'That will not be easy, Sire,' Roger said throughtfully. 'Can you suggest any means by which I might do so?'
It was Adam Czanoryski who replied. 'You may have been misled by what you have seen of the Polish people. My nation is divided. One half believes the vague promises of Bonaparte that, given their aid to defeat Russia, he will restore Poland's independence. The other half, which includes most of our noble families and intelligentsia, puts no faith in the half-promises of this self-made Emperor, who is known many times to have broken his word. They prefer to place their trust in His Imperial Majesty, who has assured them that, under the protection of Russia, he will grant Poland independent government. It should not be difficult for you to make the acquaintance of a number of Polish officers at present serving with the French; sound them out about their political views and, when you find one or more who are in arms against Russia only with reluctance, persuade them to desert at the first opportunity and bring with them any useful information you may have for us.'
Roger believed that he owed his life to the fact that, except on very few occasions when he had seen no alternative, he had never divulged to anyone that he was a secret agent; so he at once decided against adopting the Prince's suggestion. Nevertheless, he replied:
'That is certainly an idea worth exploring. But should favourable circumstances arise in which I can, without undue risk of being killed, allow myself to be captured again, that is what I will do; for I could then give you a far more complete picture of the situation of the French than I could convey through any messenger.'
The interview being over, Alexander extended his hand for Roger to kiss, and he bowed himself out from the Imperial presence, to be again escorted by the waiting Chernicheff back to his quarters.
A fortnight went by, during which time he had three more long talks with Prince Adam about the state of the French Army; but, except for these, he idled his time away reading French books, of which a great number were available in the Palace library.
It was on the morning of the last day in March, that Chemicheff greeted him with a cheerful smile and said,' 'Your exchange has been arranged. I have orders to escort you to a village on the Alle, a few miles above Allenstein, and there the exchange will take place.'
This meant a journey of some one hundred and ten miles, but the thaw had set in so, instead of a sleigh, they were able to go in a well-upholstered travelling coach, accompanied by outriders who acted as servants, and with a stock of provisions that were cooked for them whenever they decided to halt and have a meal. In most places the snow was melting fast and pouring away in thick, muddy streams to swell rivers and lakes; in others the remains of great drifts of it still formed solid ice mounds several feet in height, over which the coach had to be manhandled; so it was four days before they reached Allenstein, where they spent the night.
Early on the morning of the fifth, Roger said good-bye to Chcrnicheff and, at some peril, was ferried across the rushing river Alle, under a flag of truce. Waiting on the far bank was a Russian Colonel, who greeted him warmly. Shaking hands, they congratulated each other on their restoration to freedom; then the Russian boarded the ferry to rejoin his countrymen.
The French officer who received Roger told him that, after remaining in the neighbourhood of Eylau for a week, to establish his claim to victory, the Emperor had withdrawn beyond the river Passargc and the upper Alle, where the Army had since remained in winter quarters. Thorn, right back on the Vistula, had become the main base of the Army, but its headquarters were at Osterode, only some twenty miles away.
Furnished with a mount and an escort of four Hussars, Roger set out for Osterode, to learn, when he reached the town, that the Emperor was actually some distance away at the Castle of Finckenstein. On arriving there, he found it very different from Znamensk, which had not been much more than an old fortified manor house. Finckenstein was a vast, grim, battlemented pile, large enough to house several hundred people, and the central courtyard was crowded with mounted officers, and orderlies constantly coming and going.
On enquiring for the Due de Friuli, Roger was glad to learn that his old friend was there. In the days before the Empire, the Duc had been simply Colonel Duroc, Chief A.D.C. to Bonaparte. Then, when the Court had been formed, he had been made Grand Marshal of the Palace or, when on a campaign, Marechal de Camp; but Napoleon had several times sent him on missions as an Ambassador—a use to which he not infrequently put the more intelligent of his military staff.
Michel Duroc received Roger with open arms, listened with sympathy to his account of his misfortunes during the past two months, then brought him up to date with the situation of the French Army.
Eylau had proved an even greater disaster than Roger had supposed. Augereau's corps, losing direction in the blizzard and infiladed by the Russian guns, had been so torn to pieces that it had had to be disbanded and its survivors drafted to other units. Napoleon habitually understated the French casualties in the bulletins that he issued after every major battle. On this occasion he had stated them to be one thousand nine hundred killed and five thousand seven hundred wounded; but the fact was that the effectives had been reduced by nearly thirty thousand men, and the forty-five thousand remaining were in dire straits.
Meat was almost unprocurable and they were barely existing on a meagre ration of biscuits and root crops. Their uniforms were in rags, scores of them froze to death every night and, the front being fluid, they lived in constant fear of raids by the fierce Cossacks, since their own cavalry was incapable of protecting them, because their horses had been so weakened by semi-starvation that they could no longer be spurred into a gallop.
Amazed, Roger exclaimed, 'But it is totally unlike the Emperor to allow his army to fall into such a parlous state. Has he done nothing in these past two months to rectify matters?'
Duroc shrugged.'After Eylau, he sent a plenitpotentiary to Frederick William of Prussia, offering to restore a part of his territories and forgo his earlier demand that Prussia should become his ally against Russia. But the Czar succeeded in browbeating that miserable, irresolute monarch into refusing our overtures.
'Berthier or, as I suppose we should now call him, Marechal le Prince de Neuchatel, has since been working like a demon, calling up reserves from Poland, Bavaria, Saxony, the Rhine and has even blackmailed the Spaniards into sending a corps to retain Hanover for us, so that its French garrison can be brought up here. A new levy of eighty thousand men, or rather boys, has been ordered in France. It is the third within the past year and made eighteen months before these youngsters were due to be called up. Mortier, I mean the Duke of Treviso —I shall never get used to these new names—was recalled from keeping watch on the Swedish Army that is occupying Stralsund. A week ago, it took the offensive; so he is now marching his corps back to check its advance. Meanwhile Austria is again becoming restless and, should she join our enemies, could cut our communications with France.'
'What a picture,' said Roger, making a gloomy face. 'And what of England? I take it she has not been altogether idle during this propitious time to make a telling thrust at her implacable enemy?'
Duroc laughed. 'On the contrary, for the first time in years she has ceased to show her aggressive spirit. Our intelligence informed us that it was proposed to send an expeditionary force to support the Swedes in Stralsund. But she could muster no more than twelve thousand men, so thought it beneath her dignity to make such an insignificant contribution to the war against us on the Continent. It is said that the Czar is disgusted with her as an ally who will neither send him military aid, nor even a substantial subsidy to help pay his own troops. All England's present ineffectual Government have so far done this year is to send a fleet that forced the Dardanelles in February and appeared off Constantinople. Its object was to coerce the Sultan Selim into giving way in his dispute with Russia, so that the Czar would be in a position to withdraw many of his divisions from the Danube for use as reinforcements against us up here; and to dismiss our Ambassador, General Sebastiani. But Sebastiani has Selim so effectually under his thumb and the people of Constantinople were so enraged by the insolent demands of the English that, in a single day, they dragged a thousand cannon up to the Bosphorus, did the enemy fleet much damage and forced it to retire with ignominy.'