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Updated: June 19, 2025
In 1807, in the grand duchy of Warsaw, after it was retaken from Prussia, the condition of the peasantry was far more clear and protected than even now promised by the Czar Alexander II., and was probably better preserved than it can be under the crowd of employés and magistrates, nominally elected by the peasants, but in fact imported from Saratow, Kazan, Penza, etc., for the purpose of teaching liberty and Siberian civilization in Warsaw and Wilna.
It happened that soldiers were starving near well filled magazines, such magazines at Kowno, Wilna, Minsk, Orcha being not only well, but over, filled, while the passing troops were in dire need. We shall later on come to frightful details of this kind.
The pupils are well versed in the Russian, Polish, French, Hebrew, and German languages, independently of their knowledge of geography, history, arithmetic, and composition. I was equally satisfied in inspecting the girls' school. Like those at Wilna, these schools may be regarded as models, for they are upon an equality with similar establishments in my own country.
At Ponare, where the road between Wilna and Kowno rises, the baggage which they had with great difficulty dragged so far, the flags taken from the enemy, the army-chest, the trophies carried off from Moscow, all remained scattered at the foot of the icy hill, neither horses nor men being able to take them further.
Even at Wilna, all these disorders had taken place; the Duke of Treviso, among others, informed him, "that he had seen, from the Niemen to the Vilia, nothing but ruined habitations, and baggage and provision-waggons abandoned; they were found dispersed on the highways and in the fields, overturned, broke open, and their contents scattered here and there, and pillaged, as if they had been taken by the enemy: he should have imagined himself following a defeated army.
They had at last reached Wilna, alarming Lithuania by their rout, and themselves terror-struck during the halt on ascertaining the actual numbers of their losses, and the state of the disorderly battalions which were being again formed in the streets of the hospitable town.
General Junot, who replaced Jérôme, was, before long, also guilty of a serious blunder. It was around this time that the Russian emperor sent one of his ministers, Count Balachoff,to parley with Napoleon, who was still in Wilna.
The town of Zembin, which is opposite to the ford at Studianka, is built on a vast marsh, through which runs the road to Wilna. The road goes over twenty-two wooden bridges which the Russian general could have easily reduced to cinders before leaving the district, as they were surrounded by many stacks of dry reeds. If Tchitchakoff had done this, the French army would have been left without hope.
The senator Wibicki presented this address to him at Wilna.
The soldiers wanted to salute him with their Vive l'Empereur! but, in consideration of the assumed incognito of the Imperator without an army, it was interdicted. Up to this day Napoleon has been blamed for his step, to leave the army. At the Beresina he had refused with pride the offer of some Poles to take him over the river and to bring him safely to Wilna.
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