ent into winter-quarters. It was
high time. The French were ill supplied for a winter campaign amid the
desolate wastes of Poland. Snow and rain, frosts and thaws had turned
the wretched tracks into muddy swamps, where men sank to their knees,
horses to their bellies, and carriages beyond their axles. The
carriage conveying Talleyrand was a whole night stuck fast, in spite
of the efforts of ten horses to drag it out. The opinion of the
soldiery on Poland and the Poles is well expressed by that prince of
_raconteurs_, Marbot: "Weather frightful, victuals very scarce, no
wine, beer detestable, water muddy, no bread, lodgings shared with
cows and pigs. 'And they call this their country,' said our soldiers."

Yet Polish patriotism had been a mighty power in the world; and
Napoleon, ever on the watch for the weak places of his foes, saw how
effective a lever it might be. This had been his constant practice: he
had pitted Italians against Austrians, Copts against Mamelukes, Druses
against Turks, Irish against English, South Germans against the
Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, and for the most part with success. But,
except in the case of the Italian people and the South German princes,
he rarely, if ever, bestowed boons proportionate to the services
rendered. It is very questionable whether he felt more warmly for
Irish nationalists than for Copts and Druses.[120] Except in regard to
his Italian kindred, none of the nationalist aspirations that were to
mould the history of the century touched a responsive chord in his
nature. In this, as in other affairs of state, he held "true policy"
to be "nothing else than the calculation of combinations and chances."

It was in this spirit that he surveyed the Polish Question. Arising
out of the partitions of that unhappy land by Russia, Austria, and
Prussia, it had distracted the repose of Europe scarcely less than the
French Revolution; and now the heir to the Revolution, after hewing
his way through the weak monarchies of Central Europe, was about to
probe this ulcer of Christendom. As usual, nothing had been done to
forestall him. Czartoryski had begged Alexander to declare Russian
Poland an autonomous kingdom united with Russia only by the golden
link of the crown, but this timely proposal was rejected;[121] and the
Czar displayed the weakness of his judgment and the strength of his
vanity by plunging into war with Turkey and Persia, at a time when
Poland was opening her arms to the vi