Napoleon suggest a reason to the senate, and still less did that body venture to demand any from him, for a war, in which France was going to exhaust her blood and her treasures.

Under these circumstances all eyes were turned towards Prussia, anxious to discover what step she was going to take. Her fortresses, her whole territory, was invaded by our armies; nevertheless the weight of our alliance appeared to oppose her politics, and to be particularly prejudicial to her interests; and in spite of the constraint and the subjugation in which we kept her, she still hesitated to declare herself, when, to the surprise of the world at large, we learnt that she had at last decided in our favour. But those who knew in what manner Napoleon contracted alliances, observed that Prussia did not adhere to ours till she saw Berlin pressed on all sides, and that the duke of Reggio was on the point of entering it as a conqueror. Shortly after, the king of Prussia was obliged to abandon his capital, leaving the command of it to French generals. At this time appeared another treaty of alliance, between France and Austria; the principal clauses of which were

• Treaty of alliance (24 Feb. 1812), between H. M. the emperor and king, and H. M. the king of Prussia,

stipulating an auxiliary corps of thirty thousand men, to be furnished by either of the two contracting powers, to her who should be first attacked and Napoleon, pretending to be threatened by Russia, claimed and obtained the promised succour, which was given to the com mand of the prince of Schwartzenberg. Thus Napoleon tyrannised kings, as Robespierre tyrannised the people. No one could remain neu tral under either of them. The love of peace appeared to them to be treason; and they both considered moderation as a crime.

In Germany, numerous corps were successively seen marching towards the Oder; the king of Westphalia at the head of his guards and of two divisions, had already crossed that river, as well as the Bavarians and Saxons. The first corps was at Stettin, the third marched towards that direction, and the fourth, on their arrival at Glogau, replaced the Westphalians, who marched towards Warsaw.

The construction of our army, when it was first formed, was rather striking. Were I to enumerate them, it would resemble the descriptions of Homer, when he speaks of the various people who marched towards the conquest of Ilion. In the month of April, the grand army consisted of eight corps of infantry, each of them

containing at least three divisions, besides one of cavalry (the first corps amounted to five); to which were joined the Imperial guards, composed of about fifty thousand men; and three great corps of cavalry under the name of the reserve. The total of our forces may have amounted to three hundred thousand infantry, and sixty thousand cavalry. More than a thousand pieces of cannon, distributed amongst the different corps of the army, constituted the artillery-force.

For a long time past, the prince of Eckmuhl had commanded the five divisions which composed the first corps of the army; the second was intrusted to the duke of Reggio; the third, to the duke of Elchingen; the fourth, known by the name of the army of Italy, and which contained the royal guards, was commanded by the prince Viceroy. Prince Poniatowski at the head of his Poles, formed the fifth corps. The Bavarians, incorporated into the sixth, were under the orders of Count Gouvion St. Cyr. The Saxons were counted as the seventh corps, whose chief was General Regnier. The Westphalians, marching under the orders of their king, took rank in the army as the eighth corps. As for the ninth, only a skeleton of it was formed, but it was destined for the duke of Bel

luno; and, lastly, the tenth corps, commanded by marshal the duke of Tarentum, was composed of Prussians under general Grawert, and included no French, except the division of general Grandjean.

The Russian army opposed to us, was divided into two parts, under the denomination of first and second army of the west; the one under the orders of general Barclay de Tolly, and the other commanded by prince Bagration. The number of divisions amounted to forty-seven, amongst which, eight consisted of cavalry. The emperor' Alexander, who, on the 26th of April, arrived at Wilna with all his staff, had been long prepared to repulse our attacks. But those who had studied our system of war, advised that monarch not to hazard a battle, being convinced that Napoleon's ambition would lead him into savage countries, which, during the rigorous season, would be the grave of his armies. Although Prussia had declared for us, still prudence required that we should mistrust an alliance which was contracted by force; the French garrisons in the fortified places used the utmost precaution, particularly in Glogau, where the fourth corps were assembled; its vicinity to Breslau, whither the king of Prussia had gone with the remainder of his troops, naturally

awakened our fears, and induced the governor to guard against a coup de main, which might have fatal to the enterprises of France.

The fourth corps, which arrived from Italy under the denomination of the army of observation, seemed, from its title, to be destined to advance alternately in front of the grand army, to observe its flanks, and lastly, to join it when great events required its assistance. Having had the honour to belong to this corps, I thought it incumbent on me to describe it, particularly as their single operations have been more interesting than either of the others, having commonly been added to the centre corps, whenever great events obliged Napoleon to unite his army.

The Viceroy, before he took the command of the fourth corps, which had been in the interim under the orders of the duke of Abrantes, was called to Paris, where his conferences with the Emperor led to a belief that he was destined to higher functions than those of a chief of a corps of the army. For a long time the rumour had been spread that Napoleon, desirous of terminating the war in Spain, had announced in council that he intended to confide to a young prince the government of the empire, if circumstances should oblige him to absent himself from his capital. But those great hopes, which since the