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acquiesce in such severe terms, and determined to repose his fate in the chance of war, and in the port of the auxiliary army of Russia, which was now hastily advancing to his assistance.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Retrospect of the Partition of Poland.-Napoleon receives addresses from Poland, which he evades.-He advances into Poland, Bennigsen retreating before him.-Character of the Russian Soldiery.—The Cossacks.-Engagement at Pultusk, on 26th November, terminating to the disadvantage of the French.-Bennigsen continues his retreat The French go into winter quarters.—Bennigsen appointed Commander-in-chief in the place of Kaminskoy, who shows symptoms of insanity. He resumes offensive operations.—Battle of Eylau, 8th February, 1807. Claimed as a victory by both parties. The loss on both sides amounts to 50,000 men killed, the greater part Frenchmen. Bennigsen retreats upon Konigsberg.— Napoleon offers favourable terms for an Armistice to the King of Prussia, who refuses to treat, save for a general Peace.-Napoleon falls back to the line of the Vistula.Dantzick is besieged, and surrenders.—Russian army is poorly recruited-the French powerfully.—Actions during the Summer.—Battle of Heilsberg, and retreat of the Russians.-Battle of Friedland, 14th June.-An Armistice takes place on the 23d.

NAPOLEON was politically justified in the harsh terms which he was desirous to impose on Prussia, by having now brought his victorious armies to the neighbourhood of Poland, in which he had a good right to conceive himself sure to find numerous followers and a friendly reception.

The partition of this fine kingdom by its powerful neighbours, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, was the first open and audacious transgression of the law of nations, which disgraced the annals of civilized Europe. It was executed by a combination of three of the most powerful states of Europe against one too unhappy in the nature of its constitution, and too much divided by factions, to offer any effectual resistance. The kingdom subjected to this aggression had appealed in vain to the code of nations for protection against an outrage, to which, after a desultory and uncombined, and therefore a vain defence, she saw herself under the necessity of submitting. The Poles retained, too, a secret sense of their fruitless attempt to recover freedom in 1791, and an animated recollection of the violence by which it had been suppressed by the Russian arms. They waited with hope and exultation the approach of the French armies; and candour must allow, that, unlawfully subjected as they had been to a foreign yoke, they had a right to avail themselves of the assistance, not only of Napoleon, but of Mahomet, or of Satan himself, had he proposed to aid them in regaining the independence of which they had been oppressively and unjustly deprived.1

This feeling was general among the middling classes of the Polish aristocracy, who recollected

1 ["We have here a critique upon the policy of Napoleon towards Poland, which I shall not stop to examine. It is but too easy to criticise the actions of statesmen, when time, in its rapid course, has unveiled the causes and effects of events: when the game is finished, the spectators have no longer any credit in discovering what the players ought to have done."-LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 53.]

with mortified pride the diminution of their independent privileges, the abrogation of their Diets, and the suppression of the Liberum Veto, by which a private gentleman might render null the decision of a whole assembly, unless unanimity should be attained, by putting the dissentient to death upon the spot. But the higher order of nobility, grati

1 Most readers must be so far acquainted with the ancient form of Polish Diets as to know, that their resolutions were not legally valid if there was one dissenting voice, and that in many cases the most violent means were resorted to, to obtain unanimity. The following instance was related to our informer, a person of high rank :-On some occasion, a provincial Diet was convened for the purpose of passing a resolution which was generally acceptable, but to which it was apprehended one noble of the district would oppose his veto. To escape this interruption, it was generally resolved to meet exactly at the hour of summons, to proceed to business upon the instant, and thus to elude the anticipated attempt of the individual to defeat the purpose of their meeting. They accordingly met at the hour, with most accurate precision, and shut and bolted the doors of their place of meeting. But the dissentient arrived a few minutes afterwards, and entrance being refused, under the excuse that the Diet was already constituted, he climbed upon the roof of the hall, and, it being summer time, when no fires were lighted, descended through the vent into the stove by which, in winter, the apartment was heated. Here he lay perdu, until the vote was called, when, just as it was about to be recorded as unanimous in favour of the proposed measure, he thrust his head out of the stove, like a turtle protruding his neck from his shell, and pronounced the fatal veto. Unfortunately for himself, instead of instantly withdrawing his head, he looked around for an instant with exultation, to remark and enjoy the confusion which his sudden appearance and interruption had excited in the assembly. One of the nobles who stood by unsheathed his sabre, and severed at one blow the head of the dissentient from his body. Our noble informer, expressing some doubt of a story so extraordinary, was referred for its confirmation to Prince Sobieski, afterwards King of Poland, who not only bore testimony to the strange scene, as what he had himself witnessed, but declared

own.

fied by the rank they held, and the pleasures they enjoyed at the courts of Berlin, Vienna, and especially at Petersburgh, preferred in general the peaceful enjoyment of their immense estates to the privileges of a stormy independence, which raised the most insignificant of the numerous aristocracy to a rank and importance nearly resembling their They might, too, with some justice, distrust the views of Napoleon, though recommended by the most specious promises. The dominion of Russia in particular, from similarity of manners, and the particular attention paid to their persons and interests, was not so unpopular among the higher branches of the aristocracy as might have been expected, from the unjust and arbitrary mode in which she had combined to appropriate so large a part of their once independent kingdom. These did not, therefore, so generally embrace the side of France as the minor nobles or gentry had done. As for the ordinary mass of the population, being almost all in the estate of serfage, or villanage, which had been general over Europe during the prevalence of the feudal system, they followed their respective lords, without pretending to entertain any opinion of their own.

While Russia was marching her armies hastily forward, not only to support, or rather raise up

that the head of the Dietin rolled over on his own foot almost as soon as he heard the word veto uttered. Such a constitution required much amelioration; but that formed no apology for the neighbouring states, who dismembered and appropriated to themselves an independent kingdom, with the faults or advantages of whose government they had not the slightest title to interfere.