od face
to face with Lestocq and his Prussians. There was nothing but
skirmishing at either place, for the French emperor could not drag his
artillery through the mud swiftly enough to make it tell at the right
time, and both Prussians and Russians drew slowly off. Soult was to
have repeated the turning manoeuver as carried out before Jena, but
the marching was so difficult, owing to a thaw, that he could not
accomplish anything like the necessary distance.

The morning after this indecisive battle the entire Russian army was
far away. For strategic reasons and for lack of provisions it had
withdrawn to Ostrolenka. There was no pursuit. The natural question,
Why? is still unanswered. Some declare that the French troops were too
weary and bad-tempered; others, that Napoleon, in view of the
quagmires to which the roads were now reduced, dared not abandon his
base of supplies, as he was accustomed to do in summer weather and in
fruitful lands. There is still a third answer, that nothing was to be
gained; for of what use were the few miles of bare, flat land which
the army, putting forth its utmost exertions, might have been able to
traverse? All these reasons have validity. There was discontent among
the soldiers, for there was no booty; not even a soldier's common
comforts could be found. For the first time men of the line shouted
insults after the Emperor, and with impunity; even the faithful guard
indulged in double-meaning quips, but they, on the other hand, were at
the proper time soundly berated. "The short campaign of fifteen days,"
wrote one of them, "made us ten years older." There was also danger in
advancing beyond reach of the commissary department,--deficient and
contemptible as it was in the hands of unscrupulous speculators,--and
there was indeed little to be gained by such a pursuit as was
possible, except prestige, which at that moment and at that distance
from France was not a valuable commodity.

This element of distance from home was weighty. In far-off Egypt and
Syria, French soldiers had fought bravely; an ideal will carry even
the commonest Frenchman far, and they then believed themselves to be
fighting for a principle. But since the armies of France had begun to
fight for booty and glory, they must have both. Of the former there
was little or none at all in the lands they now occupied; the latter
could be enjoyed only in the jubilations of their kinsfolk; and
although no account of any battle was