foes became timid and cautious. In
this way the movements of Bennigsen's army were successfully
concealed, and he hoped by a swift march to overtake and destroy Ney's
isolated division; if successful he would secure access to Dantzic and
a connection with Graudenz, Kolberg, and other fortresses, which would
give him a position strong enough to jeopardize that of Napoleon at
Warsaw. Accordingly, with about sixty-five thousand men he began a
rapid and circuitous march northwesterly and around behind the
impenetrable belt of dark forests, past Lake Spirding to Heilsberg,
where he found Ney in full retreat on January twenty-second. But he
had overestimated the strength of his Russians; they were too
exhausted to strike quickly. Frost had set in, snow had fallen, and
both Ney and Bernadotte made their escape to Gilgenburg, the latter
after defeating the Russian advance-guard in a skirmish at Mohrungen.
Bennigsen was compelled to retire in order to recruit the strength of
his men.

The Emperor of the French was still at Warsaw. The Polish capital was
gay and frivolous. New hopes had awakened the spirit of folly in the
aristocracy, and the "liberator," now at the very height of his
physical power, was often conspicuous in the revels. In the intervals
of his serious labors Napoleon gave way to a life of sensuality, and
the women were prodigal of their charms. One of them was the
well-known Countess Walewska, a beautiful woman, who while yet a
child had been forced into wedlock with an aged nobleman. She was now
made to feel that the future of her country depended upon her
captivating Napoleon, for he had singled her out as the most beautiful
of all the crowd which pressed around him on his entry. Indignant when
the proposition was first made, she finally listened to the prejudiced
morality of her friends, and gave an unwilling consent. It is thought
that her child was the first born to Napoleon, and that this fact,
combined with his disgust for Josephine's incessant and inconsistent
outpourings of jealous complaint as to his conduct, had much to do
with his attitude concerning the political advantages of the divorce.
Such was the young Polish noblewoman's eventual devotion to the father
of her boy, that throughout his subsequent life in Europe she ran
every risk to be near her idol, and actually followed him to Elba.
Their son, the Count Walewski, was a devoted Frenchman, and a man of
quality, filling, with dignity, important