heart entirely. Sometimes the snow sank beneath their feet, but more
frequently, its glassy surface refusing them support, they slipped at
every step, and tottered along from one fall to another. It seemed as
though this hostile soil were leagued against them; that it
treacherously escaped from under their efforts; that it was constantly
leading them into snares, as if to embarrass and retard their march, and
to deliver them up to the Russians in pursuit of them, or to their
terrible climate.
And, in truth, whenever, for a moment, they halted from exhaustion, the
winter, laying his icy hand upon them, was ready to seize his victims.
In vain did these unhappy creatures, feeling themselves benumbed, raise
themselves up, and, already deprived of the power of speech, and plunged
into a stupor, proceed a few steps like automatons: their blood froze
in their veins, like water in the current of rivulets, congealing the
heart, and then flying back to the head; and these dying men staggered
as if they had been intoxicated. From their eyes, reddened and inflamed
by the constant glare of the snow, by the want of sleep, and the smoke
of the bivouacs, there flowed real tears of blood; their bosoms heaved
with deep and heavy sighs; they looked towards heaven, at us, and on the
earth, with an eye dismayed, fixed, and wild, as expressive of their
farewell, and, it might be, of their reproaches against the barbarous
nature which was tormenting them. It was not long before they fell upon
their knees, and then upon their hands; their heads still slowly moved
for a few minutes alternately to the right and left, and from their open
mouths some sounds of agony escaped; at last, they fell flat upon the
snow, burying their faces in it, and their sufferings were at an end.
Their comrades passed by them without moving a step out of their way,
that they might not, by the slightest curve, prolong their journey, and
without even turning their heads; for their beards and hair were so
stiffened with ice that every movement was painful. Nor did they even
pity them; for, in fact, what had they lost by dying? what had they left
behind them? They suffered so much, they were still so far from France,
so much divested of all feelings of country by the surrounding prospect
and by misery, that every dear illusion was broken, and hope almost
destroyed. The greater number, therefore, had from necessity, from the
habit of seeing death constantly around them, and from the prevailing
feeling, become careless of dying, sometimes treating it with contempt;
but generally, on seeing these unfortunates stretched on the snow, and
instantly stiffened, contenting themselves with the thought that they
had no more wants, that they were at rest, that their sufferings were
over. And, indeed, death, in a situation quiet, certain, and uniform,
may be felt as a strange event, a frightful contrast, a terrible change;
but in this tumult, this violent and ceaseless movement of a life of
action, danger, and suffering, it appeared nothing more than a
transition, a slight alteration, an additional removal, which excited
little alarm.
Such were the last days of the Grand Army: its last nights were still
more frightful. Those whom they surprised marching together, far from
every habitation, halted on the borders of the woods: there they lighted
their fires, before which they remained the whole night, erect and
motionless like spectres. They seemed as if they could not possibly have
enough of the heat: they kept so close to it as to burn their clothes,
as well as the frozen parts of their body, which the fire decomposed.
The most dreadful pain then compelled them to stretch themselves on the
ground, and the next day they attempted in vain to rise.
In the meantime, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who
still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal.
It had consisted, ever since they left Smolensk, of some slices of
horseflesh broiled, and a little rye-meal made into a sort of gruel with
snow-water, or kneaded into paste, which they seasoned, for want of
salt, with the powder of their cartridges.
The sight of these fires was constantly attracting fresh spectres, who
were driven back by the first comers. These poor wretches wandered about
from one bivouac to another, until, struck by the frost and despair
together, and giving themselves up for lost, they laid themselves down
upon the snow behind their more fortunate comrades, and there expired.
Many of them, destitute of the means and the strength necessary to cut
down the lofty fir-trees, made vain attempts to set fire to them as they
were standing; but death speedily surprised them, and they might be seen
in every sort of attitude, stiff and lifeless about their trunks.
Under the vast sheds erected by the sides of the high road in some parts
of the way, scenes of still greater horror were witnessed. Officers and
soldiers all rushed precipitately into them, and crowded together in
heaps. There, like so many cattle, they pressed upon each other around
the fires, and as the living could not remove the dead from the circle,
they laid themselves down upon them, there to expire in their turn, and
serve as a bed of death to some fresh victims. In a short time
additional crowds of stragglers presented themselves, and, being unable
to penetrate into these asylums of suffering, they completely besieged
them.
It frequently happened that they demolished their walls, which were
formed of dry wood, in order to feed their fires: at other times,
repulsed and disheartened, they were contented to use them as shelters
to their bivouacs, the flames of which very soon communicated to the
buildings, and the soldiers who were within them, already half dead with
the cold, perished in the conflagration. Such of us as survived in these
places of shelter found our comrades the next morning lying frozen and
in heaps around their extinguished fires; while to escape from these
tombs effort was required to enable us to climb over the heaps of those
who were still breathing.
Yet this was the same army which had been formed from the most
civilized nation of Europe: that army, formerly so brilliant, which was
victorious over men to its last moment, and whose name still reigned in
so many conquered capitals. Its strongest and bravest warriors, who had
recently been proudly traversing so many scenes of their victories, had
lost their noble bearing: covered with rags, their feet naked and torn,
and supporting themselves with branches of fir, they dragged themselves
painfully along; and the strength and perseverance which they had
hitherto put forth in order to conquer, they now made use of only to
flee.
The army was in this last state of physical and moral distress when its
first fugitives reached Wilna. Wilna! their magazine, their centre of
supplies, the first rich and inhabited city which they had met with
since their entrance into Russia. Its name alone, and its proximity,
still supported the courage of a few.
On the 9th of December, the greatest part of these poor soldiers at last
arrived within sight of that capital. Instantly, some dragging
themselves along, others rushing forward, they all precipitated
themselves headlong into its suburbs, hurrying obstinately on, and
crowding together so fast that they formed but one mass of men, horses,
and chariots, motionless, and deprived of the power of motion.
The capital of Lithuania was still ignorant of our disasters, when, all
at once, forty thousand famished soldiers filled it with groans and
lamentations. At this unlooked-for sight, its inhabitants became alarmed
and shut their doors. Deplorable then was it to see these troops of
wretched wanderers in the streets, some furious and others despairing,
threatening or entreating, endeavoring to break open the doors of the
houses and the magazines, or dragging themselves to the hospitals.
Everywhere they were repulsed: at the magazines, from most unseasonable
formalities, as, from the dissolution of the corps and the mingling of
the soldiers, all regular distribution had become impossible.
There had been collected there sufficient flour and bread to last for
forty days, and butchers' meat for thirty-six days, for one hundred
thousand men. Not a single commander ventured to step forward and give
orders for giving out these provisions to all who came for them. The
commissaries who had them in charge were afraid of being made
responsible for them; and the others dreaded the excesses to which the
famished soldiers would give themselves up when everything was at their
discretion. These commissaries were, besides, ignorant of our desperate
situation; and when there was scarcely time for pillage, had they been
so inclined, our unfortunate comrades were left for several hours to die
of hunger at the very doors of these immense magazines, filled with
whatever they stood in need of, all of which fell into the enemy's hands
the following day.
At last, the exertions of several of the commanders, as Eugene and
Davoust, the compassion of the Lithuanians, and the avarice of the Jews,
opened some places of refuge. Nothing could be more remarkable than the
astonishment manifested by these unfortunate men at finding themselves
once more in inhabited houses. How delicious did a loaf of leavened
bread appear to them, and how inexpressible the pleasure of eating it
seated! and, afterward, with what admiration were they struck at seeing
a scanty battalion still under arms, in regular order, and uniformly
dressed! They seemed to have returned from the very extremities of the
earth, so much had the violence and persistency of their sufferings
wrested and torn them from all their habits, so deep had been the abyss
from which they had escaped!
But scarcely had they begun to taste these sweets, when the cannon of
the Russians were heard thundering over their heads and upon the city.
These menacing sounds, the shouts of the officers, the drums beating to
arms, and the wailings and clamor of an additional multitude of
fugitives which had just arrived, filled Wilna with fresh confusion.
Every one thought much more of disputing his life with famine and the
cold than with the enemy. But when the cry of "Here are the Cossacks"
was heard (which for a long time had been the only signal which the
greater number obeyed), it was instantly echoed through the whole city,
and the rout again began.
This city contained a large proportion of the baggage of the army, and
of its treasures, its provisions, a crowd of enormous wagons, loaded
with the emperor's equipage, a large quantity of artillery, and a large
number of wounded men. Our retreat had come upon them like an unexpected
tempest, almost like a thunderbolt. Some were terrified and thrown into
confusion, while consternation kept others motionless. Bearers of
orders, soldiers, horses, and carriages, were seen hurrying about in all
directions, crossing and overturning each other.
In the midst of this tumult, several of the commanders pushed forward
out of the city towards Kowno, with all the troops they could contrive
to muster; but at the distance of a league from the latter place this
heavy and frightened column encountered the height and the ravine of
Ponari.
During our conquering advance, this woody hillock had only appeared to
our soldiers a fortunate accident of the ground, from which they could
discover the whole plain of Wilna, and take a survey of their enemies.
Its rough but sharp declivity had then scarcely been remarked. During a
regular retreat, it would have presented an excellent position for
turning round and stopping the enemy; but in a disorderly flight, where
everything which, in other circumstances, might have been of service,
became injurious; where, in our precipitation and disorder, everything
was turned against us, this hill and its defile became an insurmountable
obstacle, a wall of ice, against which all our efforts were powerless.
It arrested everything, baggage, treasure, and wounded; and the evil was
sufficiently great, in this long series of disasters, to form an epoch.
Here, in fact, it was that money, honor, and all remains of discipline
and strength were completely lost. After fifteen hours of fruitless
effort, when the drivers and the soldiers of the escort saw the King of
Naples and the whole column of fugitives passing them by the sides of
the hill; when they heard the noise of the enemy's cannon and musketry
coming nearer and nearer every instant, and saw Ney himself retreating
with three thousand men; when, at last, turning their eyes upon
themselves, they beheld the hill completely covered with cannon and
carriages, broken or overturned, and men and horses fallen to the
ground, and expiring one upon the other--then it was that they gave up
all idea of saving anything, and determined only to anticipate the enemy
by becoming plunderers themselves.
One of the covered wagons of treasure, which burst of itself, served as
a signal; every one now rushed to the others; they were immediately
broken open, and the most valuable effects taken from them. The soldiers
of the rear guard, who were passing at the time of this disorder, threw
away their arms to join in the plunder; they became so eagerly engaged
in it as neither to hear, in fact, the whistling of the enemy's balls,
nor to pay the slightest attention to the howlings of the Cossacks, who
were at their heels.
It is even said that the Cossacks got mixed among them without being
observed; that for some minutes, French and Tartars were confounded in
the same greediness; forgetting they were at war, and pillaging together
the same treasure-wagons. Two millions of gold and silver then
disappeared.
But amid all these horrors there were noble acts of devotion. Those
there were who abandoned everything to save some of the unfortunate
wounded by carrying them on their shoulders; while others, unable to
extricate their half-frozen comrades from the throng, sacrificed their
lives in defending them either against their own countrymen, or from the
blows of their enemies.
On the most exposed part of the hill, an officer of the emperor, Colonel
the Count de Turenne, repulsed the Cossacks, and in defiance of their
cries of rage and their fire, he distributed before their eyes the
private treasure of Napoleon to the guards whom he found within his
reach. These brave men, fighting with one hand, and collecting the
spoils of their leader with the other, succeeded in saving them. Long
afterward, when they were out of all danger, each man faithfully
restored what had been intrusted to him. Not a single piece of money was
lost.
This catastrophe at Ponari was the more disgraceful, as it might easily
have been foreseen, and no less easily prevented: for the hill could
have been turned by its sides. The property we here abandoned, however,
was at least of some use by arresting the pursuit of the Cossacks. While
these were busy in collecting their plunder, Ney, at the head of a few
hundred French and Bavarians, supported the retreat as far as Eve. As
this was his last effort, we must not neglect to describe the close of
that retreat which he had continued uninterruptedly, and in the most
methodical manner, ever since he left Viazma on the 3d of November.
Sec. 24. Conclusion.
Finally Ney and his men arrived at Kowno, which was the last town of the
Russian empire. On the 13th of December, after marching forty-six days
under the most terrible sufferings, they once more came in sight of a
friendly country. Instantly, without halting, or looking behind them,
the greater part plunged into, and dispersed themselves in, the forests
of Prussian Poland. Some there were, however, who, on their arrival on
the friendly bank of the Niemen, turned round; and there, when they cast
a last look on that land of horrors from which they were escaping, and
found themselves on the same spot whence, five months before, their
countless eagles[179] had taken their victorious flight, tears gushed
from their eyes and they broke out into exclamations of the most
poignant sorrow.
"This, then, was the bank which they had studded with their bayonets!
this the allied country which had disappeared, only five months before,
under the steps of their immense army, and which then seemed to them to
be metamorphosed into moving hills and plains of men and horses! These
were the same valleys from which, under the rays of a brilliant sun, had
poured forth the three long columns of dragoons and cuirassiers,
resembling three rivers of glittering iron and brass. And now, men,
arms, eagles, horses, the sun itself, and even this frontier river,
which they had crossed replete with ardor and hope, had all disappeared.
The Niemen was now only a lengthened line of masses of ice, arrested and
chained to each other by the increasing severity of the winter. Instead
of the three French bridges, brought from a distance of five hundred
leagues, and thrown across it with such audacious promptitude, a Russian
bridge alone was standing. Finally, in place of those innumerable
warriors, of their four hundred thousand comrades, who had been so often
their partners in victory, and who had dashed onward with so much pride
and joy into the territory of Russia, they now saw issuing from these
pale and frozen deserts only a thousand infantry and horsemen still
under arms, nine cannon, and twenty thousand miserable wretches covered
with rags, with downcast looks, hollow eyes, cadaverous and livid
complexions, and long beards matted with frost; some disputing in
silence the narrow passage of the bridge, which, in spite of their small
numbers, did not suffice for the eagerness of their flight; others
fleeing dispersed over the rough ice of the river, toiling and dragging
themselves along from one point to another: this was the whole Grand
Army! and even many of these fugitives were recruits who had just joined
it!"
Two kings, one prince, eight marshals, followed by a few officers,
generals on foot, dispersed, and without attendants: finally, a few
hundred men of the Old Guard, still armed--these were the remains of
the Grand Army--these alone represented it!
Or rather, I should say, it still breathed only in Marshal Ney!
Comrades! allies! enemies! here I invoke your testimony; let us pay the
homage which is due to the memory of an unfortunate hero: the facts
alone will suffice.
All were flying, and Murat himself, traversing Kowno as he had done
Wilna, first gave, and then withdrew, an order, to rally at Tilsit, and
subsequently fixed upon Gumbinnen. Ney then entered Kowno, accompanied
only by his aids-de-camp, for all besides had given way or fallen around
him. From the time of his leaving Viazma, this was the fourth rear guard
which had been worn out and disappeared in his hands. But winter and
famine, far more than the Russians, had destroyed them. For the fourth
time he remained alone before the enemy, and, still undismayed, he
sought for a fifth rear guard.
Several thousand soldiers covered the market-place and the neighboring
streets; but they were laid out stiff before the liquor-shops which they
had broken open, and where they drank the cup of death, from which they
had vainly hoped they were to inhale fresh life.
Such were the only succors which Murat had left him; and Ney found
himself alone in Russia, with seven hundred foreign recruits. At Kowno,
as it had been after the disasters of Viazma, of Smolensk, of the
Berezina, and of Wilna, it was to him that the honor of our arms and all
the peril of the last steps of our retreat were again confided.
On the 14th, at daybreak, the Russians commenced their attack. One of
their columns made a hasty advance from the Wilna road, while another
crossed the Niemen on the ice above the town, landed on the Prussian
territory, and, proud of being the first to cross its frontier, marched
to the bridge of Kowno, to close that outlet upon Ney, and completely
cut off his retreat.
Ney, though abandoned by all, neither gave himself up nor his post.
After vain efforts to detain these fugitives, he collected their
muskets, which were still loaded, became once more a common soldier,
and, with only four others, kept facing thousands of the enemy. His
audacity stopped them; it made some of his artillerymen, too, ashamed,
and they imitated their marshal: besides it gave time to his aid-de-camp
and to General Gerard, to collect thirty soldiers, and to Generals Ledru
and Marchand to collect the only battalion which remained.
But at that moment a second attack of the Russians commenced on the
other side of the Niemen, and near the bridge of Kowno: it was then half
past two o'clock. Ney sent Ledru, Marchand, and their four hundred men
forward to retake and secure that passage. As for himself, without
giving way, or disquieting himself farther as to what was passing in his
rear, he kept on fighting at the head of his thirty men, and maintained
himself until night at the Wilna gate. He then traversed the town and
crossed the Niemen, constantly fighting, retreating, but never flying,
marching after all the others, supporting to the last moment the honor
of our arms, and for the hundredth time during the last forty days and
forty nights, putting his life and liberty in jeopardy to save a few
more Frenchmen. Finally, he was the last of the Grand Army that quitted
that fatal Russia, showing to the world how courage battles with ill
fortune, and proving that with heroes even the greatest disasters turn
to glory.[180]
General Dumas was seated in the French headquarters on the Prussian side
of the Niemen when a man entered wrapped in a long cloak. His face was
blackened with gunpowder, his hair singed with fire. "At last," said he,
"I am here." "But who are you?" asked General Dumas in astonishment. "I
am the rear guard of the Grand Army--I am Marshal Ney. I have fired the
last shot on the bridge of Kowno, I have thrown my musket into the
river, and I have walked here across the forest."
Napoleon had entered Russia with an army of over six hundred thousand
men. Not more than eighty thousand recrossed the Niemen, and many of
them did not live to reach their homes.[181]
Thus ended the Russian campaign. Thus did the star of the North triumph
over that of Napoleon.
Comrades, my task is done; it is now for you to bear your testimony to
the truth of the picture. Its colors will no doubt appear pale to your
eyes and to your hearts, which are still full of these great
recollections. But who does not know that an action is always more
eloquent than its description; and that, if great historians are
produced by great men, the former are still more rare than the latter?
FOOTNOTES:
[125] Namely, at Kowno, Pilony, south of Kowno, and Grodno, still
further south. At Kowno a monument bears the following inscription in
Russian: "In 1812 Russia was invaded by an army numbering 700,000 men.
The army recrossed the frontier numbering 70,000."
[126] See map facing p. 1. The upper dotted line represents the advance
to Moscow; the lower, the line of retreat from that city.
[127] =Moskwa=, =Kologa=: these and other Russian geographical names are
variously spelled.
[128] Count Segur was elected a member of the French Academy, and his
history of the retreat has not only passed through many editions in
France, but it has been translated into all the leading languages of
Europe.
[129] The history of Napoleon after the Russian retreat will form the
subject of a note at the close of Count Segur's narrative.
[130] =Moscow=: the ancient capital of Russia is situated on the Moskwa
river (a tributary of the Oka), from which the city derives its name. It
first appears in history in the middle of the twelfth century. It early
became the metropolis and seat of government, and continued so until a
short time after the founding of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, in
1703.
For centuries Moscow was both the political and religious centre of the
empire. Here the Czars were crowned, here they resided, here they were
buried. Here, too, the patriarch, or former head of the Russian church,
had his residence, amid cathedrals, monasteries, and shrines, which have
always been regarded with peculiar reverence.