On the following day, December 25, the Emperor, driving the Russians in front of him, marched to Golymin, having with him his Guard, Murat's cavalry, and the corps of Davout and Augereau, the latter leading. Marshal Lannes took the direction of Pultusk. That day there were some trifling engagements, the enemy retiring with all speed; we bivouacked in the woods. On the 26th we continued in pursuit of the Russians. We were at the time of year when the days are shortest, and in that part of Poland the night at the end of December begins about half-past two. As we approached Golymin sleet was falling, which made it all the darker. We had not seen the enemy since the morning, when, close to Golymin, our scouts, perceiving in the dusk a strong body of troops, whom they could not approach by reason of marshy ground, brought information of them to the marshal. He ordered Colonel Albert to go and reconnoitre this corps with twenty-five mounted chasseurs of his escort, of whom I was put in command. It was a difficult task, for we were in a vast treeless plain, where one might easily go astray. The ground, muddy anyhow, was cut up by swamps, which we could not make out in the darkness; we therefore advanced cautiously, and at length found ourselves twenty-five paces from a line of troops. We supposed at first that it was Davout's corps, but as no one answered our 'Who goes there?' we had no doubt that they belonged to the enemy. Still, to be quite certain, Colonel Albert ordered me to send forward the best mounted trooper to the line which we could perceive in the shadow. I selected a corporal named Schmidt, a man of tried courage. The brave man, advancing alone to within ten paces of a regiment which he recognised as Russian by its helmets, fired his carbine into the thick of the squadron and came quickly back.

In order to explain the silence which the enemy had kept, I must tell you that the Russian force which was in front of us had got separated from the main body, and had lost its way in the wide plains which it knew to be occupied by the French troops on their way to Golymin. The Russian generals, hoping under cover of the darkness to be able to pass near us without being recognised, had forbidden all speaking, and in the case of our attacking the wounded were to drop without uttering any sound. This order, which only Russian troops could carry out, was so punctually obeyed that when Colonel Albert, in order to let the marshal know that we were in presence of the enemy, ordered his twenty-five chasseurs to fire a volley, not a cry, not a word was heard, and no one replied to us. Only through the darkness we could perceive some hundred troopers silently advancing to cut off our retreat. Then we had to gallop to rejoin our column, but as many of our men got bogged we had to go less rapidly, although we were close pressed by the Russian horsemen, who fortunately met with the same difficulties as we did. Suddenly a fire broke out in a neighbouring farm, and the plain being thus lighted up, the Russians began to gallop, and we had to do the same. We were in imminent danger, because, having left the French line from General Desjardins' division, we were returning by the front of General Heudelet's. They, not knowing that we had gone, began to fire in the direction of the enemy, so that we had in the rear a Russian squadron pushing us hard, while we were met by a hail of bullets which wounded several of our troopers and horses. It was no good shouting, 'We are French; cease firing!' the fire continued all the same. Nor can one blame the officers, who took us for the advanced guard of a Russian column, since their officers, in order to deceive us, often used the French language, and had by this means before now succeeded in surprising our regiments in the night. Colonel Albert and I, with the squad of chasseurs, had a very bad moment of it. At last it struck me that the only way to get recognised was to call out to the officers of Heudelet's division by their names, with which they would know that our enemies could not be acquainted. This plan answered, and we were at length admitted within the French lines.

The Russian generals, seeing that they were detected, and wishing to continue their retreat, took a step which I much approved, but which the French have never been able to make up their minds to copy. They pointed all their artillery in the direction of the French troops; then, having taken away their team horses, they opened a very heavy fire to keep us at a distance. Meantime, they caused their columns to march on, and when their ammunition was exhausted the gunners retired, leaving the guns to us. Was not this better worth while than to lose a number of men in trying to save this artillery, which would have stuck in the mud every moment and have delayed the retreat?

The violent cannonade of the Russians inflicted all the more loss on us that many of the villages in the plain being on fire, the light of them showing to a distance, allowed the enemy's gunners to make out the masses of our troops, especially those of the cuirassiers and dragoons whom Prince Murat had just brought up, and who, in their white cloaks, formed a good mark to the Russian artillerymen. Accordingly these troopers lost more heavily than the other regiments, and one of our dragoon generals, named Finérol, was cut in two by a cannon-ball. Marshal Augereau, after having carried the suburbs, entered Golymin while Davout was attacking it from another side. The Russian columns were at this moment passing through the town, and knowing that Marshal Lannes was marching to cut off their retreat by capturing Pultusk, three leagues farther on, they were trying to reach that point before him at any price. Therefore, although our soldiers fired upon them at twenty-five paces, they continued their march without replying, because in order to do so they would have had to halt, and every moment was precious. So every division, every regiment, filed past, without saying a word or slackening its pace for a moment. The streets were filled with dying and wounded, but not a groan was to be heard, for they were forbidden. You might have said that we were firing upon shadows. At last our soldiers charged the Russian soldiers with the bayonet, and only when they pierced them could they be convinced that they were dealing with men. We took some thousand prisoners; the rest got off. The marshals debated whether they should pursue, but the weather was so horrible, the night so pitch-dark as soon as one was away from the neighbourhood of the burning houses, the troops so wet and weary, that, it was decided to let them rest till daylight.

Golymin was heaped with dead, wounded, and baggage when Marshals Murat and Augereau, accompanied by many generals and their staffs, seeking shelter from the icy rain, established themselves in an immense stable near the town. There, each stretching himself on the dung-heap tried to get warm and to sleep, for we had been on horseback more than twenty hours in this frightful weather—the marshals, the colonels, all the bigwigs in short having, as was right, settled themselves towards the inner end of the stable, so as to be less cold. I, a poor lieutenant, having come in the last, was compelled to lie down close to the doorway, having at the best my body sheltered from the rain but exposed to an icy wind, for there were no doors. It was a disagreeable position when you add that I was dying of hunger, having eaten nothing since the day before. But my lucky star came once more to my help. While the great men, well-sheltered, were sleeping in the warm part of the stable, and the cold was preventing the lieutenants near the door from doing the same, a servant of Prince Murat presented himself at the entry. I remarked in a low voice that his master was asleep. So he gave me a basket for the prince, containing a roast goose, some bread, and some wine, begging me to let his master know that the provision mules would come up in an hour. Having said which he went off to meet them. In possession of these victuals, I took counsel in a low voice with Bro, Mainvielle, and Stoch, who had just as bad places as I, and were just as shivering and hungry. The result of our deliberation was that as Prince Murat was asleep, and his canteen was bound to come up before long, he would find something for breakfast when he woke, while we should be sent off in all directions without any questions as to what we had got to eat, and that, in consequence, we might, without over-burdening our consciences, devour the contents of the basket; and we did so straightway. I do not know whether I may be forgiven for this page's trick: I only know that I have seldom made a pleasanter meal.

While the troops which had fought at Golymin were thus halted, Napoleon and his Guard were wandering in the plain, the Emperor, as soon as he was warned by the cannonade that an action was beginning, having hurriedly left his quarters two leagues from Golymin, in the hope of being able to reach us by marching straight upon the fire. But the ground was so sodden, the plain so cut up with swamps, and the weather so bad that it took him all night to cover the two leagues, and he only reached the field of battle long after the affair was at an end. On this same day Marshal Lannes with only 20,000 men fought 42,000 Russians at Pultusk, as they were retreating before the other French forces. He caused them great loss, but could not stop them owing to their greatly superior force. 1For the Emperor to have been able to pursue the Russians, the ground ought to have been hardened by frost, whereas, on the contrary, it was so soft and saturated that we sank in at every step, and several men, notably the servant of an officer of the 7th corps, were drowned, men and horses, in the mud. It became therefore impossible to move the artillery and to push farther into this unknown land. Moreover, the troops were short both of provisions and of boots, and were extremely fatigued. These considerations decided Napoleon to allow them some days' rest, and to canton the whole army in front of the Vistula from the neighbourhood of Warsaw up to the gates of Dantzig. The soldiers were lodged in the villages, and, sheltered at last from the bad weather, received their rations, and were able to repair their accoutrements.

The Emperor returned to Warsaw to plan a new campaign. The divisions of Augereau's corps were distributed in the villages around Plusk, if one may give this name to a jumble of wretched hovels inhabited by dirty Jews. But nearly all the so-called towns of Poland are so built and so inhabited, the nobles, great and small, remaining always in the country, where they get their value out of their lands by employing their peasants on them. The marshal stayed at Christka, a kind of country house built, after the local fashion, of wood. He found a tolerable room there, the aides-de-camp settled themselves as best they could in the rooms and in the out-buildings. As for myself, by hunting about I found a pretty good room in the gardener's house, furnished with a stove. I established myself there with two of my comrades' and leaving the gardener and his family in possession of their not very inviting beds, we made some for ourselves with planks and straw, with which we did very well.