my, and that of
Hesse-Cassel, were both, however, at his disposal, and they both
accordingly were marched forwards, and blended with the forces occupying
Prussia.

The French, having invested Glogau, Breslau, and Graudentz, and left
detachments to urge these sieges, moved towards the Polish frontier.
General Bennigsen, with a considerable Russian army, had advanced to
overawe the dissatisfied population, and was now at Warsaw. But the
march of the French van, under Murat, soon alarmed him in these
quarters. After some skirmishes of little moment the Russians retired
behind the Vistula, and Murat took possession of the Polish metropolis
on the 28th of November. On the 25th Napoleon himself had reached Posen,
and found himself surrounded by a population in a high state of
excitement and enthusiasm. The ancient national dress reappeared: hope
and exultation beamed in every countenance; the old nobles, quitting the
solitary castles in which they had been lamenting over the downfall of
Poland, crowded the levees of the Victor, and addressed him in language
which recalled the half-oriental character and manners of their nation.
"We adore you," said the Palatine of Gnesna, "and with confidence repose
in you all our hopes, as upon him who raises empires and destroys them,
and humbles the proud--the regenerator of our country, the legislator of
the universe." "Already," said the President of the Council of Justice,
"already our country is saved, for we adore in your person the most just
and the most profound Solon. We commit our fate into your hands, and
implore the protection of the most august Caesar."

Having largely recruited his armies with brave Poles, who fancied him
both a Solon and Caesar, Napoleon now moved forwards. General Bennigsen
found himself under the necessity of abandoning first the line of the
Vistula, and then that of the Bug, and, the French still advancing in
numbers not to be resisted by his division, at length threw himself
behind the river Wkra, where Kaminskoy, the Russian commander-in-chief,
and three other divisions of the army, had by this time taken their
ground. On the 23rd of December Napoleon reached and crossed the Wkra,
and Kaminskoy ordered his whole army to fall back upon the line of the
Niemen. Bennigsen accordingly retired towards Pultusk, Galitzin upon
Golymin, both followed by great bodies of the French, and both
sustaining with imperturbable patience and gallantry the severity of a
ma