Tilsit. It was night when Bachelu received the
order; he wished to execute it, but the Prussian colonels refused; and
they covered their refusal under different pretexts. "The roads," they
said, "were not passable. They were not accustomed to make their men
march in such dreadful weather, and at so late an hour! They were
responsible to their king for their regiments." The French general was
astonished, commanded them to be silent, and ordered them to obey; his
firmness subdued them, they obeyed, but slowly. A Russian general had
glided into their ranks, and pressed them to deliver up this Frenchman,
who was alone in the midst of those who commanded them; but the
Prussians, although fully prepared to abandon Bachelu, could not resolve
to betray him: at last they began their march.

At Regnitz, at eight o'clock at night, they had refused to mount their
horses; at Tilsit, where they arrived at two in the morning, they
refused to alight from them. At five o'clock in the morning, however,
they had all gone to their quarters, and as order appeared to be
restored among them, the general went to take some rest. But the
obedience had been entirely feigned, for no sooner did the Prussians
find themselves unobserved, than they resumed their arms, went out with
Massenbach at their head, and escaped from Tilsit in silence, and by
favour of the night. The first dawn of the last day of the year 1812,
informed Macdonald that the Prussian army had deserted him.

It was Yorck, who, instead of rejoining him, deprived him of Massenbach,
whom he had just recalled. His own defection, which had commenced on the
26th of December, was just consummated. On the 30th of December, a
convention between Yorck and the Russian general Dibitch was concluded
at Taurogen. "The Prussian troops were to be cantoned on their own
frontiers, and remain neutral during two months, even in the event of
this armistice being disapproved of by their own government. At the end
of that time, the roads should be open to them to rejoin the French
troops, should their sovereign persist in ordering them to do so."

Yorck, but more particularly Massenbach, either from fear of the Polish
division to which they were united, or from respect for Macdonald,
showed some delicacy in their defection. They wrote to the marshal.
Yorck announced to him the convention he had just concluded, which he
coloured with specious pretexts. "He had been reduced to it by fatigue
and necessit