads; they would not give the order to sound to horse; and when the horses were at length reluctantly ordered out and produced, the soldiers were equally restive, they would not mount. While the Prussian troops were in this state of mutiny, a Russian emissary was heard to press them to deliver up the Frenchman; but the soldiers, though resolved to leave Bachelu, would not betray him. The proposal shocked their feelings of honour, and they mounted and marched back to Tilsit, to restore Bachelu to Macdonald's army. But their purpose was unchanged. As at Regnitz they had refused to mount their horses, so at Tilsit they refused to alight. At length they were prevailed upon to dismount and retire to their quarters, but it was only a feint; for, shortly after they were supposed asleep, the Prussians mounted in great silence, and, with Massenbach and their officers at their head, marched off to join their countrymen under D'Yorck.

That general had, now and for ever, separated his troops from the French. Upon 30th December, he had concluded an armistice with the Russian general, Dibbeitsch. By this agreement, the Prussian troops were to be cantoned in their own territories, and remain neutral for two months; at the end of that period, if their king so determined, they should be at liberty to rejoin the French troops. Both D'Yorck and Massenbach wrote to Macdonald, announcing their secession from his army. D'Yorck contented himself with stating, that he cared not what opinion the world might form on his conduct, it was dictated by the purest motives – his duty to his troops and to his country. Massenbach expressed his respect and esteem for General Macdonald, and declared, that his reason for leaving him without an interview, was the fear he felt that his personal regard for the Maréchal might have prevented his obeying the call of duty.