A bridge thrown over this river conveyed Marshal Oudinot and the second corps to Keydani.  During that time, the rest of the army was still passing the Niemen.  The passage took up three entire days.  The army of Italy did not pass it till the 29th, in front of Pilony.  The army of the king of Westphalia did not enter Grodno till the 30th.

From Kowno Napoleon proceeded in two days as far as the defiles which defend the plain of Wilna.  He waited, in order to make his appearance there, for news from his advanced posts.  He was in hopes that Alexander would contest with him the possession of that capital.  The report, indeed, of some musketry, encouraged him in that hope; when intelligence was brought him that the city was undefended.  Thither he advanced, ruminating and dissatisfied.  He accused his generals of the advanced guard of suffering the Russian army to escape.  It was the most active of them, Montbrun, whom he reproached, and against whom his anger rose to the point of menace.  A menace without effect, a violence without result! and less blameable than remarkable, in a warrior, because they contributed to prove all the importance which he attached to an immediate victory.

In the midst of his anger, he displayed address in his dispositions for entering Wilna.  He caused himself to be preceded and followed by Polish regiments.  But more occupied by the retreat of the Russians than the grateful and admiring acclamations of the Lithuanians, he rapidly passed through the city, and hurried to the advanced posts.  Several of the best hussars of the 8th, having ventured themselves in a wood, without proper support, had just perished in an action with the Russian guard; Segur[16], who commanded them, after a desperate defence, had fallen, covered with wounds.

[Footnote 16:  Brother of the Author.]

The enemy had burnt his bridges and his magazines, and was flying by different roads, but all in the direction of Drissa.  Napoleon ordered all which the fire had spared to be collected, and restored the communications.  He sent forward Murat and his cavalry, to follow the track of Alexander:  and after throwing Ney upon his left, in order to support Oudinot, who had that day driven back the lines of Wittgenstein, from Deweltowo as far as Wilkomir, he returned to occupy the place of Alexander at Wilna.  There, his unfolded maps, military reports, and a crowd of officers requiring his orders, awaited his arrival.  He was now on the theatre of war, and at the moment of its most animated operations; he had prompt and urgent decisions to make; orders of march to give; hospitals, magazines, and lines of operations, to establish.

It was necessary to interrogate, to read, and then compare; and at last to discover and grasp the truth, which always appeared to fly and conceal itself in the midst of a thousand contradictory answers and reports.