Liveblogging Napoleon's Russian Invasion: Again the Russians Slip Away

Raimond-Emery-Philippe-Josephe de Montesquiou, Duke of Fezensac, born in 1784 into a distinguished French noble family, entered the army in 1807 and participated in all of Napoleon's major campaigns. He continued in service after the Restoration and died in 1867, a lieutenant general. He published his journal in 1849. Here he remembers the July days after Napoleon has failed to achieve a confrontation with the Russians at Vilna:

[In] three brilliant engagements ... Osrtrovno had been seized and the Russian army driven from one position after another up to the walls of Vitebsk. I crossed the battlefields which were still covered with the debris of these three battles and arrived at headquarters on the evening of the 26th ...

Thr army was camped in order of battle opposite the Russian army, separated from it by a stream called the Luchosa; the Emperor's tents were pitched on a height near the center. I spent the evening recounting my mission and listening in turn to an account of the engagements that just been fought. I was pleased to hear that several aides-de-camp of the Price Neuchâtel had distinguished themselves, and that the fine conduct of the troops promised even greater successes when the occasion presented itself. We were expecting a general engagement the next morning: great was our surprise when we saw at daybreak that the enemy had withdrawn.

--M. de Fezensac, The Russian Campaign 1812, 16 (U Georgia 1970)