The feelings of the Lithuanians were also ruffled by Napoleon's reply to the Polish deputies: nor were they consoled by his appointment of seven magnates to regulate the affairs of the districts of Lithuania, under the aegis of French commissioners, who proved to be the real governors.

Worst of all was the marauding of Napoleon's troops, who, after their long habituation to the imperial maxim that "war must support war," could not now see the need of enduring the pangs of hunger in order that Lithuanian enthusiasm might not cool.
[Illustration: COMPAIGN IN RUSSIA] Meanwhile the war had not progressed altogether as he desired.

His aim had been to conceal his advance across the Niemen, to surprise the two chief Russian armies while far separated, and thus to end the war on Lithuanian soil by a blow such as he had dealt at Friedland.

The Russian arrangements seemed to favour his plan.

Their two chief arrays, that led by the Czar and by General Barclay de Tolly, some 125,000 strong north of Vilna, and that of Prince Bagration mustering now about 45,000 effectives, in the province of Volhynia, were labouring to carry out the strategy devised by Phull.