In his embarrassment he addressed himself to the French ambassador at Warsaw.  The answer of that minister authorized him “not to sacrifice another man.”  In consequence, he retreated on the 14th of December from Slonim towards Bialystok.  The instructions which reached him from Murat in the middle of this movement were conformable to it.

About the 21st of December, an order from Alexander suspended hostilities on that point, and as the interest of the Russians agreed with that of the Austrians, there was very soon a mutual understanding.  A moveable armistice, which was approved by Murat, was immediately concluded.  The Russian general and Schwartzenberg were to manoeuvre on each other, the Russian on the offensive, and the Austrian on the defensive, but without coming to blows.

Regnier’s corps, now reduced to ten thousand men, was not included in the arrangement; but Schwartzenberg, while he yielded to circumstances, persevered in his loyalty.  He regularly gave an account of every thing to the commander of the army; he covered the whole front of the French line with his Austrian troops, and preserved it.  This prince was not at all complaisant towards the enemy; he believed him not upon his bare word; at every position he was about to yield, he would actually satisfy himself with his own eyes, that he only yielded it to a superior force, ready to combat him.  In this manner he arrived upon the Bug and the Narew, from Nur to Ostrolenka, where the war terminated.

He was in this manner covering Warsaw, when, on the 22d of January, he received instructions from his government to abandon the Grand-duchy, to separate his retreat from that of Regnier, and to re-enter Gallicia.  To these instructions he only yielded a tardy obedience; he resisted the pressing solicitations and threatening manoeuvres of Miloradowitch until the 25th of January; even then, he effected his retreat upon Warsaw so slowly, that the hospitals and a great part of the magazines were enabled to be evacuated.  Finally, he obtained a more favourable capitulation for the Warsavians than they could venture to expect.  He did more; although that city was to have been delivered up on the 5th, he only yielded it on the 8th, and thus gave Regnier the start of three days upon the Russians.

Regnier was afterwards, it is true, overtaken and surprised at Kalisch, but that was in consequence of halting too long to protect the flight of some Polish depots.  In the first disorder occasioned by this unexpected attack, a Saxon brigade was separated from the French corps, retreated on Schwartzenberg, and was well received by him; Austria allowed it to pass through her territory, and restored it to the grand army, when it was assembled near Dresden.