According to his usual custom, he promenaded before the ranks.  Knowing in which of his wars each regiment had been with him, at the sight of the oldest soldiers he occasionally halted; to one he recalled the battle of the Pyramids; another he reminded of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, or Friedland, and always by a single word, accompanied by a familiar caress.  The veteran who believed himself personally recognized by his emperor, rose in consequence in the estimation of his junior companions, who regarded him as an object of envy.

Napoleon, in this manner, continued his inspection; he overlooked not even the youngest soldiers:  it seemed as if every thing which concerned them was to him matter of deep interest; their least wants seemed known to him.  He interrogated them:  Did their captains take care of them? had they received their pay? were they in want of any requisite? he wished to see their knapsacks.

At length he stopped at the centre of the regiment; there being apprised of the places that were vacant, he required aloud the names of the most meritorious in the ranks; he called those who were so designated before him, and questioned them.  How many years’ service? how many campaigns? what wounds? what exploits?  He then appointed them officers, and caused them to be immediately installed, himself prescribing the forms;—­all particularities which delighted the soldier!  They told each other how this great emperor, the judge of nations in the mass, occupied himself with them in their minutest details; that they composed his oldest and his real family!  Thus it was that he instilled into them the love of war, of glory and himself.

The army, meantime, marched from the Vistula to the Niemen.  This last river, from Grodno as far as Kowno, runs parallel with the Vistula.  The river Pregel, which unites the two, was loaded with provisions:  220,000 men repaired thither from four different points; there they found bread and some foraging provisions.  These provisions ascended that river with them, as far as its direction would allow.

When the army was obliged to quit the flotilla, its select corps took with them sufficient provisions to reach and cross the Niemen, to prepare for a victory, and to arrive at Wilna.  There, the emperor calculated on the magazines of the inhabitants, on those of the enemy and on his own, which he had ordered to be brought from Dantzic, by the Frischhaff, the Pregel, the Deine, the canal Frederic, and the Vilia.

We were upon the verge of the Russian frontier; from right to left, or from south to north, the army was disposed in the following manner, in front of the Niemen.  In the first place, on the extreme right, and issuing from Gallicia, on Drogiczin, Prince Schwartzenberg and 34,000 Austrians; on their left, coming from Warsaw, and marching on Bialystok and Grodno, the King of Westphalia, at the head of 79,200 Westphalians, Saxons, and Poles; by the side of them was the Viceroy of Italy,