Thus commenced the defection of our allies. I shall not venture to set myself up as a judge of the morality of this event; posterity will decide upon it. As a contemporaneous historian, however, I conceive myself bound not only to state the facts, but also the impression they have left, and such as it still remains, in the minds of the principal leaders of the two corps of the allied army, either as actors or sufferers.

The Prussians only waited for an opportunity to break our alliance, which was forced upon them; when the moment arrived, they embraced it. Not only, however, did they refuse to betray Macdonald, but they did not even wish to quit him, until they had, as it may be said, drawn him out of Russia and placed him in safety. On his side, when Macdonald became sensible that he was abandoned, but without having positive proofs of it, he obstinately remained at Tilsit, at the mercy of the Prussians, sooner than give them a motive of defection, by too speedy a retreat.

The Prussians did not abuse this noble conduct. There was defection on their part, but no treachery; which, in this age, and after the evils they had endured, may still appear meritorious; they did not join themselves with the Russians. When they arrived on their own frontier, they could not resign themselves to aid their conqueror in defending their native soil against those who came in the character of their deliverers, and who were so; they became neutral, and this was not, I must repeat, until Macdonald, disengaged from Russia and the Russians, had his retreat free.

This marshal continued it from KÖnigsberg, by Labiau and Tente. His rear was protected by Mortier, and Heudelet's division, whose troops, newly arrived, still occupied Insterburg, and kept Tchitchakof in check. On the 3d of January he effected his junction with Mortier and covered KÖnigsberg.

It was, however, a happy circumstance for Yorck's reputation, that Macdonald, thus weakened, and whose retreat his defection had interrupted, was enabled to rejoin the grand army. The inconceivable slowness of Wittgenstein's march saved that marshal; the Russian general, however, overtook him at Labiau and Tente; and there, but for the efforts of Bachelu and his brigade, the valour of the Polish Colonel Kameski, and Captain Ostrowski, and the Bavarian Major Mayer, the corps of Macdonald, thus deserted, would have been broken or destroyed; in that case Yorck would appear to have betrayed him, and history would, with justice, have stigimatized him with the name of traitor. Six hundred French, Bavarians, and Poles, remained dead on these two fields of battle; their blood accuses the Prussians for not having provided, by an additional article, for the safe retreat of the leader whom they had deserted.

The King of Prussia disavowed Yorck's conduct. He dismissed him, appointed Kleist to succeed him in the command, ordered the latter to arrest his late commander, and send him, as well as Massenbach, to Berlin, there to undergo their trial. But these generals preserved their command in spite of him; the Prussian army did not consider their monarch at liberty; this opinion was founded on the presence of Augereau and some French troops at Berlin.

Frederick, however, was perfectly aware of the annihilation of our army. At Smorgoni, Narbonne refused to accept the mission to that monarch, until Napoleon gave him authority to make the most unreserved communication. He, Augereau, and several others have declared that Frederick was not merely restrained by his position in the midst of the remains of the grand army, and by the dread of Napoleon's re-appearance at the head of a fresh one, but also by his plighted faith; for every thing is of a mixed character in the moral as well as the physical world, and even in the most trifling of our actions there is a variety of different motives. But, finally, his good faith yielded to necessity, and his dread to a greater dread. He saw himself, it was said, threatened with a species of forfeiture by his people and by our enemies.

It should be remarked that the Prussian nation, which drew its sovereign toward Yorck, only ventured to rise successively, as the Russians came in sight, and by degrees, as our feeble remains quitted their territory. A single fact, which took place during the retreat, will paint the dispositions of the people, and show how much, notwithstanding the hatred they bore us, they were curbed under the ascendancy of our victories.

When Davoust was recalled to France, he passed, with only two attendants, through the town of X * * *. The Russians were daily expected there; its population were incensed at the sight of these last Frenchmen. Murmurs, mutual excitations, and finally, outcries, rapidly succeeded each other; the most violent speedily surrounded the carriage of the marshal, and were already about to unharness the horses, when Davoust made his appearance, rushed upon the most insolent of these insurgents, dragged him behind his carriage, and made his servants fasten him to it. Frightened at this action, the people stopped short, seized with motionless consternation, and then quietly and silently opened a passage for the marshal, who passed through the midst of them, carrying off his prisoner.