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The Emperor Alexander had just learnt that Davout had appeared at Elbing: having crossed the Vistula, he was on his way to the Niemen.
As we went, I reflected that, on the road to Elbing, we must pass through several Prussian villages, and inquired for a shop where we might purchase a map. We were directed to an old woman who sat at the door across the way, and were told she had a good assortment, for that her son was a scholar.
"Such a conclusion," observes our clerical biographer, "in such persons was natural enough." It has been asserted that during his stay at Aix, Handel composed a cantata for the five-hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Elbing, a town in East Prussia between Danzig and Koenigsberg.
Prussia is said to have contained fifty-five large fortified cities, forty-eight fortresses, and nineteen thousand and eight towns and villages. The population of the larger cities must have been considerable, for we are told that in 1352 the plague carried off thirteen thousand persons in Dantzic, four thousand in Thorn, six thousand at Elbing, and eight thousand at Koenigsberg.
This left open the way to Königsberg, and early in January, 1807, Ney, overpowered by the temptation to relieve the miseries of his men, and to make a stroke on his own account by seizing the capital of East Prussia, set out from Neidenburg without orders, leaving Bernadotte's position at Elbing much exposed.
Their intimacy must have begun in Hartlib's native town of Elbing in Prussia, where, I now find, Durie was residing in 1628, as minister to the English company of merchants in the town, and where, in that very year, I also now find, Durie had the great idea of his life first suggested to him by the Swedish Dr.
I met the King of Naples at Elbing, and had the honor of delivering your majesty's letter to him. He received me very kindly, and was delighted at being thus assured of your friendly feelings toward France. Marshal Macdonald, to whose headquarters I then repaired, was less kind and polite.
* The Mennonites were originally Dutchmen. Persecuted for their religious views in the sixteenth century, a large number of them accepted an invitation to settle in West Prussia, where they helped to drain the great marshes between Danzig, Elbing, and Marienburg. Here in the course of time they forgot their native language. Their emigration to Russia began in 1789.
There is a cross branch from Elbing, which joins the Nogat and Vistula proper; and which is probably meant in the text, where the Ilfing and Wisle, united, are said to run to the west of Est-mere, or the haf, and then north, into the sea at Wisle-mund. This circumstance is singular; yet may be explained from the custom of the Tartars.
They advanced from Thorn, Marienwerder, and Elbing, and, on the 23d of June, had assembled in a single mass near Nogarisky, a league above Kowno. Finally, in front of Tilsit, was Macdonald, and 32,500 Prussians, Bavarians, and Poles, composing the extreme left of the grand army. Every thing was now ready.