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Updated: June 19, 2025
He had, no doubt, failed in suffering himself to be surprised at Wilna, and for not considering the marshy course of the Berezina as the proper frontier of Lithuania; but it was remarked that, subsequently, at Witepsk and Smolensk, he had forestalled Napoleon; that on the Loutcheza, on the Dnieper, and at Valoutina, his resistance had been proportionate to time and place; that this petty warfare, and the losses occasioned by it, had been but too much in his favour; every retrograde step of his drawing us to a greater distance from our reinforcements, and carrying him nearer to his: in short, all that he had done, he had done judiciously, whether he had hazarded, defended, or abandoned.
The Diet of Warsaw took alarm. A large number of wealthy Poles collected their most valuable property, and crossed to the left bank of the Vistula. They asked assistance from the Abbe Pradt, who was as disturbed as the Poles. He wrote to Wilna, where Bassano was installed as the emperor's representative, and at the same time addressed himself to General Reynier.
By good luck we remembered that our officers passing Wilna on their way during the spring had been well received by Mr. Malczewski, a friend of our colonel. Nothing more natural than to go to him and ask for asylum. But imagine our joy, our delight, when at our arrival at the house we found our colonel himself, the quartermaster and many officers known by us, who all were the guests of Mr.
Long before reaching Wilna, the horses being dead, we had received orders to burn our carriages with all the contents. I lost heavily in this journey, as I had purchased several valuable articles which were burned with my baggage of which I always had a large quantity on our journeys. A large part of the Emperor's baggage was lost in the same manner.
The dethroned capital of a people betrayed by its nobility became, after its abandonment by the native inhabitants, the centre of a Jewry independent of its surroundings and undisturbed in its internal development. Without in the least deviating from Rabbinic traditions, its constitutional platform, Jewish society in Wilna was gradually penetrated by modern ideas.
At last the King of Naples opened his heart to his brother-in-law, and entreated him, in the name of the army, to think of his own safety, so imminent had the peril become. Some brave Poles had offered themselves as escort for the Emperor; he could cross the Beresina higher up, and reach Wilna in five days.
The road of Minsk passes through the middle of a forest and uncultivated morasses; that of Wilna, on the contrary, passes through a very fine part of the country. The army, destitute of cavalry, but poorly provided with ammunition, and terribly exhausted by the fatigues of a fifty days' march, took with it its sick and wounded, and was anxious to reach its magazines."
I allude to two of the finest houses at Wilna, the one belonging to Count Teschkewetz, and the other to the nobleman Wilgatzke, but inhabited by the present civil Governor, both of which were entirely constructed by the Israelites. "Indeed there are often a great many Christian labourers to be seen in the Jewish Guberniums, in consequence of their business being slack in their own district.
You have held out no object to set us in motion, and you complain of our being unsteady. Persons whom we do not respect as our countrymen, you set over us as our chiefs. Notwithstanding our entreaties, Wilna remains separated from Warsaw; disunited as we thus are, you require of us that confidence in our strength which union alone can give.
All reports, and they are numerous, of Germans, French and also Russians, speak of the cruelty of the Jews of Wilna. We must not forget, however, the provocations under which they had to suffer, nor how they, in supplying soldiers with eatables and clothing, saved many who otherwise would have perished.
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