The emperor slept in his tent in advance of Rassasna; next day the army marched together, ready to draw up in order of battle, with the emperor on horseback in the midst of it.  The advanced guard drove before it two pulks of cossacks, who resisted only till they had gained time to destroy some bridges and some trusses of forage.  The villages deserted by the enemy were plundered as soon as we entered them:  we passed them in all possible haste and in disorder.

The streams were crossed by fords which were soon spoiled; the regiments which came afterwards passed over in other places, wherever they could.  No one gave himself much concern about such details, which were neglected by the general staff:  no person was left to point out the danger, where there was any, or the road, if there were several.  Each corps d’armee seemed to be there for itself alone, each division, each individual to be unconnected with the rest; as if the fate of one had not depended on that of the other.

The army every where left stragglers behind it, and men who had lost their way, whom the officers passed without noticing; there would have been too many to find fault with; and besides, each was too much occupied with himself to attend to others.  Many of these men were marauders, who feigned illness or a wound, to separate from the rest, which there was not time to prevent, and which will always be the case in large armies, that are urged forward with such precipitation, as individual order cannot exist in the midst of general disorder.

As far as Liady the villages appeared to us to be more Jewish than Polish; the Lithuanians sometimes fled at our approach; the Jews always remained; nothing could have induced them to forsake their wretched habitations; they might be known by their thick pronunciation, their voluble and hasty way of speaking, the vivacity of their motions, and their complexion, animated by the base passion of lucre.  We noticed in particular their eager and piercing looks, their faces and features lengthened out into acute points, which a malicious and perfidious smile cannot widen; their tall, slim, and supple form; the earnestness of their demeanour, and lastly, their beards, usually red, and their long black robes, tightened round their loins by a leather girdle; for every thing but their filthiness distinguishes them from the Lithuanian peasants; every thing about them bespeaks a degraded people.

They seem to have conquered Poland, where they swarm, and the whole substance of which they extract.  Formerly their religion, at present the sense of a reprobation too long universal, have made them the enemies of mankind; of old they attacked with arms, at present by cunning.  This race is abhorred by the Russians, perhaps on account of its enmity to image-worship, while the Muscovites carry their adoration of images to idolatry.  Finally, whether from superstition or rivalry of interests, they have forbidden them their country:  the Jews were obliged to put up with their contempt, which their impotence repaid with hatred; but they detested our pillage still more.  Enemies of all, spies to both armies, they sold one to the other from resentment or fear, according to occasion, and because there is nothing that they would not sell.