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Updated: June 25, 2025
This sneering I shall never forget, says Lieutenant von Hailbronner, who escaped while the enemy was entering. Death on the road to Kowno was easier, after all, than dying slowly in the hospitals of Wilna. On the 10th., in the morning, the Russians entered, and the Cossacks ran their lances through every one in their way.
Some officers of the Russian advance-guard, which was entering the town, were so indignant at this behaviour that they killed a number of them. In the midst of this chaos Marshal Ney had urged onto the road to Kowno all those whom he could stir into movement, but he had gone no more than a league when he came to the hill of Ponari.
From Kowno Napoleon proceeded in two days as far as the defiles which defend the plain of Wilna. He waited, in order to make his appearance there, for news from his advanced posts. He was in hopes that Alexander would contest with him the possession of that capital. The report, indeed, of some musketry, encouraged him in that hope; when intelligence was brought him that the city was undefended.
The account which they gave of their brethren was but sorrowful. Of five hundred families, they said, one-fourth died last year from destitution. We visited the school and charitable institutions, and next day continued our journey to Kowno. Hundreds of persons, with lighted candles in their hands, greeted us on our arrival at Kowno.
Between these two wings, the grand army marched to the Niemen, in three separate masses. The king of Westphalia, with 80,000 men, moved upon Grodno; the viceroy of Italy, with 75,000 men, upon Pilony; Napoleon, with 220,000 men, upon Nogaraiski, a farm situated three leagues beyond Kowno. The 23d of June, before daylight, the imperial column reached the Niemen, but without seeing it.
"Also near Nowe Kowno we are least expected," observed the Bohemian, "for the very reason that they have beaten you. In that he is right." "Come, let us see the people whom I lead," said Zbyszko, "because the air in the tent is too close. I want to tell them to be ready." They went out.
"Some Crown land situate in the vicinity of Wilna and Kowno was offered to the public by auction, and Israelites were prohibited from being amongst the applicants, although many of them distinctly declared their willingness to cultivate the land in question personally.
But at that moment a second attack of the Russians commenced on the other side of the Niemen, and near the bridge of Kowno: it was then half past two o'clock. Ney sent Ledru, Marchand, and their four hundred men forward to retake and secure that passage.
Ten thousand horses perished on the march, and more especially in the bivouacs which followed. A large quantity of equipages remained abandoned on the sands; and great numbers of men subsequently died. A convent served to shelter the emperor against the first fury of the tempest. From hence he shortly departed for Kowno, where the greatest disorder prevailed.
D'Arragon reached Kowno without mishap, and there found a Russian colonel of Cossacks who proved friendly enough, and not only appreciated the value of his passport and such letters of recommendation as he had been able to procure at Konigsberg, but gave him others, and forwarded him on his journey. He still nourished a lingering belief in De Casimir's word.
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