Among other particularities of our stay at Dresden, I recall a remark that I one day heard the Emperor make to Marshal Berthier, whom he had summoned at a very early hour. When the Marshal arrived the Emperor was not yet out of bed. I was ordered to admit him at once, so that while dressing the Emperor I heard a conversation between Napoleon and his major-general, of which I should be glad to remember all the details; but I am at least sure of reporting faithfully one thought which struck me. The Emperor said in so many words: "I have no grudge against Alexander; I am not making war on Russia, no more on her than on Spain; I have only one enemy, and that is England; it is she I wish to strike through Russia; I will pursue her everywhere." Meanwhile the Marshal was biting his nails, according to his constant habit. On that day there was a magnificent review, at which were present all the princes of the confederation, who surrounded their chief like the great vassals of his crown.

When the different army corps, drawn up in echelons from the other side of the Elbe, had advanced upon the confines of Poland, we quitted Dresden, to find the same pronounced enthusiasm at every place where the Emperor arrived. Consequently we were very much petted in all the residences where we stopped, for the people sought to entertain His Majesty even in the persons of those who had the honor to serve him.

At this epoch it was generally rumored throughout the army and among all the members of the Emperor's household, that it was his intention to re-establish the kingdom of Poland. Stranger as I was and should have been to all which related to affairs, I was not more deaf than other people to the expression of an opinion which was common to everybody and of which all were talking. Occasionally the Emperor did not disdain to make me give him an account of what I had heard, and then he smiled, for one would have had to be unfaithful to truth to report to him anything he might find disagreeable; he was at that time (the expression is not too strong) the object of the blessings of the Polish people.

June 24, we were on the banks of the Niémen, that stream made so famous already by the interview of the two Emperors in circumstances very different from those in which they now stood in relation to each other. The passage of the army began in the evening and lasted nearly forty-eight hours, during which the Emperor was almost constantly on horseback, so well did he know that his presence accelerated the operations. Afterwards we continued our route towards Wilna, capital of the grand duchy of Lithuania. We arrived in front of this city occupied by the Russians on the 27th, and one might say that it was there, there only, that the military operations commenced, for up to this point the Emperor had journeyed as he might have done in the interior departments of France. The Russians attacked were beaten and retreated, so that two days later we were in Wilna, a rather considerable city, which appeared to me to contain nearly thirty thousand inhabitants. I was struck by the incredible number of convents and churches erected there. At Wilna the Emperor was extremely pleased with the proceedings of five or six hundred students who came and asked to be enrolled in the army; I scarcely need say that solicitations of this description seldom failed of a good reception from His Majesty.

We remained quite a long time at Wilna; from there the Emperor followed the movement of his armies, and also occupied himself with the organization of the grand duchy of Lithuania, of which this city is known to be the capital. As the Emperor was very often on horseback, I had plenty of leisure to become acquainted with the city and its environs. The Lithuanians were in a state of enthusiasm impossible to describe, and though I have seen a great many fêtes in my lifetime, I shall never forget the ardor of an entire population when the great national fête of the regeneration of Poland was celebrated, whether by an oddity of fate or a calculation of the Emperor, precisely on the 14th of July. The Poles were still uncertain concerning the definitive fate reserved by the Emperor for their country, but a future filled with hope was gleaming before their eyes.

It was not the same when the Emperor had received the deputation from the Polish confederation established at Warsaw. This numerous deputation, with a count palatine at its head, asked for the integral re-establishment of the former kingdom of Poland. Here is the Emperor's response:

"Gentlemen deputies of the confederation of Poland: I have listened with interest to what you have just been saying to me.

"A Pole, I would think and act as you do; I would have voted like you in the Assembly of Warsaw; love of country is the prime virtue of civilized man.

"In my position, I have many interests to conciliate and many duties to fulfil. Had I been reigning at the time of the first, the second, and the third partition of Poland, I would have armed my entire people to support you. As soon as victory permitted me to restore your ancient laws to your capital and a portion of your provinces, I did so with alacrity, yet without prolonging a war which would have cost the lives of my subjects.

"I love your nation. For sixteen years I have seen your soldiers beside me, on the fields of Italy and those of Spain.

"I applaud all that you have done; I authorize the efforts you desire to make; all that depends on me to second your resolutions I will perform.

"If your efforts are unanimous, you may conceive the hope of reducing your enemies to a recognition of your rights. But in these countries, so far apart and so extensive, it is, above all, the unanimity of the efforts of the population that covers them on which you must base your expectations of success.

"I spoke to you in the same way when I made my first appearance in Poland, I must add here that I have guaranteed to the Emperor Alexander the integrity of his States, and that I cannot authorize any manœuvre or any movement which would tend to disturb him in the peaceable possession of what remains to him of the Polish provinces. Let Lithuania, Samogitie, Witepsk, Polotsk, Mohilow, Wolhynie, the Ukraine, Podolia, be animated by the same spirit that I have seen in Greater Poland, and Providence will crown with success the sanctity of your cause; it will recompense that devotion to your country which has rendered you so interesting and acquired for you so many titles to my esteem and protection, on which you must rely under all circumstances."

I have thought it my duty to report here the entire response of the Emperor to the deputies of the Polish confederation, having been a witness of the effect it produced at Wilna. Several Poles, with whom I had become acquainted, spoke to me concerning it with sorrow; but their consternation was not contagious, and the air rang none the less with shouts of Long live the Emperor! whenever His Majesty showed himself in public, which was nearly every day.

While we were staying at Wilna, some hopes were entertained of seeing a new peace concluded, an envoy from the Emperor Alexander having come to the Emperor Napoleon; but these hopes were of short duration, and I have since known that the Russian officer, M. Balachoff, dreading, like nearly all his countrymen, a reconciliation between the two Emperors, had delivered his message in such a way as to irritate the pride of His Majesty, who sent him back after having received him badly. Everything looked propitious for the Emperor; he was then at the head of the most numerous and most formidable army he had yet commanded. M. Balachoff departed, therefore, and everything was arranged for the carrying out of the Emperor's plans. His Majesty, at the moment of entering the Russian territory, had no longer his customary serenity, or, at least, I had occasion to remark that he was more silent than usual at the hours when I had the honor to approach him. However, as soon as he had come to a decision, as soon as he had sent his troops across the Vilia, the river on which Wilna is situated, the Emperor took possession of the Russian territory with an enthusiastic ardor which might be described as that of a young man. One of the whippers-in who accompanied me related that the Emperor pushed his horse on ahead without an escort, and made it run at full speed for nearly a league in the woods that stretch all along the right bank of the Vilia, in spite of the mass of Cossacks he knew to be scattered through them.

I have more than once seen the Emperor grow impatient because he found no enemies to fight; in point of fact, the Russians had abandoned Wilna, which we had entered without resistance; and again on leaving that city, the scouts reported the absence of opposing troops, with the exception of the Cossacks of whom I just now spoke. I remember that we thought we heard the distant roar of cannon one day, and that the Emperor almost trembled with joy; but we soon discovered what it meant: the noise was that of thunder, and all of a sudden the most frightful storm I have ever beheld in my life broke over the entire army. The ground, for a space of more than forty leagues, was so covered with water, that the roads could not be made out, and this storm, as deadly as a combat might have been, cost us an immense number of men, several thousand horses, and a part of the immense stores of the expedition.

It was known to the entire army that the Russians had long been making immense works at Drissa, where they had constructed an enormous intrenched camp. The number of troops assembled there, the considerable sums expended on the works, all gave occasion to suppose that at last the Russian army would await the French troops at this point; all the more so because the Emperor Alexander, in the numerous proclamations scattered throughout his army, some of which had come into our hands, had boasted of conquering the French at Drissa, where (so said the proclamations) we were to find our graves. It was otherwise ordained by destiny: the Russians, again falling back towards the heart of Russia, abandoned this famous camp of Drissa as the Emperor approached. At this period I heard several general officers say that a great battle would then have been a salutary event for the French army, which was beginning to feel discouraged, at first for lack of foes to combat, and afterwards because the privations of every sort were daily growing more difficult to endure. Entire divisions only lived, so to say, by marauding; the soldiers devastated the infrequent habitations and châteaux scattered over the country, and, in spite of the severity of the Emperor's orders against marauders and pillagers, these orders could not be executed; the officers themselves, for the most part, having nothing to live on but the booty collected by the soldiers and afterwards divided with them.

In the presence of his generals, the Emperor affected a serenity which he did not always feel. From some half-uttered words I heard him utter in these grave circumstances, I am authorized to believe that the Emperor desired a battle so ardently only because he hoped to see the Emperor Alexander make new overtures to treat with him for peace. I think that then, after a first victory, he would have accepted it; but he could never have induced himself to retrace his steps, after such immense preparations, without having given one of those great battles which suffice for the glory of a campaign; that, at least, is what I heard continually repeated. The Emperor also talked very often of his enemies with an affected scorn which he did not really feel; his aim in this was to raise the moral tone of his officers and soldiers, many of whom did not conceal their discouragement.

Before leaving Wilna, the Emperor had established there a sort of central government, at the head of which he had placed the Duc de Bassano, so as to have an intermediate point between France and the line of operations he was going to attempt in the interior of Russia. Disappointed, as I have said, by the abandonment of the camp of Drissa by the Russian army, we marched rapidly toward Witepsk, where the larger part of the French forces were assembled at the end of July. There the impatience of the Emperor was once more deceived by another retreat of the Russians; for the combats of Astrovno and Mohilow, though important, cannot be ranked among the number of those battles which the Emperor so ardently desired. On entering Witepsk, the Emperor learned that the Emperor Alexander and the Grand Duke Constantine had left the army to repair to St. Petersburg.

At this epoch, that is to say, at the moment of our arrival in Witepsk, it was rumored that the Emperor would content himself with taking up his position there, fortifying himself, organizing the means of subsistence for his army, and then defer until the following year the execution of his vast designs on Russia. I do not know what he really thought on this matter; but what I can certify is, that being in the room adjoining the one where he was, I heard him say one day to the King of Naples that the first Russian campaign was ended, that next year he would be at Moscow, the year after that at St. Petersburg, and that the Russian war would last three years. Would to God that His Majesty had carried out the plan he was tracing with extreme vivacity to the King of Naples! Not so many brave fellows would have succumbed, perhaps, a few months later, in the frightful retreat whose disasters I shall hereafter have occasion to recall.

The weather was excessively warm during our stay at Witepsk, and the Emperor was extremely fatigued in consequence. I often heard him complain of it, and I never saw him, under any other circumstances, endure the weight of his clothing with so much impatience; in his own quarters he seldom wore a coat, and frequently threw himself down to rest. Others beside myself can bear witness to this fact; for he frequently received his general officers in this way, although he usually never showed himself except in the uniform he habitually wore. However, the sort of influence which the heat exercised over the physique of the Emperor had not enervated his great soul; and his ever-active genius embraced all branches of the administration. But it was easy for those best acquainted with his disposition to see that it was chiefly uncertainty which made him suffer at Witepsk: should he remain in Poland, or should he advance, without delay, into the heart of Russia? While he was wavering between these two ideas, I often saw him sad and taciturn. In this perplexity between repose and movement, the Emperor's choice could not be doubtful. Hence, after a general council, in which I heard it said that His Majesty had encountered much opposition, I learned that we were to march on toward Moscow, from which we were said to be only twenty days' distance. Among those who most vigorously opposed the Emperor's immediate march upon Moscow, I heard the names of the Duc de Vicenza and the Comte de Lobau mentioned; but what I can affirm, because I personally knew it in an undoubted manner, is, that the grand marshal of the palace had several times sought to dissuade the Emperor from his project;
but all these attempts were shattered against his will.

We turned, therefore, toward the second capital of Russia, and after several days' marching arrived at Smolensk, a large and beautiful city. The Russians, whom the Emperor had at last thought he could hold, had just evacuated it, after having lost a great many men and burned the larger part of the magazines. We entered it in the midst of flames; but this was nothing to what was awaiting us at Moscow. At Smolensk I remarked two edifices which seemed to me of the greatest beauty: the cathedral and the episcopal palace, which almost made a city by themselves, so considerable in their extent were the buildings, which were, moreover, separated from the city.

I will not set down here the names, barbarous for the most part, of the places we passed through after leaving Smolensk. All that I can add concerning our itinerary during the first half of this gigantic campaign, is that we reached the banks of the Moskowa September 5, and that there the Emperor saw with lively satisfaction that the Russians were at last determined to give him the great battle which was the object of all his desires, and which he had been pursuing for more than two hundred leagues like a prey which could not escape him.