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In the woods, about a mile to the east of Kowno, which Witold had destroyed, were stationed the principal forces of Skirwoillo, extending in time of need from point to point in the neighborhood.
That very day, a particular calamity was added to this general disaster. At Kowno, Napoleon was exasperated, because the bridge over the Vilia had been thrown down by the cossacks, and opposed the passage of Oudinot. He affected to despise it, like every thing else that opposed him, and ordered a squadron of his Polish guard to swim the river.
Petersburg or to Moscow and dictating a peace, after the fashion of Presburg or Schoenbrunn, within the walls of one of the Czar's own palaces. On the 24th of June, the grand imperial army, consolidated into three masses, began their passage of the Niemen; the King of Westphalia at Grodno; the Viceroy Eugene at Pilony, and Napoleon himself near Kowno.
When the army entered Wilna on December 8th., almost all the men were chilled by cold, and despite the commands of Murat and Berthier, despite the fact that the Russians were at the gates, both officers and soldiers kept to their quarters and refused to march. However, on the 10th, the march upon Kowno was begun. But the extreme cold and the excess of snow completed the rout of the army.
Its provisions had ascended the Pregel in large barges up to Vehlau, and in lighter craft as far as Insterburg. The other convoys went by land-carriage from Königsberg to Labiau, and from thence, by means of the Niemen and the Vilia, to Kowno and Wilna.
And, later, asked as an artistic guest to the chateaux of the nobility in Poland, Kowno, Vitebsk, Wilna, Minsk, Grodno and Volhynia. I was a poet in thought, a lover of all womankind in my dreams, and a conspirator in the inmost chambers of my defiant Polish nature."
The unnatural mother was herself abandoned to the same snow from which her infant was snatched, and entrusted to another mother; this little orphan was exhibited in their ranks; he was afterwards seen at the Berezina, then at Wilna, even at Kowno, and finally escaped from all the horrors of the retreat.
In the warmth of the house his frozen garments began to melt, and from his limbs the water dripped to the floor with a sound like rain. Then he caught sight of Desiree's face. "He is alive, I tell you that," he said abruptly. "And well, so far as we know. It was at Kowno that we got news of him. I have a letter."
What was left of the army reached Kowno on the 12th, after a long, tedious march, dying of cold and hunger. In Kowno there was an abundance of clothes, flour, and spirits. But the unrestrained soldiers broke the barrels, so that the spilled liquor formed a lake in the market place. The soldiers threw themselves down and by the hundreds drank until they were intoxicated.
Ney then entered Kowno, accompanied only by his aides-de-camp, for all besides had given way, or fallen around him. From the time of his leaving Wiazma, this was the fourth rear-guard which had been worn out and melted in his hands. But winter and famine, still more than the Russians, had destroyed them.
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