I took my departure then from this residence, shedding bitter tears, and not knowing what else was in store for me during the fifty leagues I had yet to travel in the Austrian territory.  The commissary accompanied me to the borders of his circle, and when he took his leave, asked me if I was satisfied with him; the stupidity of the fellow quite disarmed my resentment.  A peculiar feature in all this persecution, which formerly never entered into the character of the Austrian government, is, that it is executed by its agents with as much rudeness as awkwardness:  these ci-devant honest people carry into the base commissions with which they are entrusted the same scrupulous exactness that they formerly did into the good ones, and their limited conception of this new method of government, which was not known to them, makes them commit a hundred blunders, either from want of skill or clumsiness.  It is like taking the club of Hercules to kill a fly, and during this useless exertion the most important matters may escape them.

On leaving the circle of Lanzut, I still found as far as Leopol, the capital of Gallicia, grenadiers placed from post to post to make sure of my progress.  I should have felt regret at making these brave fellows thus lose their time, had it not been for the thought that they were much better there, than with the unfortunate army delivered by Austria to Napoleon.  On arriving at Leopol, I found again ancient Austria in the governor and commandant of the province, who both received me with the greatest politeness, and gave me, what I wished above every thing, an order for passing from Austria into Russia.  Such was the end of my residence in this monarchy, which I had formerly seen powerful, just and upright.  Her alliance with Napoleon while it lasted, degraded her to the lowest rank among nations.  History will doubtless not forget that she has shown herself very warlike in her long wars against France, and that her last effort to resist Bonaparte was inspired by a national enthusiasm worthy of all praise; but the sovereign of this country, by yielding to his counsellors rather than to his own character, has destroyed for ever that enthusiasm, by checking its ebullition.  The unfortunate men who perished on the plains of Essling and Wagram, that there might still be an Austrian monarchy and a German people, could have hardly expected that their companions in arms would be fighting three years afterwards for the extension of Bonaparte’s empire to the borders of Asia, and that there might not be in the whole of Europe, even a desert, where the objects of his proscription, from kings to subjects, might find an asylum; for such is the object, and the sole object, of the war excited by France against Russia.

CHAPTER 10.

Arrival in Russia.