What then was required to give a favourable turn to our destinies? the most trifling event, before the Allies entered France, would have sufficed to enable us to conclude a peace on reasonable terms at Francfort; and, at a later period, when the enemy was already in our own territory, the slightest cause of uneasiness in his rear at the time of the heroic actions of Champaubert, Montmirail, Vauchamp, Craon, Monterau, would probably have determined the hasty retreat of the Allies, and insured our triumph, and perhaps their destruction. And, if the general who had thus dared to devote himself had failed in the attempt, it would not have been the worse for us, since we have ultimately fallen; and he, in the spirit of our national character, would have gained the reputation of a hero and rendered his name immortal.
Instead of this, about one hundred thousand men were lost to France, by tamely adhering to the letter of their instructions; a system which we had long since abandoned. But perhaps I speak inconsiderately and without due knowledge of the subject; perhaps local circumstances and objections of which I am totally ignorant might be adduced as conclusive answers against me; such as the health of the troops, the state of destitution in which they were; the non-reception of orders from the Emperor, who did endeavour to give some orders of that kind; the fear of deranging the main plan; the dread of incurring too great a responsibility, &c. But is it not rather that the source of these high conceptions, and the cause of their heroic execution, were to be found in Napoleon alone, and that where _he_ was not, as it may have been often observed, affairs were suffered to sink to the level of their ordinary course? Be that as it may, something of the kind was however suggested to the General commanding the army in Dantzick, at the time of the capitulation of that town. The idea came from an officer of inferior rank, it is true, but from one whose courage and intrepidity, and the success with which they had been crowned, entitled him perhaps to give such an opinion: it was Captain de Chambure, the leader of that renowned company of partisans which covered itself with glory during the siege. This company had been formed for that particular service, of one hundred picked men chosen out of the most notoriously intrepid, throughout all the corps of the army; it fulfilled, and even exceeded, all the expectations which it had raised; and the besiegers, struck with terror at its exploits, honoured it with the epithet of _infernal_. It would sometimes land at night in the rear of the Russian army, slaughter their sentinels, spike their guns, burn their magazines, destroy their parks, threaten the lives even of the generals, and return to the town through the enemies’ camp over the bodies of all who opposed its passage. These facts and several others are recorded in the general orders of that army.