United States or Serbia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Supposing that you had followed the bypath, I plunged right through the most trackless part of the wilderness, to keep the pursuit as far from you as possible. What my fate would be when they discovered I had cheated them, I didn't stop to weigh; if I knew Her Grace was safe, I could but die. "Imagine my despair when, on reaching the Vistula, I found I had actually led the pursuit right upon you.
Alexander, terrified by the destruction of his Prussian allies, halted his troops upon the other side of the Vistula, and from his vast realms collected recruits. For a few weeks the storms of winter secured a tacit armistice. In February, 1807, Alexander assumed the offensive and endeavored to surprise Napoleon in his encampment. But Napoleon was on the alert.
Above the whisper of the willows on its bank came the deep, quiet murmur of the Vistula, and every now and then, over the several towers of the solemn old palaces and the spires of the church where Poland has laid her kings, and so recently the king of the poets, the stars were dropping from their places, like sudden spiders, letting themselves down into the vast by faint yellow threads that showed a moment after the star itself was gone.
They accordingly waited: and in the interim, after the failure of Diebitsch's attempt upon Warsaw and his sudden death, Paskewitch, the Russian general, unexpectedly crossed the Vistula close to the Prussian fortress of Thorn and seized the city of Warsaw while each party was still in a state of indecision. Immense masses of fugitive Polish soldiery sought shelter in Austria and Prussia.
The left bank of the Vistula, on which Warsaw is chiefly built, is high, and the pretty, gay, and animated city, with its stately lines of streets, wide squares, and spacious gardens, is picturesquely disposed along the brow of the cliff and on the plains above.
Of the rapid extent of the infection we can form an idea when we learn the following facts: In the first East Prussian regiment of infantry, when it came to the Vistula, there was not a single case of typhus, while after a march of 14 miles on the highway which the French had passed before them there were 15 to 20 men sick in every company, every tenth or even every seventh man.
In twenty-four hours every available smith was at work, forging ice-axes and picks. Rapp was going to cut the frozen Vistula and set the river free. The Dantzigers laughed aloud. "It will freeze again in a night," they said. And it did. So Rapp set the ice-cutters to work again next day.
The Princess Augusta is tall, beautiful, and full of good qualities, and you will have, in all respects, a sister worthy of you. A thousand kisses to M. Napoleon. The Empress, after remaining some time at Mayence, as the campaign on the banks of the Vistula was protracted, returned to Paris. In a state of great anxiety with regard to her husband, she took up her residence at St. Cloud.
After an extremely agreeable visit to the palatin I returned to Leopol, where I amused myself for a week with a pretty girl who afterwards so captivated Count Potocki, starost of Sniatin, that he married her. This is purity of blood with a vengeance in your noble families! Leaving Leopol I went to Palavia, a splendid palace on the Vistula, eighteen leagues distant from Warsaw.
Thaddeus sighed, as if his life were in that sigh, "All is indeed over;" and pressing his hand to his forehead, in that attitude followed the steps of the general towards the Vistula.
Word Of The Day