Then Prussia had dared to defy the over-bearing conqueror and had put into the field against him her armies trained by Frederick the Great; but these he had shattered almost at a stroke, winning in one day the decisive battles of Jena and Auerstadt.  He had stabled his horses in the royal palace of the Hohenzollerns and had pursued the remnant of the Prussian forces to the Russian border.

As he marched into the Polish provinces the people swarmed by thousands to meet him and hail him as their country’s savior.  They believed down to the very last that Bonaparte would make the Poles once more a free and independent nation and rescue them from the tyranny of Russia.

Napoleon played upon this feeling in every manner known to his artful mind.  He used it to alarm the Czar.  He used it to intimidate the Emperor of Austria; but more especially did he use it among the Poles themselves to win for his armies thousands upon thousands of gallant soldiers, who believed that in fighting for Napoleon they were fighting for the final independence of their native land.

Therefore, with the intensity of patriotism which is a passion among the Poles, every man and every woman gazed at Napoleon with something like adoration; for was not he the mighty warrior who had in his gift what all desired?  Soldiers of every rank swarmed to his standards.  Princes and nobles flocked about him.  Those who stayed at home repeated wonderful stories of his victories and prayed for him and fed the flame which spread through all the country.  It was felt that no sacrifice was too great to win his favor; that to him, as to a deity, everything that he desired should be yielded up, since he was to restore the liberty of Poland.

And hence, when the carriage of the emperor dashed into Bronia, surrounded by Polish lancers and French cuirassiers, the enormous crowd surged forward and blocked the way so that their hero could not pass because of their cheers and cries and supplications.

In the midst of it all there came a voice of peculiar sweetness from the thickest portion of the crowd.

“Please let me pass!” said the voice.  “Let me see him, if only for a moment!”

The populace rolled backward, and through the lane which they made a beautiful girl with dark blue eyes that flamed and streaming hair that had become loosened about her radiant face was confronting the emperor.  Carried away by her enthusiasm, she cried: 

“Thrice welcome to Poland!  We can do or say nothing to express our joy in the country which you will surely deliver from its tyrant.”

The emperor bowed and, with a smile, handed a great bouquet of roses to the girl, for her beauty and her enthusiasm had made a deep impression on him.

“Take it,” said he, “as a proof of my admiration.  I trust that I may have the pleasure of meeting you at Warsaw and of hearing your thanks from those beautiful lips.”