No decisive advantage was gained on either side.  But the position of this corps, almost entirely Austrian, became more and more important, as the grand army retreated upon it.  It will be seen whether Schwartzenberg deceived its confidence,—­whether he left us to be surrounded on the Berezina,—­and whether it be true, that he seemed on that occasion to aspire to no other character than that of an armed witness to the great dispute.

CHAP.  II.

Between these two wings, the grand army marched to the Niemen, in three separate masses.  The king of Westphalia, with 80,000 men, moved upon Grodno; the viceroy of Italy, with 75,000 men, upon Pilony; Napoleon, with 220,000 men, upon Nogaraiski, a farm situated three leagues beyond Kowno.  The 23d of June, before daylight, the imperial column reached the Niemen, but without seeing it.  The borders of the great Prussian forest of Pilwisky, and the hills which line the river, concealed the great army, which was about to cross it.

Napoleon, who had travelled in a carriage as far as that, mounted his horse at two o’clock in the morning.  He reconnoitred the Russian river, without disguising himself, as has been falsely asserted, but under cover of the night crossing this frontier, which five months afterwards he was only enabled to repass under cover of the same obscurity.  When he came up to the bank, his horse suddenly stumbled, and threw him on the sand.  A voice exclaimed, “This is a bad omen; a Roman would recoil!” It is not known whether it was himself, or one of his retinue, who pronounced these words.

His task of reconnoitring concluded, he gave orders that, at the close of the following day, three bridges should be thrown over the river, near the village of Poniemen; he then retired to his head-quarters, where he passed the whole day, sometimes in his tent, sometimes in a Polish house, listlessly reclined, in the midst of a breathless atmosphere, and a suffocating heat, vainly courting repose.

On the return of night, he again made his approaches to the river.  The first who crossed it were a few sappers in a small boat.  They approached the Russian side with some degree of apprehension, but found no obstacle to oppose their landing.  There they found peace; the war was entirely on their own side; all was tranquil on that foreign soil, which had been described to them as so menacing.  A single officer of cossacks, however, on patrole, presented himself to their view.  He was alone, and appeared to consider himself in full peace, and to be ignorant that the whole of Europe in arms was at hand.  He inquired of the strangers who they were?—­“Frenchmen!” they replied.—­“What do you want?” rejoined the officer; “and wherefore do you come into Russia?”—­A sapper briskly replied, “To make war upon you; to take Wilna; to deliver Poland.”—­The cossack then withdrew; he disappeared in the woods, into which three of our soldiers, giving vent to their ardour, and with a view to sound the forest, discharged their fire-arms.