DESIREE'S CHOICE.
Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown.
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
Rapp found himself in a stronghold which was strong in theory only.
For the frozen river formed the easiest possible approach, instead
of an insuperable barrier to the enemy. He had an army which was a
paper army only.
He had, according to official returns, thirty-five thousand men. In
reality a bare eight thousand could be collected to show a face to
the enemy. The rest were sick and wounded. There was no national
spirit among these men; they hardly had a language in common. For
they were men from Africa and Italy, from France, Germany, Poland,
Spain, and Holland. The majority of them were recruits, raw and of
poor physique. All were fugitives, flying before those dread
Cossacks whose "hurrah! hurrah!"--the Arabic "kill! kill!"--haunted
their fitful sleep at night. They came to Dantzig not to fight, but
to lie down and rest. They were the last of the great army--the
reinforcements dragged to the frontier which many of them had never
crossed. For those who had been to Moscow were few and far between.
The army of Moscow had perished at Malo-Jaroslavetz, at the
Beresina, in Smolensk and Vilna.
These fugitives had fled to Dantzig for safety; and Rapp in crossing
the bridge had made a grimace, for he saw that there was no safety
here.
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