I was soon ready. The marshal of the palace took me in his carriage and we went down the left bank of the Vistula, occupied by French troops, to cross the river by ferry opposite Graudentz. We took lodgings in the town and then presented ourselves at the citadel, where all the royal family of Prussia had taken refuge after loosing four fifths of their state. The Vistula separated the two armies. The king seemed calm and resigned; the queen, whom I had seen not long ago looking so lovely, was greatly changed and seemed overcome by grief. She could not conceal from herself the fact that having urged the king to declare war, she was the principal cause of the misfortunes of her country, whose citizens raised their voices against her. The Emperor could not have sent a more acceptable envoy to the king than Marshal Duroc, who had held the post of ambassador in Berlin, and was well known to both the king and queen who appreciated his pleasant personality. I was too small a personage to be of any account; however the king and queen recognised me and greeted me with a few polite words.

I found the Prussian officers attached to the court had greatly modified the arrogant attitude they had displayed in August. Their recent defeat had changed their opinion of the French army; nevertheless I did not wish to take advantage of this and I carefully avoided mentioning Jena and our other victories. The affairs which Marshal Duroc had to discuss with the King of Prussia related to a letter which this monarch had sent to Napoleon, requesting a peace. The meeting lasted for two days which I occupied in reading, and walking on the gloomy parade ground of the fortress. I did not wish to go up onto the ramparts, although one enjoys from there an admirable view of the Vistula, for fear that I might be suspected of examining the defence works and armaments.

In the battles which had taken place from Jena to the Vistula, the Prussians had taken about a hundred of our men prisoner, whom they employed on the earthworks of the fortress in which they were confined. Marshal Duroc had charged me with the task of distributing some aid to these poor devils, who were doubly unhappy in that they could see from the height of the fortress the French troops from whom they were separated only by the Vistula. This proximity, and the comparison of their position with that of their comrades, free and happy on the left bank, led a French prisoner, one of the elite cavalrymen of the 3rd Dragoons by the name of Harpin, to attempt to escape. This was no easy matter, for one had first to get out of the fortress and then to cross the Vistula; but what cannot be achieved by a determined man? Harpin, who was employed by the master carpenter to pile timber, had made, secretly, a little raft; he had taken a long rope and, at night, had lowered the raft to the foot of the rampart, and had then descended himself by the same means. He had already put his raft in the water and was preparing to embark when he was surprised by a patrol, taken back to the fort and confined to a dungeon. The next day the Prussian commandant, in accordance with the common custom of the Prussian army, condemned Harpin to fifty strokes of the cane. It was useless for Harpin to claim that as a Frenchman he should not be subject to Prussian regulations, his status as a prisoner made this complaint void. He had already been taken to the wooden frame to which he was to be attached, and two soldiers were preparing to administer the flogging when, having gone to fetch a book from Marshal Duroc's coach, which was standing in the parade ground, I saw Harpin struggling with some Prussians who were trying to tie him up.

Indignant at the sight of a French soldier about to be subjected to a flogging, I ran towards him, my sabre in my hand, and threatened to kill the first man to strike a blow! … Marshal Duroc's coach was guarded by one of Napoleon's couriers, known in every post house in Europe as "Moustache." This man, of herculean strength and the courage to face anything, had accompanied the Emperor on twenty fields of battle. When he saw me in the middle of the Prussians he hurried to me, and on my instructions, he fetched four loaded pistols which were in the coach. We untied Harpin; I armed him with two of the pistols and put him in the coach, where I placed "Moustache" next to him. I then told the commandant that as this coach belonged to the Emperor, whose arms it bore, it was a sacred place of safety for the French Dragoon, entry to which was forbidden to all Prussians under penalty of a bullet in the head, and I told Harpin and "Moustache" to fire on anyone who attempted to get into the coach. The commandant, seeing me so determined, abandoned his prisoner for the moment to go and get orders from his superiors. Then, leaving Harpin and "Moustache" in the coach with pistols in their hands, I went to the king's quarters and begged one of the aides-de-camp to go and tell Marshal Duroc that I needed to speak to him about a matter which could not wait. Duroc came out and I told him what had happened.

When he heard that they wanted to flog a French soldier, he shared my indignation. He returned to the king to whom he protested warmly, adding that if the sentence were to be carried out, the Emperor by way of reprisal would flog not only the soldiers but also the Prussian officers who were his prisoners. The king was a humane man; he ordered that the dragoon Harpin should be released, and to please Napoleon, from whom he was at that moment asking peace, he offered to Marshal Duroc to release to him all the prisoners if he would undertake to send back a similar number of Prussians. Duroc having accepted this offer, I went with one of the aides-de-camp to announce the news to the prisoners, who were overjoyed. We embarked them straight away and an hour later they were across the Vistula and amongst their brothers in arms.

Marshal Duroc and I left Graudentz the next night; he approved of my conduct and told me later that he had given an account of it to the Emperor, who also approved, and who warned the Prussians that if they flogged French soldiers he would have all Prussian officers who fell into his hands, shot!

I rejoined 7th Corps at Bromburg, and we went up the left bank of the Vistula towards Warsaw. Marshal Augereau's headquarters were established at Mallochiche. The Emperor arrived at Warsaw on the 19th December, and prepared to cross the Vistula. 7th Corps then went down the left bank once more to Utrata, where for the first time on this campaign we saw the Russian outposts on the opposite bank.

Chap. 32

The River Vistula is fast-flowing and very wide; one expected, because of this that the Emperor would halt his winter operations there and, protected by the river, would put his troops into winter quarters until the spring. This however was not to be. Marshal Davout's and Marshal Lannes' corps crossed the river at Warsaw, Marshal Augereau and his men crossed at Utrate, from where we went on to the banks of the Ukra, a tributary of the Bug and the Vistula. The entire French army having crossed this last river, found itself face to face with the Russians, against whom the Emperor ordered an attack on the 24th December. A thaw and rain made movement extremely difficult on the clay soil, for there are no metalled roads in this country.

I shall not describe all the actions which were fought that day to force a passage across the Bug; I shall restrict myself to saying that Marshal Augereau, given the task of securing the crossing of the Ukra, ordered General Desjardins to attack with his division, Kolozomb, and General Heudelet to attack Sochocyzn. The marshal directed the attack on Kolozomb in person. The Russians, after burning the bridge which had existed at this spot, had raised earthworks on the opposite bank which they defended with cannons and numerous infantry; but they had neglected to destroy a store of planks and beams which was on the right bank, at which we had arrived. Our sappers made use of this material to construct a temporary bridge in spite of a lively fire which killed several men of the 14th Line regiment, which was at the head of our columns.