It was not until the 22d of January, and the following days, that the Russians reached the Vistula. During this tardy march, from the 3d to the 11th of January, Murat had remained at Elbing. In this situation of extremity, that monarch was wavering from one plan to another, at the mercy of the elements which were fermenting around him; sometimes they raised his hopes to the highest pitch, at others they sunk him into an abyss of disquietude.

He had taken flight from KÖnigsberg in a complete state of discouragement, when the suspension in the march of the Russians, and the junction of Macdonald with Heudelet and Cavaignac, which doubled his forces, suddenly inflamed him with vain hopes. He, who had the day before believed that all was lost, wished to resume the offensive, and began immediately; for he was one of those dispositions who are making fresh resolutions every instant. On that day he determined to push forward, and the next to flee as far as Posen.

This last determination, however, was not taken without reason. The rallying of the army on the Vistula had been completely illusory; the old guard had not altogether more than five hundred effective men; the young guard scarcely any; the first corps, eighteen hundred; the second, one thousand; the third, sixteen hundred; the fourth, seventeen hundred; added to which, most of these soldiers, the remains of six hundred thousand men, could scarcely handle their arms.

In this state of impotence, with the two wings of the army already detached from us, Austria and Prussia failing us together, Poland became a snare which might close around us. On the other hand, Napoleon, who never consented to any cession, was anxious that Dantzic should be defended; it became necessary, therefore, to throw into it all that could keep the field.

Besides, if the truth must be told, when Murat, when at Elbing, talked of reconstituting the army, and was even dreaming of victories, he found that most of the commanders were themselves worn out and disgusted. Misfortune, which leads to fear every thing, and to believe readily all that one fears, had penetrated into their hearts. Several of them were already uneasy about their rank and their grades, about the estates which they had acquired in the conquered countries, and the greater part only sighed to recross the Rhine.

As to the recruits who arrived, they were a mixture of men from several of the German nations. In order to join us they had passed through the Prussian states, from whence arose the exhalation of so much hatred. As they approached, they encountered our discouragement and our long train of disorder; when they entered into line, far from being put into companies with, and supported by old soldiers, they found themselves left alone, to fight with every kind of scourge, to support a cause which was abandoned by those who were most interested in its success; the consequence was, that at the very first bivouac, most of these Germans disbanded themselves. At sight of the disasters of the army returning from Moscow, the tried soldiers of Macdonald were themselves shaken. Notwithstanding this corps d'armÉe, and the completely fresh division of Heudelet preserved their unity. All these remains were speedily collected into Dantzic; thirty-five thousand soldiers from seventeen different nations, were shut up in it. The remainder, in small numbers, did not begin rallying until they got to Posen and upon the Oder.

Hitherto it was hardly possible for the King of Naples to regulate our flight any better; but at the moment he passed through Marienwerder on his way to Posen, a letter from Naples again unsettled all his resolutions. The impression which it made upon him was so violent, that by degrees as he read it, the bile mixed itself with his blood so rapidly, that he was found a few minutes after with a complete jaundice.

It appeared that an act of government which the queen had taken upon herself had wounded him in one of his strongest passions. He was not at all jealous of that princess, notwithstanding her charms, but furiously so of his royal authority; and it was particularly of the queen, as sister of the Emperor, that he was suspicious.

Persons were astonished at seeing this prince, who had hitherto appeared to sacrifice every thing to glory in arms, suffering himself to be mastered all at once by a less noble passion; but they forgot that, with certain characters, there must be always a ruling passion.

Besides, it was still the same ambition under different forms, and always entering completely into each of them; for such are passionate characters. At that moment his jealousy of his authority triumphed over his love of glory; it made him proceed rapidly to Posen, where, shortly after his arrival, he disappeared, and abandoned us.

This defection took place on the 16th of January, twenty-three days before Schwartzenberg detached himself from the French army, of which Prince Eugene took the command.

Alexander arrested the march of his troops at Kalisch. There, the violent and continued war, which had followed us all the way from Moscow, slackened: it became only, until the spring, a war of fits, slow and intermittent. The strength of the evil appeared to be exhausted; but it was merely that of the combatants; a still greater struggle was preparing, and this halt was not a time allowed to make peace, but merely given to the premeditation of slaughter.