38

Mid-March 1813

Anna entered the second floor bedchamber that had been her own as a child. “I sat in that window-seat often,” she told Barbara. “With my legs pulled up, just as yours are.”

Anna stared out the window, down the long, curving, poplar-lined drive.

When the Russians had occupied Warsaw in February of 1813, establishing the duchy as a Tsarist protectorate, she had taken her daughter back to their home at Sochaczew. There was nothing in the capital but danger and a sense of doom. And on 13 March, Prussia had declared war on France. The omens looked bad for Napoléon, but they could go worse, for the question remained whether Austria—with Napoléon’s father-in-law on the throne—would join the allies against the French.

“What are you thinking?” Barbara asked.

“Thinking?”

“Your eyes, Mama, they became so distant for a moment.”

“Oh? I was looking down the drive and thinking how I was sitting where you are now when they brought my father’s body back in the back of a wagon. It was a terrible day. The first of many terrible days.”

“You said once you would tell me things when I was old enough. Am I old enough now? Will you tell me, Mama?”

Anna sighed. “Yes, Basia, I will tell you now.” Anna sat down opposite her daughter in the window-seat and took the better part of an hour telling her about the deaths of her parents, her rape, the arranged marriage to a man who tried to kill her—and through it all, her enduring loved for Jan Stelnicki.

“And so you always loved Papa?”

“Always.”

“That part is a lovely story, Mama.”

“Lovely? Yes, I suppose so. But not always happy. Basia, he’s at war—again.”

“But he’ll come back—you said so! Don’t you believe it?”

“Yes, of course, I do, dearest.”

“He will—and so will Michał!” Barbara scooted down and pressed up to her mother, her arm moving around her shoulders, her lips brushing her forehead. For the moment, daughter had taken on the role of mother. Then Barbara’s other hand gently caressed Anna’s slightly rounded belly. “You’re happy about this, aren’t you?”

Anna stood. “Yes, Basia, I am.”

“Do you wish a boy or a girl?”

“A girl,” Anna answered, tweaking her daughter’s cheek. “One just like you.”

They heard a rustling on the roof, and Anna laughed.

“Is that— ?” Barbara asked.

“It is!” Anna laughed. “The storks have come home!”

Late that night, a fire in the reception room grate cut the April nighttime chill. Anna sat staring at the family weapons placed upon the wall above the hearth. Paradoxically, these instruments of violence and the books making up a little library were symbolic components in homes of the szlachta everywhere.

Anna would prefer a girl. She had already given one boy over to the ceaseless machine of war. She vowed to go to hell herself before surrendering another.

She thought about her Tadek, the beautiful little baby that so resembled Jan. She thought about the wonder in his blue, blue eyes as he grew. It was still there the day he and Jan Michał marched out of Warsaw, their souls afire for the French emperor and the implied independence of the old Commonwealth.

They were children—what did they know? What did anyone know? And whatever hopes the Brotherhood had had for Tadeusz—that was all gone now, washed away like wishes written in the sand. Somehow she had never thought their schemes of placing Tadek on the throne would amount to much, so it was only her little boy that she mourned. Only Tadek.

As unhappy as Poles had been with the little Duchy of Warsaw, thoughts of it now gave way to melancholy longing. With the advance of the Russians, Prince Poniatowski had taken his men to Kraków. Lord Potocki told how the tsar made an overture to Poniatowski that if he would change sides, he would have the throne in a Russian-ruled Poland. It was more than thirty pieces of silver, but less than what it would take for him to go against his sense of honor and military discipline. Only Napoléon had taken on Poland’s longtime enemies, and—win or lose—Poniatowski was part of Napoléon’s Grande Armée. He and his unit would remain so. It was the Polish way.

Anna had not discouraged Jan from going. She knew she could not hold him. On the day Jan had left, he showed to Anna documents relating to the disposition of her estate which was situated in a part of Poland that had been annexed to Prussia in 1795. Anna insisted on perusing them at once and it took little time for her to discover the huge amount of money Jan had paid the scoundrel Doliński and the Prussian treasury over the years in order to hold onto Topolostan.

“Your family money, Jan!” she rasped. “It’s all gone?”

“Not all,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And it is our family money, Anna.”

She nodded. “Just as Topolostan is ours, Jan.—You never said a word!”

“I’m sorry, Ania. There should be no secrets between man and wife.”

Anna thought her heart would break—for the secret that he had kept—and the one she still held.

“You’re crying, Anna,” Jan said. “I’m sorry to have kept this from you.”

Anna gave a shake of her head. “No, it’s not that.—Jan, I’ve been living with a secret, too.”

“What—what is it?”

“It was I, Jan—I who killed Doliński. I did it!”

Jan took her face into his hands, and what seemed a smile formed on his lips. “I know,” he said. “Just desserts, no?”

“You know?”

He nodded. “And that Jan Michał killed Feliks Paduch, the man responsible for your father’s death.”

“But—how could you know?”

“Jan Michał told me.”

“Michał?—He confided in you?”

“He did—and why not? I’m his father, yes?”

“Yes,” Anna said, dizzy, her heart was too full to say more. It was at that moment that her old worry that Jan had not truly accepted Jan Michał as his own son vanished.

“Don’t worry, Anna,” he said, his arm encircling her at her waist and his mouth going to her ear. “I’ll bring Michał back home.”

“Bring him back if you can, Jan,” Anna said, kissing him. “But come back to me. Come back to me, do you hear?”

She sent him off dry-eyed and with a smile on her face.

Nuremburg

April 1813

 

“My God, Jan,” Paweł said, “to see you in uniform again—well, I can scarcely believe it!”

Jan laughed. He saw the amazement on Paweł’s face, felt it in the powerful bear hug. “Now don’t go thinking I’ve changed my mind about the little Corsican.”

“Oh, I don’t expect that. I know you’re here for Jan Michał.”

“Yes. And for Tadek, too, you know. I need to unhorse a few in his memory.”

“Still a soldier, you are.”

Jan shrugged. “Once a soldier, always a soldier, isn’t that what they say?”

“There’s truth in it, too. You came with Poniatowski from Kraków? Any engagements?”

“None. Not a skirmish. Has Napoléon come back from France?”

“He’s due any day now.”

“How’s Michał?”

“Good! He’ll be so glad to see you.” Paweł’s face darkened. “You can’t imagine what he and Tadek went through in the retreat to Wilno. He stood by his brother every step of the way in weather that seldom rose above zero. And Tadek almost made it, too, Jan. Near the end, in Wilno when he knew he wasn’t going to—my God, how he cursed the fact that he was dying in a hospital and not on the battlefield.”

“I imagine it crushed his spirit.”

“It did. I had to remind him his wound occurred on the field. Thousands like him died just from the cold or typhus. I made certain he was given the cross of the Legion of Honor for his bravery. He insisted on sitting up in bed for the little ceremony even though the end was just a few hours away. Jan, your boy died peacefully.”

“He died a man,” Jan said, wiping at his eye.

“He did, indeed.”

“Now, where is Jan Michał?”

Minutes later, Jan was walking toward the campsite of the Young Guard. It did feel good to be in uniform again. His blood seemed to travel through his body at an accelerated rate. Poniatowski had welcomed him back into the fold with a genuine warmth and enthusiasm. Jan had brought to the effort a hundred horses he had raised at Sochaczew. These Polish-Arabians, smaller than the Grande Armée’s horses, were easy to maneuver—and very welcome, for the shortage of horses had been more difficult for Napoléon to remedy than the shortage of men.

Poniatowski was to take the remnants of the Fifth Corps and piece them together with the remnants of several other legions, incorporating them into the Eighth Corps. Here was a man who had served as an Austrian general, received Prussian decorations, and acted as Poland’s Minister of War under Russia’s overview. If he saw Poland’s future with France, turning down Aleksandr’s bribe of a crown in the process, Jan would do no differently.

Jan observed Michał standing in a small, lively cluster of the Young Guard. “Michał!” Jan called, waving. Jan Michał, in the midst of some story or joke looked up with a jerk. His eyes narrowed and his mouth dropped a little. He abruptly left his friends and ran the thirty paces to his step-father.

For a long moment they stood vis à vis, silent as stones. The look of shock on Jan Michał’s face seemed to shift into one of awkwardness. Finally, as if at a loss what to do, he saluted his father. Jan did not return the salute. He laughed instead, and pulled his son into his arms.

After a while, he could feel Michał trembling against him. “I tried to watch out for Tadek, Papa,” Michał choked out. “I did try.”

Jan could feel on his neck the wetness of Michał’s tears. He thought his own heart would break. He struggled—unsuccessfully—to hold back his own flood of tears. “I know you did your best, Michał. I know.”

On the last day of April, Napoléon rejoined the Grande Armée. His strategy, Paweł learned, was to move on Dresden by way of Leipzig, retake Gdańsk and push the enemy behind the River Vistula. He wasted no time, staging a victory at Weissenfeld on 1 May. There the emperor lost an old comrade, Marshal Bessières, who was struck by a cannonball. Napoléon took it badly.

The next day fighting accelerated at Lutzen as the emperor set his green recruits upon the Russian veterans. By mid-afternoon, the tide had so turned against the French that Napoléon boldly rode to the front, barking out orders, adjusting plans, shoring up spirits. A series of maneuvers then brought a reversal of fortune, and both the Young Guard and Old were moved to the front. The enemy allies’ line cracked and broke.

Only the French shortage of horses prevented the fullest victory. Nonetheless, it was a victory and Napoléon seemed to everyone a prodigy once again.

The French wasted no time in pursuing the retreating enemy cavalry and artillery. During the march to Dresden, Paweł witnessed constant skirmishes between their advance guard and the rearguard of the enemy. They entered Dresden on 8 May and on the eighteenth left for Bautzen, reaching it the same day. It was there that news filtered down through the ranks that the King of Saxony had stopped dithering and joined the French side, providing fresh troops. On the twentieth, Napoléon drew up his forces against the Prussians and Russians at Bautzen, and by nightfall they had control of the town.

The following day, however, the French found that the allies fought with what Napoléon called a fanaticism. The day-long battle was protracted and brutal. It was only by sending in his last-ditch Guard at the end of the day that the allies withdrew. The French lost twenty thousand and estimated the allies’ losses as just as many.

The French followed the allies the next day and a confrontation at Reichenbach took another of Napoléon’s best loved and trusted men. General Christophe Duroc, Napoléon’s greatest friend, was struck in the middle by a ricocheting cannonball. He died with doctors standing helplessly by, the victim himself apologizing to the emperor—who had maintained an all-night vigil—that his service had come to an end. “Napoléon has lost most of his best generals,” Paweł told Jan. “And yet three of his worst—MacDonald, Soult, and Ney—go on, often misunderstanding or outright disobeying orders.”

Napoléon called off the pursuit and accepted an offer from Austria to negotiate terms. A truce ensued. Because his Austrian wife, Maria-Louise, was French regent, the emperor trusted in the neutrality of the mediator. Surely her father would not move against his daughter who ruled France in her husband’s stead.

Still, well out of earshot of the emperor, officers argued the subject. Many, like Jan and Paweł, found the current struggle between the French-led forces and the Russian-led allies an even one. Should Austria discard her neutrality and throw her support behind one or the other, however, it would make all the difference.

Just days after the truce was established, Jan learned that an old friend and longtime lancer, Dezydery Chlapowski, had asked to be discharged. Jan found him in his tent making preparations to leave. “What is it? This isn’t like you.”

The man sat on his cot. He didn’t look up from some papers he was organizing and gave no answer. He seemed thoroughly depressed.

“Your family in Poznań?” Jan pressed. “Is that it?”

Dezydery shrugged. “No.”

“Then what is it? Why can’t you say?”

“Jan, my reason needs to remain confidential.”

“Then you may swear me to it. I swear, Chlapowski. I swear by the Black Madonna.”

“Very well.” Dezydery sighed. “I escorted General Caulaincort for the negotiations of this truce. While he was in consultation with the enemy’s representatives, the emperor’s secretary, Baron Fain, showed me terms that Napoléon had dictated.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Oh, Fain has seen me for so many years as part of the guard that he has come to think of me as French rather than Polish.”

“I see.—And the terms?”

Dezydery looked up at Jan, eye-to-eye for the first time. His face had become empurpled, his tone deliberately restrained. “There, Jan, at the very beginning of concessions he would make to Aleksandr—at the very beginning!—was the Duchy of Warsaw!”

“Good God, man! You’re certain?”

“I saw it myself, Jan! We’re to be the first sold down the goddamn river!”

Stunned, Jan watched his friend pull the paperwork and letters together and place them in a satchel.

“I’ve served that man since I was scarcely more than a boy, Jan!” Dezydery said, his voice low and cracking. “It’s been my life. My life! And to find it worth nothing at all. Nothing!”

“What will you do, my friend? Poznań is occupied.”

Dezydery stood. “I’ll go to Paris—and then maybe England. I just know I’d rather dig ditches than see that man again. You know they say he had a grand strategy for Europe. He had no strategy! He’s good at tactics, that’s all.”

Jan walked over and hugged his old friend. “Godspeed, Dezydery. May we meet again one day.”

Dezydery held Jan at arm’s length. “And what about you, Jan, now that you know?”

“Me?” Jan asked, giving a tortured little smile. “For me it’s different, my friend. I haven’t believed in the little Corsican for some years. I don’t know that I ever did.”

Jan left the tent, his head down. He would keep the news to himself, as he had sworn. He would not even tell Paweł, who served north of Leipzig, in Dąbrowski’s division. To what end? Jan thought. Paweł had regarded the emperor as a demi-god for too long.

In later years, the events leading up to the Battle of Leipzig would become a blur in the memory of its survivors. While Napoléon longed for one decisive battle that would tell the tale, his allied enemies played tag and run, teasing and taunting him, causing him to move his armies from one place to another, wearing his soldiers down, bit by bit. Skirmish warfare became a day-to-day thing. His army soon became exhausted and hungry. Their uniforms were reduced to tatters, and some soldiers even went bootless.

News coming into camp worsened. Bavaria defected from the French, and her army went to strengthen the allies. In Spain, Napoléon’s forces were beaten back by the English under Wellington. It seemed all of Europe was aligning itself against the little emperor. Nonetheless, Napoléon held fast to the idea that his was the new order of things, one favoring the rights of man, as opposed to the old order and the privileges of a few. To hear him tell it, one great battle was all that was needed to turn the tide.

Prince Murat deployed Poniatowski’s Eighth Corps, as well as the forces of Generals Victor and Lauriston, to guard the south and southeast perimeters of Leipzig. On 14 October, Russian forces under General Wittgenstein came against the French in six powerful waves, each one beaten back by courageous cavalry charges. Despite the years, Jan fought much as he had as a young man, staying as close to his son as possible without being too conspicuous. While Tadek had been a perfect reflection of Jan’s light eyes and complexion, Michał’s appearance was very different since he carried in his blood certain darker Tatar traits. Nonetheless, Jan saw his younger self in Michał—in his vigor and horsemanship and prowess with the saber.

After that battle and all battles in which they partook, neither father nor son spoke to the other of lives they had taken. There was no counting, no boasting. The killing was something they stored away in their memories, not to be visited willingly. Jan was just glad that they both lived to see another day.

The battle for Leipzig was in no way finished, but the Eighth Corps so impressed Napoléon with that day’s fighting—despite significant Polish losses—that in a makeshift ceremony on the putrid and body-littered battlefield, he presented Prince Józef Poniatowski with a marshal’s baton. He was the only non-French officer ever so honored. Among the able-bodied and wounded Poles alike, chests were swollen and eyes moist with pride. Even Jan—who had had his fill of war and killing and Napoléon—found himself wiping at his eyes.

In the early morning hours of 16 October, Napoléon’s one decisive battle came to him. The enemy allies attacked, their plan—it was clear—to outflank the French right that was defended by Prince Murat and Generals Victor, Lauriston, and Poniatowski.

Two hundred enemy cannon—followed by massive columns of soldiers—descended six times in all, each time beaten back by Murat, each time suffering ten times more casualties than the French. By night Jan learned that elsewhere on the Leipzig battlefield the French had held—but at the cost of twenty-five thousand men.

The seventeenth passed without fighting. A small Saxon force and General Bernadotte’s command of seventy thousand bolstered the French, but reinforcements were being welcomed into the Russian camp, too, starting with General Bennigsen and his estimated forty thousand troops. On the eighteenth, it was the enemy again that initiated the attack on the right flank. Employing French artillery to the fullest, Murat’s generals held off the allies, triumphing by the end of the day. Late into the night, however, word filtered down that 220,000 rounds of artillery had been sacrificed to the little victory. There remained a scant sixteen thousand rounds, or enough for a two-hour battle. Napoléon ordered an immediate and full retreat westward to the nearest ammunition depot at Erfurt.

To reach the first town along the way, Lindenau, some six bridges had to be crossed, necessitating troops to march in narrow files. Just the same, by the early morning hours of the nineteenth, two thirds of the Grande Armée had evacuated Leipzig. Generals MacDonald, Lauriston, and Poniatowski served as rearguard during the operation.

The morning light, however, made Napoléon’s intentions clear to the allies, and they came down in force upon the rearguard. Jan kept one eye on Michał as cavalry battled cavalry. The Poniatowski force purposely yielded ground as the tail of the Grande Armée moved toward the main bridge between Leipzig and Lindenau. Jan knew that the bridge had been laid with mines the night before, and that once the last of the rearguard passed over it, Napoléon’s engineers would send it sky high, effectively leaving the allies on the wrong side of the River Elster.

But long before the crossing could be completed, an explosion rang so loudly in Jan’s ears that he faltered for a moment and beat back the thrust of a Russian’s saber only at the last moment. After he had dispatched the enemy, he turned to look toward the bridge. Of course, he knew what he would see.

With at least ten thousand soldiers and hundreds of wagons yet to cross, the bridge had been destroyed. Why had it been blown to pieces so prematurely? Those unhappy souls who had been unable to cross would likely be slashed to ribbons.

Chaos ensued as the French forces tallied the situation and made for the river’s bank. The allies gave no respite and began to close in, killing as they went.

Jan found Michał at the river. They both quickly sized up the situation. The bank was steep and slippery, a pitfall for the horses. While the river was not particularly wide, they could see that the current’s power was deadly. The roiling water pulled at the broken timbers of the bridge, making short work of ripping them free and sending them on their way. Jan looked about for Poniatowski. In the confusion he found no sign of the general. The choices were clear to both father and son. If they stayed and fought, they would die. If they stayed and laid down their arms, they might be spared, in which case they would spend the rest of the war as prisoners. If they attempted to cross the river, the risks were high.

Already, hundreds of their comrades had made their decisions, choosing the river over capture. Horses and men slipped down the bank and into the water. In the moments that Jan and Michał watched, it seemed that for every soldier that held his own in the water—mounted or not—another was carried away by the river. One faltering horse could take with it several other horses and soldiers.

To the rear Jan could see the allies descending in a swarm, shooting and slicing their way. He knew that every moment he and his son hesitated could be their last. Michał nodded to his father. Their thoughts were the same, it seemed, words unnecessary. The two directed their horses down the bank and into the icy cold water.

In no time water was washing over the horses’ manes. “Hold tight to your mount, Michał!” Jan called. “And keep your head down and your sights forward. Only forward!”

It was at that moment that Jan felt a stinging sensation. His hand went to his neck and came away bloody. He had been hit by carbine fire. While he had suffered his share of lance and saber wounds, he had never been hit by gunfire. Dumb Russian luck, he thought, for the aim of guns fired from horseback was notoriously bad.

“Papa!”

Jan looked up ahead at Michał, whose horror-stricken face registered the sight of the wound.

“Papa!” Michał called, reaching out to Jan. “Give me the reins!”

“No!” Jan called. “I’m fine! Forward, Michał. Go forward. I’ll make it before you!”

As a competition, however, progress was painfully slow, hampered not only by the strong current but also by the bodies of horses and soldiers being washed away. For once Jan wished for a horse larger than his Polish-Arabian. What seemed half an hour passed.

One man tried to save himself by fastening onto Jan’s horse’s neck. By this time Jan could offer the man no aid. He knew by his own failing strength that he had lost a great deal of blood. He had no choice but to force the man to release his grip. The man fell back into the river and disappeared.

They were at the middle—and deepest—part of the river now. He put his head to the side of the horse’s neck, hugging her mane much as he had done as a child, whispering for it to go on.

He felt another sting at his right shoulder. For a moment his eyes focused on the water rushing past him, crimson with blood. He had no doubt that the allies had dismounted by now and were picking off their targets like fat fish in a pool.

His horse had been hit, too. He felt it falter beneath him, falter and lose its footing. He knew enough to get his boots out of the stirrups so as not to be swept under and away. In what seemed like moments, the horse was gone and he found himself attempting to stay afloat, attempting to avoid objects and bodies that relentlessly rushed at him through the churning current.

In time his diminishing strength fell away altogether. He prayed now, not for his own life, for he was accepting of his death, but he prayed for his son Jan Michał. That he would live and make it back to his mother at Sochaczew.

Anna, he thought, my beautiful Anna Maria! Forgive me.

On the previous day, the eighteenth, Paweł had stood with Dąbrowski to the north of Leipzig. Their orders were to hold the suburb of Halle. It was every bit as important as the bridge over the River Elster, for it provided a narrow passage through which the Grande Armée had to pass in its retreat from Leipzig. Despite Dąbrowski’s reputation, the task was a risky one because his division had been reduced to a handful of cavalry, a mere sixteen hundred infantry and six cannon.

At 9:00 a.m. Prussians attacked, and an hour later the Russians joined in the attack. From horseback, Paweł was speaking to Dąbrowski about maneuvers when Gourgaud, one of Napoléon’s aides, rode up to inquire about the defense of the gate. Dąbrowski brusquely told him that each Pole would sacrifice his life before giving over the Halle Gate—and cantered off.

Gourgard shot Paweł a questioning glance. Paweł shrugged. “I think that Dąbrowski got his back up over your inquiry. Polish pride, you see.”

“Ah—what are the chances then, Paweł?”

“We have a small company manning the gate,” Paweł said, “but, realistically, without further reinforcements—it’s two to one, and I doubt we can hold it.”

Gourgard’s lips thinned and, thanking Paweł, the aide cantered off.

Within an hour, two divisions were sent in, and with their considerable support, the Polish forces held until night fell and the battle ended.

It wasn’t until late into the evening of the nineteenth that Paweł learned of the tragic events that took place at the bridge over the River Elster. Napoléon’s engineers had rigged the bridge to explode once the rearguard had passed over it. He placed responsibility for the premature ignition order to a colonel who, in turn, passed on the task to a corporal. As the fighting between the allies and the French rearguard moved nearer and nearer the bridge, the chaos caused the corporal to panic—and he ordered the fuses lighted.

Along with important wagons full of supplies and the wounded, some twelve thousand men had not made it across. Resisting capture, many of those men drowned—or were shot.

With tears in his eyes, Dąbrowski told Paweł the worst—that Prince Jósef Poniatowski was among the dead. A strange weakness came over Paweł at the news.

“He was attempting to cross the Elster,” Dąbrowski said. “The enemy fire on those attempting to evade capture was unrelenting. One of his men said that before entering the water he refused to surrender and called out something about duty and honor and that he had already stared Death in the eye.” Dąbrowski paused, drawing in his breath. “And then, midstream, he was hit by a hail of bullets. He slipped from his horse and the strong Elster current took him.”

“May God take his soul,” Paweł said.

“They say a Hungarian gypsy once told him that he was to beware of magpies.”

A little chill ran along Paweł’s spine. Elster was the German word for magpie. He had no time to dwell on Poniatowski’s bad fortune. Something else pulled mightily at his heart. Paweł felt certain that Jan and Michał would have attempted the crossing. He hurried now to search among the survivors for the two, praying as he went.