ted conception of this new method of government,
which was not known to them, makes them commit a hundred blunders,
either from want of skill or clumsiness. It is like taking the club
of Hercules to kill a fly, and during this useless exertion the most
important matters may escape them.

On leaving the circle of Lanzut, I still found as far as Leopol, the
capital of Gallicia, grenadiers placed from post to post to make
sure of my progress. I should have felt regret at making these brave
fellows thus lose their time, had it not been for the thought that
they were much better there, than with the unfortunate army
delivered by Austria to Napoleon. On arriving at Leopol, I found
again ancient Austria in the governor and commandant of the
province, who both received me with the greatest politeness, and
gave me, what I wished above every thing, an order for passing from
Austria into Russia. Such was the end of my residence in this
monarchy, which I had formerly seen powerful, just and upright. Her
alliance with Napoleon while it lasted, degraded her to the lowest
rank among nations. History will doubtless not forget that she has
shown herself very warlike in her long wars against France, and that
her last effort to resist Bonaparte was inspired by a national
enthusiasm worthy of all praise; but the sovereign of this country,
by yielding to his counsellors rather than to his own character, has
destroyed for ever that enthusiasm, by checking its ebullition. The
unfortunate men who perished on the plains of Essling and Wagram,
that there might still be an Austrian monarchy and a German people,
could have hardly expected that their companions in arms would be
fighting three years afterwards for the extension of Bonaparte's
empire to the borders of Asia, and that there might not be in the
whole of Europe, even a desert, where the objects of his
proscription, from kings to subjects, might find an asylum; for such
is the object, and the sole object, of the war excited by France
against Russia.

CHAPTER 10.

Arrival in Russia.

One had hardly been accustomed to consider Russia as the most free
state in Europe; but such is the weight of the yoke which the
Emperor of France has imposed upon all the Continental states, that
on arriving at last in a country where his tyranny can no longer
make itself felt, you fancy yourself in a republic. It was on the
14th of July that I made my entrance into Russia; this co-incidence
wi