"
But he did not offer to accompany them.
By half-past eleven the streets were full. The citizens knew their
governor, it seemed. He would not keep them waiting. Although Rapp
lacked that power of appealing to the imagination which has survived
Napoleon's death with such astounding vitality that it moves men's
minds to-day as surely as it did a hundred years ago, he was shrewd
enough to make use of his master's methods when such would seem to
serve his purpose. He was not going to creep into Dantzig like a
whipped dog into his kennel.
He had procured a horse at Elbing. Between that town and the
Mottlau he had halted to form his army into something like order, to
get together a staff with which to surround himself.
But the Dantzigers did not cheer. They stood and watched him in a
sullen silence as he rode across the bridge now known as the "Milk-
Can." His bridle was twisted round his arm, for all his fingers
were frostbitten. His nose and his ears were in the same plight,
and had been treated by a Polish barber who, indeed, effected a
cure. One eye was almost closed. His face was astonishingly red.
But he carried himself like a soldier, and faced the world with the
audacity that Napoleon taught to all his disciples.
Behind him rode a few staff officers, but the majority were on foot.
Some effort had been made to revive the faded uniforms. One or two
heroic souls had cast aside the fur cloaks to which they owed their
life, but the majority were broken men without spirit, without
pride--appealing only to pity.
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