Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland Volume II Part 5

The Soldier's Reward.--Review of the Russian Army.--American Cannibals.--Palace of Potemkin.--Palace of the Grand-duke Michael.--Equipments for Travelling.--Rough Riding.--Poland.--Vitepsk.--Napoleon in Poland.--The Disastrous Retreat.--Pa.s.sage of the Berezina.

EARLY the next morning I went out about twelve versts from the city to attend a grand military review by the emperor in person. The government of Russia is a military despotism, and her immense army, nominally amounting to a million, even on the peace establishment numbers actually six hundred thousand, of which sixty thousand follow the person of the emperor, and were at that time under arms at St. Petersburgh. When I rode on the parade-ground, the spectacle of this great army, combining the elite of barbaric chivalry with soldiers trained in the best schools of European discipline, drawn up in battle's stern array, and glittering with steel, was brilliant and almost sublime; in numbers and military bearing, in costliness of armour and equipment, far surpa.s.sing any martial parade that I had seen, not excepting a grand review of French troops at Paris, or even a _fourth of July parade at home_. I once had the honour to be a paymaster in the valiant one hundred and ninety-seventh regiment of New-York State Militia; and I can say what, perhaps, no other man who ever served in our _army_ can say, that I served out my whole term without being once promoted. Men came in below and went out above me; ensigns became colonels and lieutenants generals, but I remained the same; it was hard work to escape promotion, but I was resolute. a.s.sociated with me was a friend as quartermaster, with as little of the spirit of a soldier in him as myself, for which we were rather looked down upon by the warriors of our day; and when, at the end of our term, in company with several other officers, we resigned, the next regimental orders were filled with military panegyrics, such as, "the colonel has received, with the greatest regret, the resignation of Lieutenant A.;" "the country has reason to deplore the loss of the services of Captain B.;" and wound up with, "Quartermaster G. and Paymaster S. have tendered their resignations, _both of which are hereby accepted_." But when strains of martial music burst from a hundred bands, and companies, and regiments, and brigades wheeled and manoeuvred before me, and the emperor rode by, escorted by general and field officers, and the most magnificent staff in Europe, and the earth shook under the charge of cavalry, I felt a strong martial spirit roused within me, perhaps I was excited by the reflection that these soldiers had been in battles, and that the stars and medals glittering on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s were not mere holyday ornaments, but the tokens of desperate service on b.l.o.o.d.y battle-fields.

In a body, the Russian soldiers present an exceedingly fine appearance.

When the serf is enrolled, his hair and beard are cut off, except on the upper lip, his uniform is simple and graceful, a belt is worn tightly round the waist, and the breast of the coat is thickly padded, increasing the manliness of the figure, though sometimes at the expense of health. In evolutions they move like a great machine, as if all the arms and legs were governed by a single impulse.

The army under review was composed of representatives from all the nations under the sway of Russia; Cossacks of the Don, and the Wolga, and the Black Sea, in jackets and wide pantaloons of blue cloth, riding on small horses, with high-peaked saddles, and carrying spears eight or ten feet in length. One regiment had the privilege of wearing a ragged flag and caps full of holes, as proofs of their gallant service, being the only regiment that fought at Pultowa. And there were Calmucs in their extraordinary war-dress; a helmet with a gilded crest, or a chain cap with a network of iron rings falling over the head and shoulders, and hanging as low as the eyebrows in front; a shirt of mail, composed of steel rings matted together and yielding to the body, the arms protected by plates, and the back of the hand by steel network fastened to the plates on each side; their offensive weapons were bows and arrows, silver-mounted pistols peeping out of their holsters, cartridge-boxes on each side of the breast, and a dagger, sword, and gun.

The Kirguish, a n.o.ble-looking race, come from the steppes of Siberia.

Their uniform is magnificent, consisting of a blue frockcoat and pantaloons covered with silver lace, a Grecian helmet, and a great variety of splendid arms, the yataghan alone costing a thousand rubles.

They are all n.o.ble, and have no regular duty, except to attend the imperial family on extraordinary occasions. At home they are always at war among themselves. They are Mohammedans; and one of them said to an American friend who had a long conversation with him, that he had four wives at home; that some had more, but it was not considered becoming to exceed that number. A bearded Russian came up and said that these Kirguish eat dogs and cats against which the Kirguish protested. The same Russian afterward observed that the Americans were worse than the Kirguish, for that a patriarch of the church had written, and therefore it must be true, that the number of human beings eaten by Americans could not be counted; adding, with emphasis, "Sir, you were created in the likeness of your Maker, and you should endeavour to keep yourself so." He continued that the Russians were the first Christians, and he felt much disposed to send missionaries among the Americans to meliorate their condition.

The Imperial Guards are the finest-looking set of men I ever saw. The standard is six feet, and none are admitted below that height. Their uniform is a white cloth coat, with buckskin breeches, boots reaching up to the hips, and swords that Wallace himself would not have been ashamed to wield. But perhaps the most striking in that brilliant army was the emperor himself; seeming its natural head, towering even above his gigantic guards, and looking, as Mr. Wilkins once said of him, like one who, among savages, would have been chosen for a chief. In the midst of this martial spectacle, the thought came over me of militia musters at home; and though smiling at the insignificance of our military array as I rode back in my drosky, I could but think of the happiness of our isolated position, which spares us the necessity of keeping a large portion of our countrymen constantly in arms to preserve the rest in the enjoyment of life and fortune.

The next morning my Polish friend, hopeless of success either in his lawsuit or his lovesuit, fixed a day for our departure; and, with the suggestion that I am about leaving St. Petersburgh, I turn once more, and for the last time, to the imperial palaces. Not far from the Hermitage is the marble palace; a colossal pile, built by the Empress Catharine for her favourite, Count Orloff, presenting one of its fronts to the Neva. All the decorations are of marble and gilded bronze, and the capitals and bases of the columns and pilasters, and the window-frames and bal.u.s.trades of the balconies, of cast bronze richly gilded. The effect is heightened by the unusually large dimensions of the squares of fine plate gla.s.s. A traveller in seventeen hundred and fifty-nine says "that the prodigies of enchantment which we read of in the tales of the genii are here called forth into reality; and the temples reared by the luxuriant fancy of our poets may be considered as a picture of the marble palace, which Jupiter, when the burden of cares drives him from heaven, might make his delightful abode." At present, however, there are but few remains of this Olympian magnificence, and I think Jupiter at the same expense would prefer the Winter Palace or the Hermitage.

The Taurida Palace, erected by Catharine II. for her lover, Potemkin, in general effect realizes the exaggerated accounts of travellers. The entrance is into a s.p.a.cious hall, which leads to a circular vestibule of extraordinary magnitude, decorated with busts and statues in marble, with a dome supported by white columns. From thence you pa.s.s between the columns into an immense hall or ballroom, two hundred and eighty feet long and eighty wide, with double colonnades of lofty Ionic pillars decorated with gold and silver festoons, thirty-five feet high and ten feet in circ.u.mference. From the colonnade, running the whole length of the ballroom, you enter the Winter Garden, which concealed flues and stoves keep always at the temperature of summer; and here, upon great occasions, under the light of magnificent l.u.s.tres and the reflection of numerous mirrors, during the fierceness of the Russian winter, when the whole earth is covered with snow, and "water tossed in the air drops down in ice," the imperial visiter may stroll through gravel-walks bordered with the choicest plants and flowers, blooming hedges and groves of orange, and inhale the fragrance of an Arabian garden. Paul, in one of his "darkened hours," converted this palace into barracks and a riding-school; but it has since been restored, in some degree, to its ancient splendour.

The palace of Paul, in which he was a.s.sa.s.sinated, has been uninhabited since his death. But the triumph of modern architecture in St.

Petersburgh is the palace of the Grand-duke Michael. I shall not attempt any description of this palace; but, to give some notion of its splendours to my calculating countrymen, I shall merely remark that it cost upward of seventeen millions of rubles. But I am weary of palaces; of wandering through magnificent apartments, where scene after scene bursts upon my eyes, and, before I begin to feel at home in them, I find myself ordered out by the footman. Will the reader believe me? On the opposite side of the river is a little wooden house, more interesting in my eyes than all the palaces in St. Petersburgh. It is the humble residence of Peter the Great. I visited it for the last time after rambling through the gorgeous palace of the Grand-duke Michael. It is one story high, low roofed, with a little piazza around it, and contains a sitting-room, bedroom, and dining-parlours; and Peter himself, with his own axe, a.s.sisted in its construction. The rooms are only eight feet in height, the sitting-room is fifteen feet square, the dining-room fifteen feet by twelve, and the bedchamber ten feet square. In the first there is a chapel and shrine, where the Russian visiter performs his orisons and prays for the soul of Peter. Around the cottage is a neat garden, and a boat made by Peter himself is suspended to one of the walls. I walked around the cottage, inside and out; listened attentively, without understanding a word he said, to the garrulous Russian cicerone, and sat down on the step of the front piazza. Opposite was that long range of imperial palaces extending for more than a mile on the Neva, and surpa.s.sing all other royal residences in Europe or the world. When Peter sat in the door of this humble cottage, the ground where they stood was all mora.s.s and forest. Where I saw the lofty spires of magnificent churches, he looked out upon fishermen's huts. My eyes fell upon the golden spire of the church of the citadel glittering in the sunbeams, and reminding me that in its dismal charnelhouse slept the tenant of the humble cottage, the master-spirit which had almost created out of nothing all this splendour. I saw at the same time the beginning and the end of greatness. The humble dwelling is preserved with religious reverence, and even now is the most interesting monument which the imperial city can show.

And here, at this starting-point in her career, I take my leave of the Palmyra of the North. I am compelled to omit many things which he who speaks of St. Petersburgh at all ought not to omit: her magnificent churches; her gigantic and splendid theatres; her literary, scientific, and eleemosynary inst.i.tutions, and that which might form the subject of a chapter in her capital, her government and laws. I might have seen something of Russian society, as my friend Luoff had arrived in St.

Petersburgh; but, with my limited time, the interchange of these civilities interfered with my seeing the curiosities of the capital.

My intimacy with the colonel had fallen off, though we still were on good terms. The fact is, I believe I fell into rather queer company in St. Petersburgh, and very soon found the colonel to be the most thorough roue I ever met. He seemed to think that travelling meant dissipating; he had never travelled but once, and that was with the army to Paris; and, except when on duty, his whole time had been spent in riot and dissipation; and though sometimes he referred to hard fighting, he talked more of the pleasures of that terrible campaign than of its toils and dangers. In consideration of my being a stranger and a young man, he const.i.tuted himself my Mentor, and the advice which, in all soberness, he gave me as the fruits of his experience, was a beautiful guide for the road to ruin. I have no doubt that, if I had given myself up entirely to him, he would have feted me all the time I was in St.

Petersburgh; but this did not suit me, and I afterward fell in with the Pole, who had his own vagaries too, and who, being the proprietor of a cloth manufactory, did not suit the aristocratic notions of the colonel, and so our friendship cooled. My intimacy with his friend the prince, however, increased. I called upon him frequently, and he offered to accompany me everywhere; but as in sightseeing I love to be alone, I seldom asked him, except for a twilight walk. Old a.s.sociations were all that now bound together him and the colonel; their feelings, their fortunes, and their habits of life were entirely different; and the colonel, instead of being displeased with my seeking the prince in preference to himself, was rather gratified. Altogether, the colonel told me, he was much mistaken in me, but he believed I was a good fellow after all; excused my regular habits somewhat on the ground of my health; and the day before that fixed for my departure, asked me to pa.s.s the evening with him, and to bring my friend the Pole. In the evening we went to the colonel's apartments. The prince was there, and, after an elegant little supper, happening to speak of a Frenchman and a Prussian living in the hotel, with whom I had become acquainted, he sent down for them to come up and join us. The table was cleared, pipes and tobacco were brought on, and Champagne was the only wine. We had a long and interesting conversation on the subject of the road to Warsaw, and particularly in regard to the b.l.o.o.d.y pa.s.sage of the Berezina, at which both the colonel and the prince were present. The servant, a favourite serf (who the next day robbed the colonel of every valuable article in his apartment), being clumsy in opening a new bottle of Champagne, the colonel said he must return to army practice, and reaching down his sabre, with a scientific blow took off the neck without materially injuring the bottle or disturbing the contents. This military way of decanting Champagne aided its circulation, and head after head fell rapidly before the naked sabre. I had for some time avoided emptying my gla.s.s, which, in the general hurry of business, was not noticed; but, as soon as the colonel discovered it, he cried out, "Treason, treason against good fellowship. America is a traitor." I pleaded ill health, but he would not listen to me; upbraided me that the friend and old ally of Russia should fail him; turned up his gla.s.s on the table, and swore he would not touch it again unless I did him justice. All followed his example; all decided that America was disturbing the peace of nations; the gla.s.ses were turned up all around, and a dead stop was put to the merriment. I appealed, begged, and protested; and the colonel became positive, dogged, and outrageous. The prince came to my aid, and proposed that the difficulty between Russia and America should be submitted to the arbitration of France and Prussia. He had observed these powers rather backing out. The eyes of France were already in a fine phrensy rolling, and Prussia's tongue had long been wandering; and in apprehension of their own fate, these mighty powers leaned to mercy.

It was necessary, however, to propitiate the colonel, and they decided that, to prevent the effusion of blood, I should start once more the flow of wine; that we should begin again with a b.u.mper all around; and, after that, every man should do as he pleased. The colonel was obliged to be content; and swearing that he would drink for us all, started anew.

The Prussian was from Berlin, and this led the colonel to speak of the stirring scenes that had taken place in that capital on the return of the Russian army from Paris; and, after a while, the Prussian, personally unknown to the colonel, told him that his name was still remembered in Berlin as a leader in Russian riot and dissipation, and particularly as having carried off, in a most daring manner, a lady of distinguished family; and--"go on," said the colonel--"killed her husband." "He refused my challenge," said the colonel, "but sought my life, and I shot him like a dog." The whole party now became uproarious; the colonel begged me, by all the friendly relations between Russia and America, to hold on till breakfast-time; but, being the coolest man present, and not knowing what farther developments might take place, I broke up the party.

In the morning my pa.s.sport was not ready. I went off to the police-office for it, and when I returned the horses had not come, and the valet brought me the usual answer, that there were none. My Pole was glad to linger another day for the sake of his flirtation with the little girl opposite, and so we lounged through the day, part of the time in the bazar of a Persian, where I came near ruining myself by an offer I made for a beautiful emerald; and after one more and the last twilight stroll on the banks of the Neva and up the Newski Perspective, we returned at an early hour, and for the last time in Russia, slept in a bed.

At nine o'clock the next morning a kibitka drove up to the door of our hotel, demanding an American and a Pole for Warsaw. All the servants of the hotel were gathered around, arranging the luggage, and making a great parade of getting off the distinguished travellers. The travellers themselves seemed equipped for a long journey. One wore a blue roundabout jacket, military cap and cloak, with whiskers and a mustache tending to red; the other, a tall, stout, Herculean fellow, was habited in the most outre costume of a Russian traveller; a cotton dressing-gown of every variety of colours, red and yellow predominating; coa.r.s.e gray trousers; boots coming above his knees; a cap _tout a fait farouche_, and there was no mistake about the colour of his hair and mustaches; he was moving slowly around the kibitka in his travelling dress, and looking up to the window opposite, to give his dulcinea the melancholy intelligence that he was going away, and perhaps to catch one farewell smile at parting. The carriage of these distinguished travellers was the kibitka, one of the national vehicles of Russia, being a long, round-bottomed box or cradle on four wheels, probably the old Scythian wagon, resting, in proud contempt of the effeminacy of springs, on the oaken axles; the hubs of the wheels were two feet long, the linchpins of wood, the body of the carriage fastened to the wheels by wooden pins, ropes, and sticks; and, except the tires of the wheels, there was not a nail or piece of iron about it. The hinder part was covered with matting, open in front somewhat like an oldfashioned bonnet, and supported by an arched stick, which served as a linchpin for the hind wheels; a bucket of grease hung under the hind axle, and the bottom of the kibitka was filled with straw; whole cost of outfit, thirteen dollars. Before it were three horses, one in shafts and one on each side, the centre one having a high bow over his neck, painted yellow and red, to which a rein was tied for holding up his head, and also a bell, to a Russian postillion more necessary than harness. The travellers took their places in the bottom of the kibitka, and the postillion, a rough, brutal-looking fellow, in gray coat and hat turned up at the sides, mounted in front, catching a seat where he could on the rim of the wagon, about three inches wide; and in this dashing equipage we started for a journey of a thousand miles to the capital of another kingdom. We rolled for the last time through the streets of St. Petersburgh, gazed at the domes, and spires, and magnificent palaces, and in a few moments pa.s.sed the barrier.

I left St. Petersburgh, as I did every other city, with a certain feeling of regret that, in all probability, I should never see it more; still the cracking of the postillion's whip and the galloping of the horses created in me that high excitement which I always felt in setting out for a new region. Our first stage was to Czarskoselo, our second to Cazena, where there was another palace. It was dark when we reached the third, a small village, of which I did not even note the name. I shall not linger on this road, for it was barren of interest and incident, and through a continued succession of swamps and forests. For two hundred miles it tried the tenure of adhesion between soul and body, being made of the trunks of trees laid transversely, bound down by long poles or beams fastened into the ground with wooden pegs covered with layers of boughs, and the whole strewed over with sand and earth; the trunks in general were decayed and sunken, and the sand worn or washed away, reminding me of the worst of our western corduroy roads. Our wagon being without springs, and our seats a full-length extension on straw on the bottom, without the bed, pillows, and cushions which the Russians usually have, I found this ride one of the severest trials of physical endurance I ever experienced. My companion groaned and brushed his mustaches, and talked of the little girl at St. Petersburgh. In my previous journey in Russia I had found the refreshment of tea, and on this, often when almost exhausted, I was revived by that precious beverage. I stood it three days and nights, but on the fourth completely broke down. I insensibly slipped down at full length in the bottom of the wagon; the night was cold and rainy; my companion covered me up to the eyes with straw, and I slept from the early part of the evening like a dead man. The horses were changed three times; the wagon was lifted up under me, and the wheels greased; and three times my companion quarrelled with the postmaster over my body without waking me. About six o'clock in the morning he roused me. I could not stir hand or foot; my mouth was full of dust and straw, and I felt a sense of suffocation. In a few moments I crawled out, staggered a few steps, and threw myself down on the floor of a wretched posthouse. My companion put my carpet-bag under my head, wrapped cloaks and greatcoats around me, and prepared me some tea; but I loathed everything. I was in that miserable condition which every traveller has some time experienced; my head ringing, every bone aching, and perfectly reckless as to what became of me. While my companion stood over me I fell asleep, and believe I should have been sleeping there yet if he had not waked me. He said we must go on at all risks until we found a place where we could remain with some degree of comfort. I begged and entreated to be left to myself, but he was inexorable. He lifted me up, hauled me out to the kibitka, which was filled with fresh straw, and seated me within, supporting me on his shoulder.

It was a beautiful day. We moved moderately, and toward evening came to a posthouse kept by a Jew, or, rather, a Jewess, who was so kind and attentive that we determined to stay there all night. She brought in some clean straw and spread it on the floor, where I slept gloriously.

My companion was tougher than I, but he could not stand the fleas and bugs, and about midnight went out and slept in the kibitka. In the morning we found that he had been too late; that the kibitka had been stripped of every article except himself and the straw. Fortunately, my carpet-bag had been brought in; but I received a severe blow in the loss of a cane, an old friend and travelling companion, which had been with me in every variety of scene, and which I had intended to carry home with me, and retain as a companion through life. It is almost inconceivable how much this little incident distressed me. It was a hundred times worse than the loss of my carpet-bag. I felt the want of it every moment; I had rattled it on the Boulevards of Paris, in the eternal city, the Colosseum, and the places thereabout; had carried it up the burning mountain, and poked it into the red-hot lava; had borne it in the Acropolis, on the field of Marathon, and among the ruins of Ephesus; had flourished it under the beard of the sultan, and the eyes and nose of the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias; in deserts and in cities it had been my companion and friend. Unsparing Nemesis, let loose your vengeance upon the thief who stole it! The rascals had even carried off the rope traces, and every loose article about the kibitka.

Notwithstanding this, however, I ought not to omit remarking the general security of travelling in Russia and Poland. The immense plains; the distance of habitations; the number of forests; the custom of travelling by night as well as by day; the negligence of all measures to ensure the safety of the roads, all contribute to favour robbery and murders; and yet an instance of either is scarcely known in years. It was difficult on those immense levels, which seemed independent of either general or individual proprietors, to recognise even the bounds of empires. The Dwina, however, a natural boundary, rolls between Russia and Poland; and at Vitepsk we entered the territories of what was once another kingdom.

The surface of Poland forms part of that immense and unvaried plain which const.i.tutes the northern portion of all the central European countries. A great portion of this plain is overspread with a deep layer of sand, alternating however, with large clayey tracts and extensive marshes; a winter nearly as severe as that of Sweden, and violent winds blowing uninterruptedly over this wide open region, are consequences of its physical structure and position. The Roman arms never penetrated any part of this great level tract, the whole of which was called by them Sarmatia; and Sarmatia and Scythia were in their descriptions always named together as the abode of nomadic and savage tribes. From the earliest era it appears to have been peopled by the Sclavonic tribes; a race widely diffused, and distinguished by a peculiar language, by a strong national feeling, and by a particular train of superst.i.tious ideas. Though shepherds, they did not partake of the migratory character of the Teutonic or Tartar nations; and were long held in the most cruel bondage by the Huns, the Goths, and other nations of Asia, for whom their country was a path to the conquest of the west of Europe.

In the tenth century the Poles were a powerful and warlike nation. In the fourteenth Lithuania was incorporated with it, and Poland became one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe. For two centuries it was the bulwark of Christendom against the alarming invasions of the Turks; the reigns of Sigismund and Sobieski hold a high place in military history; and, until the beginning of the last century, its martial character gave it a commanding influence in Europe.

It is unnecessary to trace the rapid and irrecoverable fall of Poland.

On the second part.i.tion, Kosciusko, animated by his recent struggle for liberty in America, roused his countrymen to arms. But the feet of three giants were upon her breast; and Suwarrow, marching upon the capital, storming the fortress of Praga, and butchering in cold blood thirty thousand inhabitants, extinguished, apparently for ever, the rights and the glories of Poland. Living as we do apart from the rest of the world, with no national animosities transmitted by our fathers, it is impossible to realize the feeling of deadly hatred existing between neighbouring nations from the disputes of ancestors centuries ago. The history of Russia and Poland presents a continued series of bloodstained pages. Battle after battle has nourished their mutual hate, and for a long time it had been the settled feeling of both that Russia or Poland must fall. It is perhaps fortunate for the rest of Europe that this feeling has always existed; for, if they were united in heart, the whole south of Europe would lie at the mercy of their invading armies.

Napoleon committed a fatal error in tampering with the brave and patriotic Poles; for he might have rallied around him a nation of soldiers who, in grat.i.tude, would have stood by him until they were exterminated.

But to return to Vitepsk. Here, for the first time, we fell into the memorable road traversed by Napoleon on his way to Moscow. The town stands on the banks of the Dwina, built on both sides of the river, and contains a population of about fifteen thousand, a great portion of whom are Jews. In itself, it has but little to engage the attention of the traveller; but I strolled through its streets with extraordinary interest, remembering it as the place where Napoleon decided on his fatal march to Moscow. It was at the same season and on the very same day of the year that the "grand army," having traversed the gloomy forests of Lithuania in pursuit of an invincible and intangible enemy, with the loss of more than a hundred thousand men, emerged from the last range of woods and halted at the presence of the hostile fires that covered the plain before the city. Napoleon slept in his tent on an eminence at the left of the main road, and before sunrise appeared at the advanced posts, and by its first rays saw the Russian army, eighty thousand strong, encamped on a high plain commanding all the avenues of the city. Ten thousand hors.e.m.e.n made a show of defending its pa.s.ses; and at about ten o'clock, Murat le Beau Sabreur, intoxicated by the admiration his presence excited, at the head of a single regiment of cha.s.seurs charged the whole Russian cavalry. He was repulsed, and driven back to the foot of the hillock on which Napoleon stood. The cha.s.seurs of the French guards formed a circle around him, drove off the a.s.sailant lancers, and the emperor ordered the attack to cease; and, pointing to the city, his parting words to Murat were, "To-morrow at five o'clock the sun of Austerlitz."

At daylight the camp of Barclay de Tolly was deserted; not a weapon, not a single valuable left behind; and a Russian soldier asleep under a bush was the sole result of the day expected to be so decisive. Vitepsk, except by a few miserable Jews and Jesuits, like the Russian camp, was also abandoned. The emperor mounted his horse and rode through the deserted camp and desolate streets of the city. Chagrined and mortified, he pitched his tents in an open courtyard; but, after a council of war with Murat, Eugene, and others of his princ.i.p.al officers, laid his sword upon the table, and resolved to finish in Vitepsk the campaign of that year. Well had it been for him had he never changed that determination.

He traced his line of defence on the map, and explored Vitepsk and its environs as a place where he was likely to make a long residence; formed establishments of all kinds; erected large ovens capable of baking at once thirty thousand loaves of bread; pulled down a range of stone houses which injured the appearance of the square of the palace, and made arrangements for opening the theatre with Parisian actors. But in a few days he was observed to grow restless; the members of his household recollected his expression at the first view of the deserted Vitepsk, "Do you think I have come so far to conquer these miserable huts?"

Segur says that he was observed to wander about his apartments as if pursued by some dangerous temptation. Nothing could rivet his attention.

Every moment he began, stopped, and resumed his labour. At length, overwhelmed with the importance of the considerations that agitated him, "he threw himself on the floor of his apartment; his frame, exhausted by the heat and the struggles of his mind, could only bear a covering of the slightest texture. He rose from his sleepless pillow possessed once more with the genius of war; his voice deepens, his eyes flash fire, and his countenance darkens. His attendants retreat from his presence, struck with mingled awe and respect. His plan is fixed, his determination taken, his order of march traced out."

The last council occupied eight hours. Berthier by a melancholy countenance, by lamentations, and even by tears; Lobau by the cold and haughty frankness of a warrior; Caulaincourt with obstinacy and impetuosity amounting to violence; Duroc by a chilling silence, and afterward by stern replies; and Daru straightforward and with firmness immoveable, opposed his going; but, as if driven on by that fate he almost defied, he broke up the council with the fatal determination.

"Blood has not been shed, and Russia is too great to yield without fighting. Alexander can only negotiate after a great battle. I will proceed to the holy city in search of that battle, and I will gain it.

Peace waits me at the gates of Moscow." From that hour commenced that train of terrible disasters which finally drove him from the throne of France, and sent him to die an exile on a small island in the Indian Ocean. I walked out on the Moscow road, by which the grand army, with pomp and martial music, with Murat, and Ney, and Duroc, and Daru, inspired by the great names of Smolensk and Moscow, plunged into a region of almost pathless forest, where most of them were destined to find a grave. I was at first surprised at the utter ignorance of the inhabitants of Vitepsk, in regard to the circ.u.mstances attending the occupation of the city by Napoleon. A Jew was my cicerone, who talked of the great scenes of which this little city had in his own day been the theatre almost as matter of tradition, and without half the interest with which, even now, the Greek points the stranger to the ruins of Argos or the field of Marathon; and this ignorance in regard to the only matters that give an interest to this dreary road I remarked during the whole journey. I was so unsuccessful in my questions, and the answers were so unsatisfactory, that my companion soon became tired of acting as my interpreter. Indeed, as he said, he himself knew more than any one I met, for he had travelled it before in company with an uncle, of the Polish legion; but even he was by no means familiar with the ground.

We left Vitepsk with a set of miserable horses, rode all night, and at noon of the next day were approaching the banks of the Berezina, memorable for the dreadful pa.s.sage which almost annihilated the wretched remnant of Napoleon's army. It was impossible, in pa.s.sing over the same ground, not to recur to the events of which it had been the scene. The "invincible legions," which left Vitepsk two hundred thousand strong, were now fighting their dreadful retreat from Moscow through regulars and Cossacks, reduced to less than twelve thousand men marching in column, with a train of thirty thousand undisciplined followers, sick, wounded, and marauders of every description. The cavalry which crossed the Niemen thirty-seven thousand in number was reduced to one hundred and fifty men on horseback. Napoleon collected all the officers who remained mounted, and formed them into a body, in all about five hundred, which he called his sacred squadron; officers served as privates, and generals of divisions as captains. He ordered the carriages of the officers, many of the wagons, and even the eagles belonging to the different corps, to be burned in his presence; and drawing his sword, with the stern remark that he had sufficiently acted the emperor, and must once more play the general, marched on foot at the head of his old guard. He had hardly reorganized before the immense pine forests which border the Berezina echoed with the thunder of the Russian artillery; in a moment all remains of discipline were lost. In the last stage of weakness and confusion they were roused by loud cries before them, and, to their great surprise and joy, recognised the armies of Victor and Oudinot. The latter knew nothing of the terrible disasters of the army of Moscow, and they were thrown into consternation and then melted to tears when they saw behind Napoleon, instead of the invincible legions which had left them in splendid equipments, a train of gaunt and spectral figures, their faces black with dirt, and long bristly beards, covered with rags, female pelisses, pieces of carpet, with bare and bleeding feet, or bundled with rags, and colonels and generals marching pellmell with soldiers, unarmed and shameless, without any order or discipline, kept together and sleeping round the same fires only by the instinct of self-preservation.

About noon we drove into the town of Borizoff. It stands on the banks of the Berezina, and is an old, irregular-looking place, with a heavy wooden church in the centre of an open square. As usual, at the door of the posthouse a group of Jews gathered around us. When Napoleon took possession of Borizoff the Jews were the only inhabitants who remained; and they, a scattered, wandering, and migratory people, without any attachment of soil or country, were ready to serve either the French or Russians, according to the inducements held out to them. A few n.o.ble instances are recorded where this persecuted and degraded people exhibited a devotion to the land that sheltered them honourable to their race and to the character of man; but in general they were false and faithless. Those who gathered around us in Borizoff looked as though they might be the very people who betrayed the Russians. One of them told us that a great battle had been fought there, but we could not find any who had been present at the fatal pa.s.sage of the river. We dined at the posthouse, probably with less anxiety than was felt by Napoleon or any of the flying Frenchmen; but even we were not permitted to eat in peace; for, before we had finished, our vehicle was ready, with worse horses than usual, and a surlier postillion. We sent the postillion on ahead, and walked down to the bank of the river. On the night preceding the pa.s.sage, Napoleon himself had command of Borizoff, with six thousand guards prepared for a desperate contest. He pa.s.sed the whole night on his feet; and while waiting for the approach of daylight in one of the houses on the border of the river, so impracticable seemed the chance of crossing with the army that Murat proposed to him to put himself under the escort of some brave and determined Poles, and save himself while there was yet time; but the emperor indignantly rejected the proposition as a cowardly flight. The river is here very broad, and divided into branches. On the opposite side are the remains of an embankment that formed part of the Russian fortifications. When the Russians were driven out of Borizoff by Oudinot, they crossed the river, burned the bridge, and erected these embankments.

Besides the sanguinary contest of the French and Russians, this river is also memorable for a great battle between my companion and our postillion. In the middle of the bridge the postillion stopped and waited till we came up; he grumbled loudly at being detained, to which my companion replied in his usual conciliatory and insinuating manner, by laying his cane over the fellow's shoulders; but on the bridge of Borizoff the blood of the Lithuanian was roused; and, perhaps, urged on by the memory of the deeds done there by his fathers, he sprang out of the wagon, and with a warcry that would not have disgraced a Cossack of the Don, rushed furiously upon my friend. Oh for a Homer to celebrate that fight on the bridge of Borizoff! The warriors met, not like Grecian heroes, with spear and shield, and clad in steel, but with their naked fists and faces bare to take the blows. My friend was a sublime spectacle. Like a rock, firm and immoveable, he stood and met the charge of the postillion; in short, in the twinkling of an eye he knocked the postillion down. Those who know say that it is more trying to walk over a field of battle after all is over than to be in the fight; and I believe it from my experience in our trying pa.s.sage of the Berezina; for, when I picked up the discomfited postillion, whose face was covered with blood, I believe that I had the worst of it. All great victories are tested by their results, and nothing could be more decisive than that over the postillion. He arose a wiser and much more tractable man. At first he looked very stupid when he saw me leaning over him, and very startled when he rubbed his hand over his face and saw it stained with blood; but, raising himself, he caught sight of his victor, and without a word got into the wagon, walked the horses over the bridge, and at the other end got out and threw himself on the ground.

It was a beautiful afternoon, and we lingered on the bridge. Crossing it, we walked up the bank on the opposite side toward the place where Napoleon erected his bridges for the pa.s.sage of his army. All night the French worked at the bridges by the light of the enemy's fires on the opposite side. At daylight the fires were abandoned, and the Russians, supposing the attempt here to be a feint, were seen in full retreat. The emperor, impatient to get possession of the opposite bank, pointed it out to the bravest. A French aiddecamp and Lithuanian count threw themselves into the river, and, in spite of the ice, which cut their horses' b.r.e.a.s.t.s, reached the opposite bank in safety. About one o'clock the bank on which we stood was entirely cleared of Cossacks, and the bridge for the infantry was finished. The first division crossed it rapidly with its cannon, the men shouting "_Vive l'empereur!_" The pa.s.sage occupied three days. The number of stragglers and the quant.i.ty of baggage were immense. On the night of the twenty-seventh the stragglers left the bridge, tore down the whole village, and made fires with the materials, around which they crouched their shivering figures, and from which it was impossible to tear themselves away. At daylight they were roused by the report of Witgenstein's cannon thundering over their heads, and again all rushed tumultuously to the bridges. The Russians, with Platow and his Cossacks, were now in full communication on both sides of the river. On the left bank, Napoleon's own presence of mind and the bravery of his soldiers gave him a decided superiority; but, in the language of Scott, the scene on the right bank had become the wildest and most horrible which war can exhibit.

"Victor, with eight or ten thousand men, covered the retreat over the bridges, while behind his line thousands of stragglers, old men, women, and children, were wandering by the side of this river like the fabled spectres which throng the banks of the infernal Styx, seeking in vain for pa.s.sage. The b.a.l.l.s of the Russians began to fall among the disordered ma.s.s, and the whole body rushed like distracted beings toward the bridges, every feeling of prudence or humanity swallowed up by the animal instinct of self-preservation. The weak and helpless either shrunk from the fray and sat down to wait their fate at a distance, or, mixing in it, were thrust over the bridges, crushed under carriages, cut down with sabres, or trampled to death under the feet of their countrymen. All this while the action continued with fury; and, as if the heavens meant to match their wrath with that of man, a hurricane arose and added terrors to a scene which was already of a character so dreadful. About midday the larger bridge, constructed for artillery and heavy carriages, broke down, and mult.i.tudes were forced into the water.

The scream of the despairing mult.i.tude became at this crisis for a moment so universal, that it rose shrilly above the wild whistling of the tempest and the sustained and redoubled hourras of the Cossacks. The dreadful scene continued till dark. As the obscurity came on, Victor abandoned the station he had defended so bravely, and led the remnant of his troops in their turn across. All night the miscellaneous mult.i.tude continued to throng across the bridge under the fire of the Russian artillery. At daybreak the French engineers finally set fire to the bridge, and all that remained on the other side, including many prisoners, and a great quant.i.ty of guns and baggage, became the property of the Russians. The amount of the French loss was never exactly known; but the Russian report concerning the bodies of the invaders, which were collected and burned as soon as the thaw permitted, states that upward of thirty-six thousand were found in the Berezina."

The whole of this scene was familiar to me as matter of history; the pa.s.sage of the Berezina had in some way fastened itself upon my mind as one of the most fearful scenes in the annals of war; and, besides this, at St. Petersburgh the colonel and prince had given me a detailed account of the horrors of that dreadful night, for they were both with Witgenstein's army, by the light of the snow, the course of the river, and the noise, directing a murderous fire of artillery against the dark ma.s.s moving over the bridge; and nearer still, my companion had visited the place in company with his uncle, of the Polish legion, and repeated to me the circ.u.mstances of individual horror which he had heard from his relative, surpa.s.sing human belief. The reader will excuse me if I have lingered too long on the banks of that river; and perhaps, too, he will excuse me when I tell him that, before leaving it, I walked down to its brink and bathed my face in its waters. Others have done so at the cla.s.sic streams of Italy and Greece; but I rolled over the Arno and the Tiber in a vetturino without stopping, and the reader will remember that I jumped over the Ilissus.

CHAPTER X.

Travel by Night.--A Rencounter.--A Traveller's Message.--Lithuania.--Poverty of the Country.--Agricultural Implements.--Minsk.--Polish Jews.--A Coin of Freedom.--Riding in a Basket.--Brezc.--The Bug.--A searching Operation.--Women Labourers.--Warsaw.

IT was after dark when we returned to our wagon, still standing at the end of the bridge opposite Borizoff. Our postillion, like a sensible man, had lain down to sleep at the head of his horses, so they could not move without treading on him and waking him; and, when we roused him, the pain of his beating was over, and with it all sense of the indignity; and, in fact, we made him very grateful for the flogging by promising him a few additional kopeks.

We hauled up the straw and seated ourselves in the bottom of our kibitka. Night closed upon us amid the gloomy forests bordering the banks of the Berezina. We talked for a little while, and by degrees drawing our cloaks around us, each fell into a revery. The continued tinkling of the bell, which, on my first entering Russia, grated on my ear, had become agreeable to me, and in a dark night particularly was a pleasing sound. The song of the postillion, too, harmonized with the repose of spirit at that moment most grateful to us; that too died away, the bell almost ceased its tinkling, and, in spite of the alarum of war which we had all day been ringing in our own ears, we should probably soon have fallen into a sleep as sound, for a little while at least, as that of them who slept under the waters of the Berezina, but we were suddenly roused by a shock as alarming to quiet travellers as the hourra of the Cossack in the ears of the flying Frenchmen. Our horses sprang out of the road, but not in time to avoid a concussion with another wagon going toward Borizoff. Both postillions were thrown off their seats; and the stranger, picking himself up, came at us with a stream of Lithuanian Russian almost harsh enough to frighten the horses.

I will not suggest what its effect was upon us, but only that, as to myself, it seemed at first equal to the voice of at least a dozen freebooters and marauders; and if the English of it had been "stand and deliver," I should probably have given up my carpet-bag without asking to reserve a change of linen. But I was restored by the return fire of our postillion, who drowned completely the attack of his adversary by his outrageous clamour; and when he stopped to take breath my companion followed up the defence, and this brought out a fourth voice from the bottom of the opposite wagon. A truce was called, and waiving the question on which side the fault lay, we all got out to ascertain the damage. Our antagonist pa.s.senger was a German merchant, used to roughing it twice every year between Berlin, Warsaw, Petersburgh, and Moscow, and took our smashing together at night in this desolate forest as coolly as a rub of the shoulders in the streets; and, when satisfied that his wagon was not injured, kindly asked us if we had any bones broken. We returned his kind inquiries; and, after farther interchanges of politeness, he said that he was happy to make our acquaintance, and invited us to come and see him at Berlin. We wanted him to go back and let us have a look at him by torchlight, but he declined; and, after feeling him stretched out in his bed in the bottom of his wagon, we started him on his way.

We resumed our own places, and, without dozing again, arrived at the posthouse, where first of all we made ourselves agreeable to the postmaster by delivering our German friend's message to him, that he ought to be whipped and condemned to live where he was till he was a hundred years old for putting the neck of a traveller at the mercy of a sleepy postillion; but the postmaster was a Jew, and thought the vile place where he lived equal to any on earth. He was a miserable, squalid-looking object, with a pine torch in his hand lighting up the poverty and filthiness of his wretched habitation, and confessed that he should be too happy to enjoy the fortune which the German would have entailed upon him as a curse. He offered to make us a bed of some dirty straw which had often been slept on before; but we shrank from it; and, as soon as we could get horses, returned to our kibitka and resumed our journey.

The whole province of Lithuania is much the same in appearance. We lost nothing by travelling through it at night; indeed, every step that we advanced was a decided gain, as it brought us so much nearer its farthermost border. The vast provinces of Lithuania, formerly a part of the kingdom of Poland, and, since the part.i.tion of that unhappy country, subject to the throne of Russia, until the fourteenth century were independent of either. The Lithuanians and Samogitians are supposed to be of a different race from the Poles, and spoke a language widely dissimilar to the Polish or Russian. Their religion was a strange idolatry; they worshipped the G.o.d of thunder, and paid homage to a G.o.d of the harvest; they maintained priests, who were constantly feeding a sacred fire in honour of the G.o.d of the seasons; they worshipped trees, fountains, and plants; had sacred serpents, and believed in guardian spirits of trees, cattle, &c. Their government, like that of all other barbarous nations, was despotic, and the n.o.bles were less numerous and more tyrannical than in Poland. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, on the death of Louis, successor to Casimir the Great, Hedwiga was called to the throne of Poland, under a stipulation, however, that she should follow the will of the Poles in the choice of her husband.

Many candidates offered themselves for the hand dowered with a kingdom; but the offers of Jagellon, duke of Lithuania, were most tempting; he promised to unite his extensive dominions to the territory of Poland, and pledged himself for the conversion to Christianity of his Lithuanian subjects. But queens are not free from the infirmities of human nature; and Hedwiga had fixed her affections upon her cousin, William of Austria, whom she had invited into Poland; and when Jagellon came to take possession of his wife and crown, she refused to see him. The n.o.bles, however, sent William back to his papa, and locked her up as if she had been a boarding-school miss. And again, queens are not free from the infirmities of human nature: Hedwiga was inconstant; the handsome Lithuanian made her forget her first love, and Poland and Lithuania were united under one crown. Jagellon was baptized, but the inhabitants of Lithuania did not so readily embrace the Christian religion; in one of the provinces they clung for a long time to their own strange and wild superst.i.tions; and even in modern times, it is said, the peasants long obstinately refused to use ploughs or other agricultural instruments furnished with iron, for fear of wounding the bosom of mother earth.

All the way from Borizoff the road pa.s.ses through a country but little cultivated, dreary, and covered with forests. When Napoleon entered the province of Lithuania his first bulletins proclaimed, "Here, then, is that Russia so formidable at a distance! It is a desert for which its scattered population is wholly insufficient. They will be vanquished by the very extent of territory which ought to defend them;" and, before I had travelled in it a day, I could appreciate the feeling of the soldier from La Belle France, who, hearing his Polish comrades boast of their country, exclaimed, "Et ces gueux la appellent cette pays une patrie!"

The villages are a miserable collection of straggling huts, without plan or arrangement, and separated from each other by large s.p.a.ces of ground.

They are about ten or twelve feet square, made of the misshapen trunks of trees heaped on each other, with the ends projecting over; the roof of large shapeless boards, and the window a small hole in the wall, answering the double purpose of admitting light and letting out smoke.

The tenants of these wretched hovels exhibit the same miserable appearance both in person and manners. They are hard-boned and sallow-complexioned; the men wear coa.r.s.e white woollen frocks, and a round felt cap lined with wool, and shoes made of the bark of trees, and their uncombed hair hangs low over their heads, generally of a flaxen colour. Their agricultural implements are of the rudest kind. The plough and harrow are made from the branches of the fir tree, without either iron or ropes; their carts are put together without iron, consisting of four small wheels, each of a single piece of wood; the sides are made of the bark of a tree bent round, and the shafts are a couple of fir branches; their bridles and traces platted from the bark of trees, or composed merely of twisted branches. Their only instrument to construct their huts and make their carts is a hatchet. They were servile and cringing in their expressions of respect, bowing down to the ground and stopping their carts as soon as we came near them, and stood with their caps in their hands till we were out of sight. The whole country, except in some open places around villages, is one immense forest of firs, perhaps sixty feet in height, compact and thick, but very slender. As we approached Minsk the road was sandy, and we entered by a wooden bridge over a small stream and along an avenue of trees.

Minsk is one of the better cla.s.s of Lithuanian towns, being the chief town of the government of Minsk, but very dirty and irregular. The princ.i.p.al street terminates in a large open square of gra.s.s and mean wooden huts. From this another street goes off at right angles, containing large houses, and joining with a second square, where some of the princ.i.p.al buildings are of brick. From this square several streets branch off, and enter a crowd of wooden hovels irregularly huddled together, and covering a large s.p.a.ce of ground. The churches are heavily constructed, and in a style peculiar to Lithuania, their gable ends fronting the street, and terminated at each corner by a square spire, with a low dome between them. The population is half Catholic and half Jewish, and the Jews are of the most filthy and abject cla.s.s.