In the north of Germany Napoleon had only two divisions. It is true that they were commanded by Augereau, but they consisted almost wholly of recruits. The French who had been to Russia recovered their strength as soon as they got proper food and had no longer to sleep on the snow, and they might have been opposed to the enemy. But the troopers were nearly all dismounted; very few infantrymen had kept their muskets. We had no artillery. Most of the men were shoeless, and their clothes were in rags. The Government had, indeed, occupied part of 1812 in having equipment of all kinds got ready; but owing to the neglect of the administration, which was then directed by the Count of Cessac, no regiment got the clothes intended for it. The conduct of our administrators in this matter deserves to be noticed. This was what happened. As soon as the costly and extensive equipment required by a regiment had been got ready at its depôt, the office made arrangements with a firm of carriers to transport them to Mainz, then included in the Empire. The packets were in no danger so long as they were passing through France; still, by M. de Cessac's orders, a detachment had to escort them as far as Mainz. There the French carriers and their escort were dismissed, and the cases handed over to foreign contractors, who were to take them to Magdeburg, Berlin, or the Vistula, without any oversight by French agent. The duty was therefore performed so dishonestly and so slowly, that packages of clothing and shoes took from six to eight months to accomplish the journey from Mainz to the Vistula, for which six weeks would have sufficed.

But what was only a serious inconvenience so long as the French armies were in peaceable occupation of Germany and Poland after the Russian campaign became a calamity. More than 200 boats laden with property intended for our regiments were icebound on the Bromberg canal near Nackel when we passed that point in January 1813. But as there was not a single French agent with the convoy to let us know, while the boatmen, being all Prussians, considered themselves already our enemies and said not a word, we passed on thinking that they were merely barges with merchandise. Next day the Prussians took more than twelve millions' worth of clothing, linen, and boots, which had been meant for our unlucky soldiers, and served to clothe several of the regiments which Prussia levied against us. The frost came on with renewed severity, and caused the death of several thousands more French; but none the less people bragged about our able administration.

The lack of regularity with which the march of the French across Prussia was conducted arose in the first instance from the carelessness of Murat, who had taken the command after the Emperor's departure, and later on from the weakness of Eugène Beauharnais. It was indeed high time to recross the Elbe into the territory of the Confederation of the Rhine. But before making up his mind to remove his troops from Poland and Prussia, the Emperor, ravishing to leave at his disposal means of returning to the attack, gave orders to leave strong garrisons in such places as to secure the passage of the Vistula, the Oder, and the Elbe. This important decision may be regarded from two different points of view; so that some well-informed soldiers have praised it, while others equally competent to judge, have blamed it severely. The former say that the necessity for giving rest and shelter to the numerous sick and wounded whom the army brought back from Russia compelled the Emperor to retain fortresses the occupation of which would assure to the French the safety of a vast material of war and large supplies of food. They add that these fortresses would impede the movements of the enemy, who would be compelled to mask them, thus reducing the number of troops which they could employ against us; and lastly, that if the reinforcements brought up from France and Germany should enable him to win a battle, the fortresses which he kept would make it easy for the French to conquer Prussia, which would soon bring us back beyond the Vistula, and force the Russians to return to their country.

To this it is replied that by scattering his army over so many distant points, too far apart for the garrisons to support each other, Napoleon was reducing his strength, and that it was not right to endanger the safety of France in order to save a few thousand sick and wounded, very few of whom would be able to serve again. As a matter of fact nearly all of them died in the hospitals. Further, it was said that the Italian, German, and Polish regiments which the Emperor had attached to the garrisons to economize his own troops would do no good service: and indeed nearly all the foreign soldiers fought slackly, and ended by going over to the enemy. The last point was, that the occupation of the fortresses would cause very little hindrance to the Russian and Prussian armies, who would merely leave a corps to mask them and continue their march towards France; which was what actually took place. Each of these views has something to be said for and against it. Nevertheless, considering the circumstances in which the French army was placed, I feel bound to take the side of those who wished to abandon the fortresses; even their opponents admit that they could be of no use to us unless we could thoroughly beat the Russian and Prussian armies, which was another reason for endeavouring to increase our available forces instead of distributing them indefinitely. Nor let anyone say that in that case the enemy, having no blockading to do, would also have increased the number of their battalions, and thus restored the proportion. To say this would be to fall into a great mistake, for he would have been always obliged to keep strong garrisons in the places which we had left. I may add that the useless defence of these numerous fortresses deprived our active army of many experienced generals, among others Marshal Davout, who was alone worth many divisions. I can understand that on campaign one may dispense with the services of several brigades when it is a question of entrusting to them the duty of guarding places on which the safety of the country depends, such as the towns of Metz, Lille, and Strasburg in the case of France, for one is then, so to speak, defending the body of the fatherland. On the other hand, the importance of fortresses 200 or 300 leagues from France was not absolute, but only conditional; that is to say, contingent on the success of our active armies. As this success did not come to pass, the eighty odd thousand men whom the Emperor left in 1812 in garrison in these places were compelled to lay down their arms.

The situation of France in the early months of 1813 was most critical. In the south, our armies in Spain had suffered great reverses through the reduction of our force in the Peninsula, whence regiments were continually being drawn; while the English never stopped sending troops to Wellington. Thus in the course of 1812 this general had made a brilliant campaign. He had recaptured Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca; had won the battle of the Arapiles, 1and occupied Madrid; and now was threatening the Pyrenees. In the north, the seasoned soldiers whom Napoleon had led into Russia had nearly all fallen in battle or succumbed to their hardships. The Prussian army, still intact, had just joined with the Russians, and the Austrians were on the point of following their example. Lastly, the sovereigns, and still more the people of the Germanic Confederation, incited by England, were wavering in their alliance with France. The Prussian Baron von Stein, a man of resource and enterprise, seized this occasion to publish sundry pamphlets, in which he summoned all the Germans to shake off the yoke of Napoleon and reconquer their freedom. His appeal received all the more attention, since the maintenance of the French troops, which had been occupying Germany since 1806, had caused them great losses, to which had been added the confiscation of English goods, by reason of Napoleon's continental blockade. The Confederation of the Rhine would therefore have slipped from him if the sovereigns of the various states composing it had then made up their minds to yield to the wishes of their subjects. But so great was their habit of obedience to the French Emperor, and their fear of seeing him arrive at the head of the forces which he was rapidly organising and directing towards Spain, that none of them dared stir.

The majority of the French nation still confided in Napoleon. No doubt well-informed persons blamed him for having forced his army on to Moscow, and especially for having waited there till winter; but the mass of the people, accustomed to regard the Emperor as infallible, and having, moreover, no idea of what had really happened, or of the losses of our army in Russia, saw only the renown which the capture of Moscow had shed on our arms; so they were keen to give the Emperor the means of bringing victory back to his eagles. Each department and town was patriotically ready to find horses; but the levies of conscripts and money soon chilled their enthusiasm. Still, on the whole, the nation sacrificed itself with a good grace, squadrons and battalions rising as by magic from the ground. It was astonishing that, after all the draughts of men which France had undergone in the last twenty years, never had soldiers of such good quality been enlisted. This was due to several causes: first, there had been for some years in each of the 120 existing departments a so-called 'departmental' company of infantry—a kind of prætorian guard to the prefects, and formed by their picked men, who, being well looked after, and not overworked, had time to grow to their full strength, and, being regularly drilled and exercised, needed only their 'baptism of fire' to make them perfect troops. The companies varied in strength from 100 to 250 men; the Emperor sent them all to the army, where they were merged in line regiments. Secondly, a great number of conscripts from previous years, who, for one reason or another, had obtained leave to be placed at the 'tail' of their depôts, to wait until they were required, were called up. They too, as they grew older, had nearly all become strong and vigorous.

These were legal measures; but not so was the recalling of persons who had drawn a lucky number at the conscriptions and thus escaped service. All of these below the age of thirty were required to serve. This levy, therefore, furnished a number of men fit to undergo the fatigues of war. There was some grumbling, especially in the south and west; but so great was the habit of obedience, that nearly all the contingent went on duty. This submission on the part of the people led the Government to take a still more illegal stop, which, as it touched the upper class, was still more dangerous. After having made men serve whom the ballot had exempted, they compelled those who had quite lawfully obtained substitutes to shoulder their muskets all the same. Many families had embarrassed, and even ruined themselves to keep their sons at home, for a substitute cost from 12,000 to 20,000 francs at that time, and this had to be paid down. There were some young men who had obtained substitutes three times over, and were none the less compelled to go, cases even occurred in which they had to serve in the same company with the man whom they had paid to take their place. This piece of iniquity was owing to the advice of Clarke the War Minister, and Savary the Police Minister, who persuaded the Emperor that, to prevent any movement of opposition to the Government during the war, sons of influential families must be got out of the country and sent to the army, to act in some sort as hostages. In order, however, to reduce the odium of this measure somewhat, the Emperor created, under the name of Guards of Honour, four cavalry regiments formed of young men of good education. They wore a brilliant hussar uniform, and had generals for their colonels.

To these more or less legal levies the Emperor added the produce of a forestalled conscription, and many excellent battalions formed of sailors, and artificers or gunners of marine artillery, all well-set men trained in handling arms, who had long been weary of their monotonous life in ports and were eager to go and win glory along with their comrades of the land forces. They soon became formidable infantry, and amounted to 30,000. Lastly, the Emperor further weakened the army in Spain by taking from it not only some thousands of men to replenish his guard, but whole brigades and divisions of seasoned veterans.

On their side the Russians, and still more the Prussians, were making ready for war. The indefatigable Stein was visiting the provinces preaching a crusade against France, and organizing his Tugendbund, or League of Virtue, the initiated in which swore to take up arms for German freedom. This society was acting openly in Prussia, which was already at war with Napoleon, and was working its way among the states and armies of the Confederation of the Rhine, in spite of some of the sovereigns; so that nearly all Germany was in secret our enemy; and even the contingents which it contributed to our forces were ready, as events soon showed, to betray us on the first opportunity. These events were, indeed, only delayed by the natural slowness of Germans, for the fragments of the French army, after recrossing the Elbe at the end of 1812, remained undisturbed on the left bank of that river during the first four months of the next year without the Russians and Prussians, on the opposite side, venturing to attack them. They did not deem themselves strong enough, although Prussia had called out the Landwehr; while Bernadotte, forgetting that he was a Frenchman by birth, had declared war against us and united the Swedish troops with those of the enemies of his native land.

During our stay on the left bank of the Elbe the French army continued short of cavalry, except for a few regiments of which mine was one. We were quartered in several villages not far from Magdeburg. While there I experienced a great disappointment. The Emperor, wishing to quicken the organization of the new levies, and thinking that the presence of the regimental commanders at the depôts of their regiments would be useful for this purpose, decided that all colonels who had less than a certain number of men—for cavalry 400—under arms should return to France. As I had more than 600, I was obliged to stay, but I should have been glad to embrace my wife and the child which had been born while I was away. To the pain which this caused me was added another great annoyance: the good General Castex, to whom I had occasion to be so grateful during the Russian campaign, left us for the mounted grenadiers of the guard. General Corbineau had been appointed aide-de-camp to the Emperor, and the two brigades were combined under General Exelmans; General Wathiez replaced General Castex, and General Maurin, Corbineau. But as these three generals had gone to France after the campaign, and I was the only colonel at hand, General Sebastiani, to whose corps the new division was to belong, put me in command of it. This gave me much extra duty, since I had in terrible weather often to visit the cantonments of the three other regiments. My wound in the knee, though it had closed, still gave me pain, and I do not know how I should have carried on my duties to the end of the winter had not General Wathiez rejoined at the end of a month and taken command.

A few days after this, without any request on my part, I received orders to repair to France and organise the recruits and remounts which were in great numbers at the depôt of my regiment. This was at Mons, in Belgium, which then formed part of the Empire. I started at once, and travelled quickly and as I knew that, having been authorised to come to France on duty, I could not properly ask for any leave to go to Paris, I accepted the offer of my mother-in-law, Mme Desbrières, to bring my wife and child to Mons. After a year of separation and all that danger, it was a great pleasure to see my wife again, and for the first time to kiss our little Alfred, now eight months old. It was one of the happiest days of my life. You may imagine with what joy I recalled how nearly my child had become an orphan on the day of his birth.

I remained at the depôt, very busy, till the end of June. The recruits were very numerous, fine men, and of a warlike race, coming nearly all from the neighbourhood of Mons, in the old province of Hainault, whence Austria, in the days when the Low Countries belonged to her, used to draw her best troopers. The inhabitants of this district are fond of horses, and take good care of them; but as those of the country were rather too powerful for chasseurs, I got leave to buy them in the Ardennes, and we were well remounted. At the depôt I found several good officers. Many of those who had served in the Russian campaign had gone there to recover from wounds or sickness, and the minister had sent me some young sub-lieutenants from the Cavalry School and from Saint-Cyr. Out of these elements I soon formed some squadrons, which doubtless were not perfect, but which could take their places, without too great contrast, among the veteran troopers whom I had left on the Elbe; and as soon as a squadron was ready it went off to the army.