During this first movement, two of the enemy's pieces re-appeared, and fired. An order was given to remove them by a discharge of our artillery.
One salvo was enough; it was an act of imprudence which was not repeated, for fear of its recalling Tchaplitz. The bridge was as yet scarcely begun; it was eight o'clock, and the first tressels were only then fixing.
The Emperor, however, impatient to get possession of the opposite bank, pointed it out to the bravest. Jacqueminot, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Reggio, and the Lithuanian count Predziecski, were the first who threw themselves into the river, and in spite of the pieces of ice, which cut and bled the chests and sides of their horses, succeeded in reaching the other side. Sourd, chief of the squadron, and fifty chasseurs of the 7th, each carrying a voltigeur en croupe, followed them, as well as two frail rafts which transported four hundred men in twenty trips. The Emperor having expressed a wish to have a prisoner to interrogate, Jacqueminot, who overheard him, had scarcely crossed the river, when he saw one of Tchaplitz's soldiers; he rushed after, attacked, and disarmed him; then seizing and placing him on the bow of his saddle, he brought him through the river and the ice to Napoleon.
About one o'clock the bank was entirely cleared of the Cossacks, and the bridge for the infantry finished. The division Legrand crossed it rapidly with its cannon, the men shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" in the presence of their sovereign, who was himself actively pressing the passage of the artillery, and encouraged his brave soldiers by his voice and example.
He exclaimed, when he saw them fairly in possession of the opposite bank, "Behold my star again appear!" for he was a believer in fatality, like all conquerors, those men, who, having the largest accounts with Fortune, are fully aware how much they are indebted to her, and who, moreover, having no intermediate power between themselves and heaven, feel themselves more immediately under its protection.
CHAP. VI.
At that moment, a Lithuanian nobleman, disguised as a peasant, arrived from Wilna with the news of Schwartzenberg's victory over Sacken. Napoleon appeared pleased in proclaiming it aloud, with the addition, that "Schwartzenberg had immediately returned upon the heels of Tchitchakof, and that he was coming to our assistance." A conjecture, to which the disappearance of Tchaplitz gave considerable probability.
Meantime, as the first bridge which was just finished had only been made for the infantry, a second was begun immediately after, a hundred fathoms higher up, for the artillery and baggage, which was not finished until four o'clock in the afternoon. During that interval, the Duke of Reggio, with the rest of the second corps, and Dombrowski's division, followed General Legrand to the other side; they formed about seven thousand men.
The marshal's first care was to secure the road to Zembin, by a detachment which chased some Cossacks from it; to push the enemy towards Borizof, and to keep him as far back as possible from the passage of Studzianka.