The 23rd Chasseurs was then in Swedish Pomerania, and, wishing to join before the end of my leave, I left Paris on March 15. I gave a place in my carriage to M. Durbach, nephew of Marshal Mortier, a lieutenant in the same regiment. My old servant, Woirland, had asked leave to stay in Spain, hoping to make his fortune in a canteen, and I had replaced him when I left Salamanca by a Pole named Lorenz Schilkowski. He had been an Austrian uhlan and was not lacking in wits, but was a drunkard like all the Poles, and, unlike the soldiers of that nation, as cowardly as a hare. But, besides his native tongue, Lorenz spoke French a little, German and Russian perfectly, and in these respects was exceedingly valuable to me for a war in the north.

As we were starting at night from the post-house of Kaiserslautern, the postilion upset my carriage into a quagmire and it was broken. Nobody was hurt, but M. Durbach and I both said: 'A bad omen for soldiers who will soon be in presence of the enemy.' However, after a day spent in repairing damages, we were able to proceed, but the springs and wheels were so much injured that they broke six times during the journey, causing us much delay, and making us do several leagues on foot in the snow. At length we reached the shores of the Baltic, and found the 23rd Chasseurs in garrison at Stralsund and Greifswald.

I found Colonel de la Nougarède an excellent man, cultivated and capable, but so prematurely aged by gout that he had to travel constantly in a carriage—a melancholy way for the commander of a light cavalry regiment to move. He received me most kindly, and after explaining to me his reasons for remaining with the regiment, he showed me a letter in which the Count of Lobau informed him of the reasons which led the Emperor to place me with him. So far from being hurt by this, he regarded it as an additional kindness on the Emperor's part, and as holding out hopes that he would soon be appointed general, or commander of gendarmerie. He expected, with my help, to be able at least to take some part in the campaign, and obtain what he desired at the first review held by the Emperor. Therefore, to associate me in the command more than my position as senior major would naturally imply, he assembled the officers, and in their presence delegated his powers provisionally to me, bidding each obey me without reference to him, since his weak health often made it impossible for him to keep sufficiently near the regiment for him to command it in person. A general order to this effect was drawn up, and from that day I became in everything but rank a regimental commander, and the regiment soon became accustomed to regard me as its actual commander. Since that time I have commanded army cavalry regiments, either as colonel or as a general officer, and I have been for a long time inspector of that arm; but I can safely say that, if I ever saw a regiment in as good condition as the 23rd Chasseurs, I never saw a better. It was not that it contained men of surpassing merit, such as I have occasionally known in other regiments, but if there was no man in the 23rd of extraordinary ability, there was not one who was not thoroughly up to his duty. All were on the same level of courage and zeal: there was no weak spot. The officers, highly intelligent and sufficiently well trained, were all of excellent character, and lived together as true brethren in arms. It was the same with the non-commissioned officers, and the troopers followed their good example. Nearly all were veterans of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram, and most had three, or at least two, good-conduct stripes; those who had only one were a small minority. They were a splendid lot of men, from Normandy, Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comté, provinces well known for military spirit and love of horses. General Bourcier, when charged with the general remounting, had been so struck with the stature of the men that he had given them larger and stouter horses than the chasseurs usually have, so that this regiment was called the carbiniers of the light cavalry. Their long stay in Germany had brought men and horses into perfect condition; and when I took the command of the regiment it had an effective strength of over 1,000 fighting men, well-disciplined, calm, and able to hold their tongues, especially in presence of the enemy.

I got my horses from the island of Rügen, where there is a good breed, and from Rosbock, seven in all. This was none too many, for war with Russia was clearly imminent. I had foreseen it since the summer of 1811, when I noticed how the Emperor was withdrawing men from the Peninsula to reinforce his Guard, and while staying in Paris my convictions of it had been strengthened. Rumours of strained relations—vanishing during the diversions of the winter, but always reviving in a more definite form—finally grew stronger, till they reached almost the point of certainty in consequence of a serious occurrence, which, as it was discussed throughout Europe, I ought to relate here.

The Emperor Alexander had been brought up with a young Russian noble called Czernicheff, whom, when he came to the throne, he had appointed his aide-de-camp. In 1809, when Alexander, as Napoleon's ally, was pretending to be at war with Austria, we saw Colonel Czernicheff arrive at Vienna, ostensibly charged with maintaining good relations between Napoleon and Alexander; but with the secret duty of keeping his sovereign informed of our successes and reverses, so that he might maintain or dissolve his alliance with France, as circumstances indicated. Alexander's favourite was kindly received by Napoleon, and was always by his side during the period preceding the battle of Essling, but when the result of that sanguinary action appeared doubtful, and cannon-balls began to drop among the imperial staff, M. de Czernicheff rode off out of the way of danger, and two days after the battle started for St. Petersburg, no doubt to relate the failure of our attempt. Napoleon regarded his conduct as very unseemly, and let fall sharp gibes upon the courage of the Russian colonel. After the peace, however, Czernicheff came often to Paris, and, being handsome, amiable, and exquisitely polite, was well received, not only at court but also in the drawing-rooms of the best society. He never talked politics, and had the reputation of being in favour with ladies. Towards the end of 1811, however, when the rumours of war revived, the police had information that the Russian colonel, while feigning to be devoted to pleasure, was concerned in suspicious dealings connected with politics. He was carefully watched, and it soon became known that he had frequent interviews with M. X—, an official in the War Office, whose special duty it was to draw up the 'states' presented every ten days to the Emperor showing the strength and condition of every arm in the service. Not only was Czernicheff recognized when walking after midnight in the darkest parts of the Champs Elysees with the French official, but he was often seen to enter X—'s lodgings dressed in shabby clothes, and stay there several hours. This intimacy on the part of a person of high rank with a poor War Office clerk was clear proof that the latter was in the pay of the former for the betrayal of state secrets, and the Emperor gave orders to arrest M. de Czernicheff. He was, however, warned, it is said by a woman, and leaving Paris at once travelled by the least-frequented roads, and reached the Rhine frontier, avoiding Mainz and Cologne, whither orders for his seizure had been telegraphed. As for the poor clerk, he was arrested at the very moment when he was counting a sum of 300,000 francs in bank notes, the price of his treason. Compelled by the evidence to admit his crime, he stated that another War Office clerk had sold documents to the Russian colonel. He, too, was arrested, and both were tried, condemned, and shot. They died cursing Czernicheff, who, they said, had sought them out in their garrets and seduced them by the sight of a heap of gold which he kept increasing as long as they had any hesitation. The Emperor caused a virulent article against M. de Czernicheff to be published in all the French papers, adding remarks which, indirect as they were, must have deeply wounded the Russian Emperor, for they recalled the fact that Alexander had never punished the murderers of his father Paul.

After this there could be no further question about war, and although it was not yet declared, open preparations for it were made on both sides. Czernicheff's conduct, although blamed in words by everybody, yet found specially among diplomatists some who approved it in secret, on the strength of the famous adage: Salus patriae prima lex. On this point too, they recalled a little-known anecdote which I had from Marshal Lannes, proving that while Napoleon punished, and rightly, Frenchmen who sold their country's secrets to the enemy, he was accustomed to corrupt foreign officials who could furnish him with information likely to be useful in war. The story, as Lannes told it me at Vienna in 1809, was as follows.

When hostilities between France and Austria were on the point of breaking out, the Archduke Charles was anonymously informed that a certain general, whom he valued highly and had just appointed deputy-chief of his staff, had sold himself to General Andréossi, the French ambassador, and had frequent interviews with him at night in an empty house in the Leopoldstadt, the number of which was given. So high was the Archduke's esteem for the general, that he treated the accusation, brought by a person who dared not name himself, as a foul calumny, and took no steps to verify it. Just when the French ambassador, having asked for his passports, was about to leave Vienna within forty-eight hours, a second anonymous letter came, informing the Archduke that his deputy-chief of the staff, after working alone in his room, where the 'states' of the army were kept, was to have that night a final meeting with General Andréossi. Wishing to put out of his mind any suspicion which he feared might linger against an officer whom he liked, the Archduke resolved to establish his innocence for himself. Dressing, therefore, in ordinary civil clothes, and accompanied only by his senior aide-de-camp, he took his stand after midnight in the darkest part of the side-street where the house in question stood. After a few moments' waiting, they saw a man, in whom, though disguised, they were grieved to recognize the deputy-chief of the staff. At a signal from him, the door was opened; and a few seconds later, General Andréossi entered in the same manner. The interview lasted some hours, during which the disgusted Archduke, who could no longer doubt as to the treason of his subordinate, waited patiently before the house. At length the door opened, and General Andréossi came out with the Austrian general, meeting the Archduke full in face. He said aloud, 'Good evening, Mr. French Ambassador,' then disdaining to address any words of reproach to his deputy-chief of the staff, he merely turned a dark lantern on to him. But the aide-de-camp, less cautious, tapped the wretch on the shoulder, observing: 'Look at that infamous traitor, General So-and-so, who will be degraded tomorrow!' The ambassador slunk away without a word. As for the Austrian general, caught in flagranti delicto, and knowing what he had to expect, he went home and blew his brains out. The tragedy was studiously hushed up by the Austrian Government, and made little noise; it was given out that the deputy-chief of the staff had died from a sudden apoplectic seizure. He appears to have received two millions from the French ambassador.

One curious feature about Colonel Czernicheff's business was, that at the moment when Napoleon was complaining of the means employed by him to obtain the 'states' of our armies, General Lauriston, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, was buying, not only the most accurate information about the position and strength of the Russian army, but also the engraved copperplates from which the great map of the Russian Empire had been printed. In spite of the vast difficulties in the transport of this heavy mass of metal, the treason was so well arranged, and so handsomely paid for that these plates were abstracted from the archives of the Russian Government and carried into France without their disappearance being discovered, either by the police or by the customs officials. As soon as the plates reached Paris, the War Office, after substituting French for Russian characters in the names of places and rivers, had this fine map printed, and the Emperor ordered a copy to be sent to all the generals and commanders of light cavalry regiments. Thus I received one, which I succeeded, with some difficulty, in saving during the retreat, as it forms a large roll. The map contained all Russia; even Siberia and Kamschatka, which considerably amused those who received it. Very few brought theirs back, but I have got mine.