banks of the Berezyna, various encounters took place, the result of which is, as usual, very differently related by the two parties. The most considerable was one which terminated, on the 28th, in the capture, by General Witgenstein, of a French division, said to consist of 8800 men. During this time the cold was intensely severe, occasioning dreadful sufferings to the fugitives, and almost annihilating their cavalry. When they arrived at the spot where the roads to Minsk and Wilna divide, they took the route to the latter town, first sending off their wounded, with the baggage. In these movements, Napoleon always marched in the midst of his guards, whom, by care and indulgence, he had preserved in tolerable plight. It is mentioned in the French accounts, that to such a degree was the cavalry of the army dismounted, that it was necessary to collect the officers who had still a horse remaining, in order to form four companies of 150 men each. This sacred squadron, as it is termed, in which generals performed the functions of captains, and colonels of subalterns, never lost sight of the emperor. At length, all danger from the pursuers being passed, Napoleon, on December 5, having called together his principal officers, and informed them of the appointment of the king of Naples as his lieutenant-general, set off in a single sledge under the title of the Duke of Vicenze. He passed through Wilna, Warsaw, Dresden, Leipzic, and Mentz, and arrived at Paris on the 18th, at half past eleven at night.

Thus terminated a campaign more destructive of human lives

than perhaps any other in which the ruler of France has been engaged, and certainly more injurious than any other to his political and military reputation. He was able, indeed, at the head of an immense force, to penetrate to another and remoter European capital; but instead of attaining the professed object of his mighty preparations-an object apparently incommensurate with his exertions

all he effected was the destruction of a fine city, and the devastation of a large tract of country, at the price of leaving the hostile plains thronged with the carcases of his subjects and allies, a still greater number in a state of captivity, and all his artillery and stores in the bands of the enemy. He obtained no addition of glory, cither as a statesman or a general, and returned like a fugitive, escaping from danger and disgrace. Every art, however, had been employed to palliate these misfortunes, or conceal their extent from the eyes of the French people; and the recent suppression of a conspiracy had, as usually happens, strengthened the authority of the government. He was, therefore, received at Paris with the accustomed tokens of reverence and attachment; and on the 20th, being seated on his throne, surrounded by all the great officers of state, he was waited upon in full ceremony by the senate, whose president, the Count Lacepede, delivered an address to him as loyal and adulatory as if he had been an hereditary monarch returning in triumph. His reply was remarkable: it particularly alluded to the duty of courage in magistrates, and their obligation to die in defence

of

of their sovereign and his throne. "When (said he) I undertook the regeneration of France, I entreated of Providence a determinate number of years. Destruction is the work of a moment; but to rebuild requires the aid of time. The rallying cry of our fathers was, The king is dead-long live the king.These few words comprehend the principal advantages of the monarchy." This was a manifest intimation of the necessity of supporting an hereditary succession in the new dynasty. The council of state being next introduced to pay their homage, the Count Defermon, minister of the finances, pronounced a speech, in which he touched upon the delicate topic of the late conspiracy, planned, he says, "by a maniac, who for a previous offence, had deserved a punishment which his Majesty had been so generous as to remit." Napoleon's answer contains a sentence which might become our warmest opposers of the oretical principles of government. "It is to that ideal system, to those dark metaphysics which, in pursuing with subtlety the search after

first causes, seek to found upon their basis the legislation of nations, instead of accommodating laws to the knowledge of the human heart, and to the lessons of history, that we must attribute all the misfortunes which our favoured France has experienced." He makes the same allusion to the necessity of courage in a magistrate that was contained in his reply to the senate, and reminds the council of the examples of the presidents Harlay and Molé in the time of the League.

Notwithstanding these public exhibitions of loyalty, it is affirmed in private accounts, that on the arrival of intelligence, which could not be suppressed, of the disastrous condition in which Napoleon had left his army, many symptoms broke out of popular discontent and indignation. Nothing, however, occurred which indicated any serious danger to his authority; and the year closed with the most ostentatious declarations of a resolution to persist in the same political plans, and with confident presages of final success,

CHAPTER

Turkey.

M'

UCH that relates to the occurrences in the Russian empire during this year has been necessarily anticipated in the last chapter, on account of its intimate connection with the affairs of France; but various circumstances remain to be considered, in which Russia either stood apart from that power, or acted upon her own plans, without the immediate compulsion of events.

The close of the last year left the Russians in a course of success against the Turks, who, under the grand vizier, had crossed the Danube with their best troops. The Petersburgh gazette contains a report from General Kutusoff of the surrender of the vizier's army as prisoners of war, with all their artillery, on November 26th (December 8th) after having lost 10,000 men in different attacks.

This

event, it was generally thought, would be so decisive of the Russian superiority, as to lay the Turks at their feet, and oblige them to consent to such conditions of peace as might be imposed by the conquerors; but the Ottoman Porte continued firm in the resolution of making no sacrifice of territory, and appearances were made of vigorous preparation for another eam

paign. Doubtless, the prospect of an approaching necessity to the Russians of employing their principal force in the defence of their own country, which the French emissaries would not fail of making known in its full extent at Constantinople, greatly encouraged that court in its determination. An armistice, however, for an indefinite period, was in the meantime concluded between the Russian and Turkish commanders, and a congress for negociations of peace was sitting at Bucharest.

Notice having been given of the cessation of the armistice, arms were resumed on the 10th of February, and the Russian troops were put in motion towards different points of the Danube to prevent the crossing of that river by the Turks. The Russian advanced guard passed to the right bank of the Danube on the 13th with little opposition, and the Turkish posts fell back upon Rudschuck, where the grand vizier lay with 20 or 25,000 men, waiting to be joined by the reinforcements which were on their march from all parts of the Ottoman empire. General Langeron was at this time commander-in-chief of the Russians, and his head-quarters

were

were at Giurgewo. These warlike demonstrations, however, had no consequences. The exhaustion of one empire, and the critical state of the other, rendered the necessity of a peace so evident to both parties, that after a considerable time spent in adjusting the terms, a treaty was finally concluded, the ratification of which was announced at Petersburgh by a Te Deum on August 14th. By its principal article respecting territory, the river Pruth, from its entrance into Moldavia to its junction with the Danube, and the left bank of the Danube to its mouth at Kilia, are declared the European boundaries of the two empires; the Porte relinquishing to Russia all the districts, fortresses, and towns to the left of the Pruth. The Danube may be navigated by the merchant vessels of both powers, but Russian ships of war are not to come higher than the mouth of the Pruth. Full amnesty is granted to the subjects of each power who have taken the opposite part in the war; and in particular, the Porte grants a pardon to the Servians, and consents to demolish the fortresses lately erected in their country, putting garrisons in the ancient fortified places. The Porte also offers its mediation to restore peace between Russia and Persia, on the frontiers of which, hostilities had for some time subsisted, and with some disadvantage to the Russians. Thus was terminated a destructive and protracted war, with an acquisition to Russia of an unhealthy slip of country to her already unwieldy mass of territory, at a cost which she doubtless severely felt in the arduous

contest almost for existence that awaited her.

It was the obvious policy of the Russian court, not only to free itself from an enemy, but to obtain new friends, in order to strengthen it for the coming encounter. The Swedish government, which had given unequivocal proof of a disposition to assert its independence against the requisi-. tions of France, was naturally the first object of amicable negociation, and a Russian general arrived at Stockholm on March 21st for the. purpose of opening a treaty. Some difficulties probably arose, for the sovereigns of the two countries thought proper to have a personal interview in order to bring matters to a final adjustment. The Emperor Alexander, and the crownprince of Sweden, met at Abo in Finland on August 28th. The emperor, who had been on the spot some days, waited upon the crown-prince immediately after his arrival; and banishing all ceremony, they had a conference which lasted four hours, and from which all their attendants were excluded; but the English minister, Lord Cathcart, was present. The result has not been made public, but it was the general opinion that Alexander promised the restitution of Finland to Sweden within six months, on the condition of a cooperation of the Swedish troops against the French. We shall see, however, that no such co-operation actually took place during the campaign of this year.

No difficulty seems to have occurred in settling a treaty between Russia and England, the interests of the two nations so well coin-:

ciding