A melancholy spectacle added to the gloomy presentiments of our chief.

The army had ever since the preceding day been pouring out of Moscow

without intermission. In this column of one hundred and forty thousand

men and about fifty thousand horses of all kinds, a hundred thousand

combatants marching at the head with their knapsacks, their arms,

upwards of five hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and two thousand

artillery-waggons, still exhibited a formidable appearance, worthy of

soldiers who had conquered the world. But the rest, in an alarming

proportion, resembled a horde of Tartars after a successful invasion. It

consisted of three or four files of infinite length, in which there was

a mixture, a confusion of chaises, ammunition waggons, handsome

carriages, and vehicles of every kind. Here trophies of Russian,

Turkish, and Persian colours, and the gigantic cross of Ivan the

Great--there, long-bearded Russian peasants carrying or driving along

our booty, of which they constituted a part: others dragging even

wheelbarrows filled with whatever they could remove. The fools were not

likely to proceed in this manner till the conclusion of the first day:

their senseless avidity made them think nothing of battles and a march

of eight hundred leagues.

In these followers of the army were particularly remarked a multitude of

men of all nations, without uniform and without arms, and servants

swearing in every language, and urging by dint of shouts and blows the

progress of elegant carriages, drawn by pigmy horses harnessed with

ropes. They were filled with provisions, or with the booty saved from

the flames. They carried also French women with their children. Formerly

these females were happy inhabitants of Moscow; they now fled from the

hatred of the Muscovites, which the invasion had drawn upon their heads;

the army was their only asylum.

A few Russian girls, voluntary captives, also followed. It looked like a

caravan, a wandering nation, or rather one of those armies of antiquity

returning loaded with slaves and spoil after a great devastation. It was

inconceivable how the head of this column could draw and support such a

heavy mass of equipages in so long a route.

Notwithstanding the width of the road and the shouts of his escort,

Napoleon had great difficulty to obtain a passage through this immense

throng. No doubt the obstruction of a defile, a few forced marches and a

handful of Cossacks, would have been sufficient to rid us of all this

incumbrance: but fortune or the enemy had alone a right to lighten us in

this manner. As for the Emperor, he was fully sensible that he could

neither deprive his soldiers of this fruit of so many toils, nor

reproach them for securing it. Besides, the provisions concealed the

booty, and could he, who could not give his troops the subsistence which

he ought to have done, forbid their carrying it along with them? Lastly,

in failure of military conveyances, these vehicles would be the only

means of preservation for the sick and wounded.

Napoleon, therefore, extricated himself in silence from the immense

train which he drew after him, and advanced on the old road leading to

Kalouga. He pushed on in this direction for some hours, declaring that

he should go and beat Kutusoff on the very field of his victory. But all

at once, about mid-day, opposite to the castle of Krasnopachra, where he

halted, he suddenly turned to the right with his army, and in three

marches across the country gained the new road to Kalouga.

The rain, which overtook him in the midst of this manoeuvre, spoiled

the cross-roads, and obliged him to halt in them. This was a most

unfortunate circumstance. It was not without difficulty that our cannon

were drawn out of the sloughs.

At any rate the Emperor had masked his movement by Ney's corps and the

relics of Murat's cavalry, which had remained behind the Motscha and at

Woronowo. Kutusoff, deceived by this feint, was still waiting for the

grand army on the old road, whilst on the 23rd of October, the whole of

it, transferred to the new one, had but one march to make in order to

pass quietly by him, and to get between him and Kalouga.

A letter from Berthier to Kutusoff, dated the first day of this flanking

march, was at once a last attempt at peace, and perhaps a _ruse de

guerre_. No satisfactory answer was returned to it.

CHAP. II.

On the 23rd the imperial quarters were at Borowsk. That night was an

agreeable one for the Emperor: he was informed that at six in the

evening Delzons and his division had, four leagues in advance of him,

found Malo-Yaroslawetz and the woods which command it unoccupied: this

was a strong position within reach of Kutusoff, and the only point where

he could cut us off from the new road to Kalouga.

The Emperor wished first to secure this advantage by his presence; the

order to march was even given, but withdrawn, we know not why. He passed

the whole of that evening on horseback, not far from Borowsk, on the

left of the road, the side on which he supposed Kutusoff to be. He

reconnoitred the ground in the midst of a heavy rain, as if he

anticipated that it might become a field of battle. Next day, the 24th,

he learned that the Russians had disputed the possession of

Malo-Yaroslawetz with Delzons. Owing either to confidence or uncertainty

in his plans, this intelligence gave him very little concern.

He quitted Borowsk, therefore, late and leisurely, when the noise of a

very smart engagement reached where he was; he then became uneasy,

hastened to an eminence and listened. "Had the Russians anticipated him?

Was his manoeuvre thwarted? Had he not used sufficient expedition in

that march, the object of which was to pass the left flank of Kutusoff?"

In reality there was in this whole movement a little of that torpor

which succeeds a long repose. Moscow is but one hundred and ten wersts

from Malo-Yaroslawetz; four days would have been sufficient to go that

distance; we took six. The army, laden with provisions and pillage, was

heavy, and the roads were deep. A whole day had been sacrificed to the

passage of the Nara and its morass, as also to the rallying of the

different corps. It is true that in defiling so near the enemy it was

necessary to march close, that we might not present to him too long a

flank. Be this as it may, we may date all our calamities from that

delay.

The Emperor was still listening; the noise increased. "Is it then a

battle?" he exclaimed. Every discharge agitated him, for the chief point

with him was no longer to conquer, but to preserve, and he urged on

Davoust, who accompanied him; but he and that marshal did not reach the

field of battle till dark, when the firing was subsiding and the whole

was over.

The Emperor saw the end of the battle, but without being able to assist

the viceroy. A band of Cossacks from Twer had nearly captured one of his

officers, who was only a very short distance from him.

It was not till then that an officer, sent by Prince Eugene, came to him

to explain the whole affair. "The troops had," he said, "in the first

place, been obliged to cross the Louja at the foot of Malo-Yaroslawetz,

at the bottom of an elbow which the river makes in its course; and then

to climb a steep hill: it is on this rapid declivity, broken by pointed

crags, that the town is built. Beyond is an elevated plain, surrounded

with wood from which run three roads, one in front, coming from Kalouga,

and two on the left, from Lectazowo, the entrenched camp of Kutusoff.

"On the preceding day Delzons found no enemy there; but he did not think

it prudent to place his whole division in the upper town, beyond a river

and a defile, and on the margin of a precipice, down which it might have

been thrown by a nocturnal surprise. He remained, therefore, on the low

bank of the Louja, sending only two battalions to occupy the town and to

watch the elevated plain.

"The night was drawing to a close; it was four o'clock, and all were

already asleep in Delzons's bivouacs, excepting a few sentinels, when

Doctorof's Russians suddenly rushed in the dark out of the wood with

tremendous shouts. Our sentinels were driven back on their posts, the

posts on their battalions, the battalions on the division: and yet it

was not a _coup-de-main_, for the Russians had brought up cannon. At the

very commencement of the attack, the firing had conveyed the tidings of

a serious affair to the viceroy, who was three leagues distant."

The report added, that "the Prince had immediately hastened up with some

officers, and that his divisions and his guard had precipitately

followed him. As he approached, a vast amphitheatre, where all was

bustle, opened before him; the Louja marked the foot of it, and a

multitude of Russian riflemen already disputed its banks."

Behind them from the summit of the declivities on which the town was

situated, their advanced guard poured their fire on Delzons: beyond

that, on the elevated plain, the whole army of Kutusoff was hastening up

in two long black columns, by the two roads from Lectazowo. They were

seen stretching and entrenching themselves on this bare slope, upon a

line of about half a league, where they commanded and embraced every

thing by their number and position: they were already placing themselves

across the old road to Kalouga, which was open the preceding day, which

we might have occupied and travelled if we had pleased, but which

Kutusoff would henceforward have it in his power to defend inch by inch.

The enemy's artillery had at the same time taken advantage of the

heights which bordered the river on their side; their fire traversed the

low ground in the bend of the river, in which were Delzons and his

troops. The position was untenable, and hesitation would have been

fatal. It was necessary to get out of it either by a prompt retreat, or

by an impetuous attack; but it was before us that our retreat lay, and

the viceroy gave orders for the attack.

After crossing the Louja by a narrow bridge, the high road from Kalouga

runs along the bottom of a ravine which ascends to the town, and then

enters Malo-Yaroslawetz. The Russians, in mass occupied this hollow way:

Delzons and his Frenchmen rushed upon them head foremost; the Russians

were broken and overthrown; they gave way and presently our bayonets

glistened on the heights.

Delzons, conceiving himself sure of the victory, announced it as won. He

had nothing but a pile of buildings to storm, his soldiers hesitated. He

himself advanced and was encouraging them by his words, gestures and

example, when a ball struck him on the forehead, and extended him on the

ground. His brother threw himself upon him, covered him with his body,

clasped him in his arms, and would have borne him off out of the fire

and the fray, but a second ball hit him also, and both expired together.

This loss left a great void, which required to be filled up. Guilleminot

succeeded Delzons, and the first thing he did was to throw a hundred

grenadiers into a church and church-yard, in the walls of which they

made loop-holes. This church stood on the left of the high road, which

it commanded, and to this edifice we owed the victory. Five times on

that day was this post passed by the Russian columns, which were

pursuing ours, and five times did its fire, seasonably poured upon their

flank and rear, harass them and slacken their progress: afterwards when

we resumed the offensive, this position placed them between two fires

and ensured the success of our attacks.

Scarcely had that general made this disposition when he was assailed by

hosts of Russians; he was driven back towards the bridge, where the

viceroy had stationed himself, in order to judge how to act and prepare

his reserves. At first the reinforcements which he sent came up but

slowly one after another; and as is almost always the case, each of

them, being inadequate to any great effort, was successively destroyed

without result.

At length the whole of the 14th division was engaged: the combat was

then carried, for the third time, to the heights. But when the French

had passed the houses, when they had removed from the central point from

which they set out; when they had reached the plain, where they were

exposed, and where the circle expanded; they could advance no farther:

overwhelmed by the fire of a whole army they were daunted and shaken:

fresh Russians incessantly came up; our thinned ranks gave way and were

broken; the obstacles of the ground increased their confusion: they

again descended precipitately and abandoned every thing.

Meanwhile the shells having set fire to the wooden town behind them, in

their retreat they were stopped by the conflagration; one fire drove

them back upon another; the Russian recruits, wrought up to a pitch of

fanatic fury, closely pursued them; our soldiers became enraged; they

fought man to man: some were seen seizing each other by one hand,

striking with the other, until both victors and vanquished rolled down

precipices into the flames, without losing their hold. There the wounded

expired, either suffocated by the smoke, or consumed by the fire. Their

blackened and calcined skeletons soon presented a hideous sight, when

the eye could still discover in them the traces of a human form.

All, however, were not equally intent on doing their duty. There was one

officer, a man who was known to talk very big, and who, at the bottom of

a ravine, wasted the time for action in making speeches. In this place

of security he kept about him a sufficient number of troops to authorize

his remaining himself, leaving the rest to expose themselves in detail,

without unison and at random.

The 15th division was still left. The viceroy summoned it: as it

advanced, it threw a brigade into the suburb on the left, and another

into the town on the right. It consisted of Italians, recruits, who had

never before been in action. They ascended, shouting enthusiastically,

ignorant of the danger or despising it, from that singular disposition,

which renders life less dear in its flower than in its decline, either

because while young we fear death less from the feeling of its distance,

or because at that age, rich in years and prodigal of every thing, we

squander life as the wealthy do their fortune.

The shock was terrible: every thing was reconquered for the fourth time,

and lost in like manner. More eager to begin than their seniors, they

were sooner disheartened, and returned flying to the old battalions,

which supported and were obliged to lead them back to the danger.

The Russians, emboldened by their incessantly increasing numbers and

success, then descended by their right to gain possession of the bridge

and to cut off our retreat. Prince Eugene had nothing left but his last

reserve: he and his guard now took part in the combat. At this sight,

and at his call, the remains of the 13th, 14th, and 15th divisions

mustered their courage; they made a powerful and a last effort, and for

the fifth time the combat was transferred to the heights.

At the same time Colonel Peraldi and the Italian chasseurs overthrew

with their bayonets the Russians, who were already approaching the left

of the bridge, and inebriated by the smoke and the fire, through which

they had passed, by the havoc which they made, and by their victory,

they pushed forward without stopping on the elevated plain, and

endeavoured to make themselves masters of the enemy's cannon: but one of

those deep clefts, with which the soil of Russia is intersected, stopped

them in the midst of a destructive fire; their ranks opened, the enemy's

cavalry attacked them, and they were driven back to the very gardens of

the suburbs. There they paused and rallied: all, both French and

Italians, obstinately defended the upper avenues of the town, and the

Russians being at length repulsed, drew back and concentrated themselves

on the road to Kalouga, between the woods and Malo-Yaroslawetz.

In this manner eighteen thousand Italians and French crowded together at

the bottom of a ravine, defeated fifty thousand Russians, posted over

their heads, and seconded by all the obstacles that a town built on a

steep declivity is capable of presenting.

The army, however, surveyed with sorrow this field of battle, where

seven generals and four thousand Italians had been killed or wounded.

The sight of the enemy's loss afforded no consolation; it was not twice

the amount of ours, and their wounded would be saved. It was moreover

recollected that in a similar situation Peter I., in sacrificing ten

Russians for one Swede, thought that he was not sustaining merely an

equal loss, but even gaining by so terrible a bargain. But what caused

the greatest pain, was the idea that so sanguinary a conflict might have

been spared.

In fact, the fires which were discovered on our left, in the night

between the 23d and 24th, had apprised us of the movement of the

Russians towards Malo-Yaroslawetz; and yet the French army had marched

thither languidly; a single division, thrown to the distance of three

leagues from all succour, had been carelessly risked; the _corps

d'armée_ had remained out of reach of each other. Where were now the

rapid movements of Marengo, Ulm, and Eckmühl? Why so slow and drawling a

march on such a critical occasion? Was it our artillery and baggage that

had caused this tardiness? Such was at least the most plausible

presumption.

CHAP. III.

When the Emperor heard the report of this combat, he was a few paces to

the right of the high road, at the bottom of a ravine, close to the

rivulet and village of Ghorodinia, in the habitation of a weaver, an

old, crazy, filthy, wooden hut. Here he was half a league from

Malo-Yaroslawetz, at the commencement of the bend of the Louja. It was

in this worm-eaten dwelling, and in a dirty dark room, parted off into

two by a cloth, that the fate of the army and of Europe was about to be

decided.

The first hours of the night passed in receiving reports. All agreed

that the enemy was making preparations against the next day for a

battle, which all were disposed to decline. About eleven o'clock

Bessières entered. This marshal owed his elevation to honourable

services, and above all to the affection of the Emperor, who had become

attached to him as to a creation of his own. It is true, that a man

could not be a favourite with Napoleon, as with any other monarch; that

it was necessary at least to have followed and been of some service to

him, for he sacrificed little to the agreeable; in short, it was

requisite that he should have been more than a witness of so many

victories; and the Emperor when fatigued, accustomed himself to see with

eyes which he believed to be of his own formation.

He had sent this marshal to examine the attitude of the enemy. Bessières

had obeyed: he had carefully explored the front of the Russian position.

"It is," said he, "unassailable!"--"Oh heavens!" exclaimed the Emperor,

clasping his hands, "are you sure you are right? Are you not mistaken?

Will you answer for that?" Bessières repeated his assertion: he affirmed

that "three hundred grenadiers would there be sufficient to keep in

check a whole army." Napoleon then crossed his arms with a look of

consternation, hung his head, and remained as if overwhelmed with the

deepest dejection. "His army was victorious and himself conquered. His

route was intercepted, his manoeuvre, thwarted: Kutusoff, an old man,

a Scythian, had been beforehand with him! And he could not accuse his

star. Did not the sun of France seem to have followed him to Russia? Was

not the road to Malo-Yaroslawetz open but the preceding day? It was not

his fortune then that had failed him, but he who had been wanting to his

fortune?"

Absorbed in this abyss of painful reflections, he fell into so profound

a stupor, that none of those about him could draw from him a single

word. Scarcely could a nod of the head be obtained from him by dint of

importunity. At length he strove to get some rest: but a feverish

anxiety prevented him from closing his eyes. During all the rest of that

cruel night he kept rising, lying down again, and calling incessantly,

but yet not a single word betrayed his distress: it was only from the

agitation of his body that the anguish of his mind was to be inferred.

About four in the morning, one of his orderly officers, the Prince

d'Aremberg, came to inform him that under favour of the night, the woods

and some inequalities of ground, Cossacks were slipping in between him

and his advanced posts. The Emperor had just sent off Poniatowski on his

right to Kremenskoe. So little did he expect the enemy from that side,

that he had neglected to order out any scouts on his right flank. He

therefore slighted the report of his orderly officer.

No sooner did the sun appear above the horizon on the 25th, than he

mounted his horse, and advanced on the Kalouga road, which to him was

now nothing more than the road to Malo-Yaroslawetz. To reach the bridge

of that town, he had to cross the plain, about a league in length and

breadth, embraced by the bend of the Louja: a few officers only attended

him. The four squadrons of his usual escort, not having been previously

apprised, hastened to rejoin, but had not yet overtaken him. The road

was covered with sick-waggons, artillery, and vehicles of luxury: it was

the interior of the army, and every one was marching on without

mistrust.

In the distance, towards the right, a few small bodies of men were first

seen running, and then large black lines advancing. Outcries were

presently heard: some women and attendants on the army were met running

back, too much affrighted and out of breath, either to listen to any

thing, or to answer any question. At the same time the file of vehicles

stopped in uncertainty; disorder arose in it: some endeavoured to

proceed, others to turn back; they crossed, jostled and upset one

another: and the whole was soon a scene of complete uproar and

confusion.

The Emperor looked on and smiled, still advancing, and believing it to

be a groundless panic. His aides-de-camp suspected that it was Cossacks

whom they saw, but they marched in such regular platoons that they still

had doubts on the subject; and if those wretches had not howled at the

moment of attack, as they all do to stifle the sense of danger, it is

probable that Napoleon would not have escaped them. A circumstance which

increased the peril was, that their cries were at first mistaken for

acclamations, and their hurrahs for shouts of _Vive l'Empereur!_

It was Platof and six thousand Cossacks, who in the rear of our

victorious advanced-guard, had ventured to cross the river, the low

plain and the high road, carrying all before them; and it was at the

very moment when the Emperor, perfectly tranquil in the midst of his

army, and the windings of a deep river, was advancing, refusing belief

to so audacious a plan, that they put it in execution.

When they had once started, they approached with such speed, that Rapp

had but just time to say to the Emperor, "It is the Cossacks!--turn

back!" The Emperor, whose eyes deceived him, or who disliked running

away, stood firm, and was on the point of being surrounded, when Rapp

seized the bridle of his horse, and turned him round, crying. "Indeed

you must!" And really it was high time to fly, although Napoleon's pride

would not allow him to do so. He drew his sword, the Prince of

Neufchatel and the grand equerry did the same; then placing themselves

on the left side of the road, they waited the approach of the horde,

from which they were not forty paces distant. Rapp had barely time to

turn himself round to face these barbarians, when the foremost of them

thrust his lance into the chest of his horse with such violence as to

throw him down. The other aides-de-camp, and a few horse belonging to

the guard, extricated the general. This action, the bravery of

Lecoulteux, the efforts of a score of officers and chasseurs, and above

all the thirst of these barbarians for plunder, saved the Emperor. And

yet they needed only to have stretched out their hands and seized him;

for, at the same moment, the horde, in crossing the high road, overthrew

every thing before them, horses, men, and carriages, wounding and

killing some, and dragging them into the woods for the purpose of

plundering them; then, loosing the horses harnessed to the guns, they

took them along with them across the country. But they had only a

momentary victory; a triumph of surprise. The cavalry of the guard

galloped up; at this sight they let go their prey and fled; and this

torrent subsided, leaving indeed melancholy traces, but abandoning all

that it was hurrying away in its course.

Some of these barbarians, however, carried their audacity even to

insolence. They were seen retiring at a foot-pace across the interval

between our squadrons, and coolly reloading their arms. They reckoned

upon the heaviness of our cavalry of the _élite_, and the swiftness of

their own horses, which they urge with a whip. Their flight was effected

without disorder; they faced round several times, without waiting indeed

till within reach of fire, so that they left scarcely any wounded and

not one prisoner. At length they enticed us on to ravines covered with

bushes, where we were stopped by their artillery, which was waiting for

them. All this furnished subject for reflection. Our army was worn down;

and the war had begun again with new and undiminished spirit.

The Emperor, struck with astonishment that the enemy had dared to attack

him, halted until the plain was cleared; after which he returned to

Malo-Yaroslawetz, where the viceroy pointed out to him the obstacles

which had been conquered the preceding day.

The ground itself spoke sufficiently. Never was field of battle more

terribly eloquent. Its marked features; its ruins covered with blood;

the streets, the line of which could no longer be recognized but by the

long train of the dead, whose heads were crushed by the wheels of the

cannon, the wounded, who were still seen issuing from the rubbish and

crawling along, with their garments, their hair, and their limbs half

consumed by the fire, and uttering lamentable cries; finally, the

doleful sound of the last melancholy honours which the grenadiers were

paying to the remains of their colonels and generals who had been

slain--all attested the extreme obstinacy of the conflict. In this scene

the Emperor, it was said, beheld nothing but glory: he exclaimed, that

"the honour of so proud a day belonged exclusively to Prince Eugene."

This sight, nevertheless, aggravated the painful impression which had

already seized him. He then advanced to the elevated plain.

CHAP. IV.

Can you ever forget, comrades, the fatal field which put a stop to the

conquest of the world, where the victories of twenty years were blasted,

where the great edifice of our fortune began to totter to its

foundation? Do you not still figure to yourselves the blood-stained

ruins of that town, those deep ravines, and the woods which surround

that elevated plain and convert it, as it were, into a tented field? On

one side were the French, quitting the north, which they shunned; on the

other, at the entrance of the wood, were the Russians, guarding the

south, and striving to drive us back upon their mighty winter. In the

midst of this plain, between the two armies, was Napoleon, his steps and

his eyes wandering from south to west, along the roads to Kalouga and

Medyn, both which were closed against him. On that to Kalouga, were

Kutusoff and one hundred and twenty thousand men, ready to dispute with

him twenty leagues of defiles; towards Medyn he beheld a numerous

cavalry: it was Platof and those same hordes which had just penetrated

into the flank of the army, had traversed it through and through, and

burst forth, laden with booty, to form again on his right flank, where

reinforcements and artillery were waiting for them. It was on that side

that the eyes of the Emperor were fixed longest; it was there that he

received the reports of his officers and consulted his maps: then,

oppressed with regret and gloomy forebodings, he slowly returned to his

head-quarters.

Murat, Prince Eugene, Berthier, Davoust and Bessières followed him. This

mean habitation of an obscure artisan contained within it an Emperor,

two Kings, and three Generals. Here they were about to decide the fate

of Europe, and of the army which had conquered it. Smolensk was the

goal. Should they march thither by Kalouga, Medyn or Mojaisk? Napoleon

was seated at a table, his head supported by his hands, which concealed

his features, as well as the anguish which they no doubt expressed.

A silence fraught with such imminent destinies continued to be

respected, until Murat, whose actions were always the result of

impetuous feeling, became weary of this hesitation. Yielding to the

dictates of his genius, which was wholly directed by his ardent

temperament, he was eager to burst from that uncertainty, by one of

those first movements which elevate to glory, or hurry to destruction.

Rising, he exclaimed, that "he might possibly be again accused of

imprudence, but that in war circumstances decided and gave to every

thing its name; that where there is no other course than to attack,

prudence becomes temerity and temerity prudence; that to stop was

impossible, to fly dangerous, consequently they ought to pursue. What

signified the menacing attitude of the Russians and their impenetrable

woods? For his part he cared not for them. Give him but the remnant of

his cavalry, and that of the guard, and he would force his way into

their forests and their battalions, overthrow all before him, and open

anew to the army the road to Kalouga."

Here Napoleon, raising his head, extinguished all this fire, by saying,

that "we had exhibited temerity enough already; that we had done too

much for glory, and it was high time to give up thinking of any thing

but how to save the rest of the army."

Bessières, either because his pride revolted from the idea of obeying

the King of Naples, or from a desire to preserve uninjured the cavalry

of the guard, which he had formed, for which he was answerable to

Napoleon, and which he exclusively commanded; Bessières, finding himself

supported, then ventured to add, that "neither the army nor even the

guard had sufficient spirit left for such efforts. It was already said

in both, that as the means of conveyance were inadequate, henceforth the

victor, if overtaken, would fall a prey to the vanquished; that of

course every wound would be mortal. Murat would therefore be but feebly

seconded. And in what a position! its strength had just been but too

well demonstrated. Against what enemies! had they not remarked the field

of the preceding day's battle, and with what fury the Russian recruits,

only just armed and clothed, had there fought and fell?" The Marshal

concluded by voting in favour of retreat, which the Emperor approved by

his silence.

The Prince of Eckmühl immediately observed, that, "as a retreat was

decided upon, he proposed that it should be by Medyn and Smolensk." But

Murat interrupted Davoust, and whether from enmity or from that

discouragement which usually succeeds the rejection of a rash measure,

he declared his astonishment, "that any one should dare to propose so

imprudent a step to the Emperor. Had Davoust sworn the destruction of

the army? Would he have so long and so heavy a column trail along,

without guides and in uncertainty, on an unknown track, within reach of

Kutusoff, presenting its flank to all the attacks of the enemy? Would

he, Davoust, defend it? Why--when in our rear Borowsk and Vereïa would

lead us without danger to Mojaisk--why reject that safe route? There,

provisions must have been collected, there every thing was known to us,

and we could not be misled by any traitor."

At these words Davoust, burning with a rage which he had great

difficulty to repress, replied, that "he proposed a retreat through a

fertile country, by an untouched, plentiful and well supplied route,

villages still standing, and by the shortest road, that the enemy might

not avail himself of it, to cut us off from the route from Mojaisk to

Smolensk, recommended by Murat. And what a route! a desert of sand and

ashes, where convoys of wounded would increase our embarrassment, where

we should meet with nothing but ruins, traces of blood, skeletons and

famine!

"Moreover, though he deemed it his duty to give his opinion when it was

asked, he was ready to obey orders contrary to it with the same zeal as

if they were consonant with his suggestions; but that the Emperor alone

had a right to impose silence on him, and not Murat, who was not his

Sovereign, and never should be!"

The quarrel growing warm, Bessières and Berthier interposed. As for the

Emperor, still absorbed in the same attitude, he appeared insensible to

what was passing. At length he broke up this council with the words,

"Well, gentlemen, I will decide."

He decided on retreat, and by that road which would carry him most

speedily to a distance from the enemy; but it required another desperate

effort before he could bring himself to give an order of march so new to

him. So painful was this effort, that in the inward struggle which it

occasioned, he lost the use of his senses. Those who attended him have

asserted, that the report of another warm affair with the Cossacks,

towards Borowsk, a few leagues in the rear of the army, was the last

shock which induced him finally to adopt this fatal resolution.

It is a remarkable fact, that he issued orders for this retreat

northward, at the very moment that Kutusoff and his Russians, dismayed

by the defeat of Malo-Yaroslawetz, were retiring southward.

CHAP. V.

The very same night a similar anxiety had agitated the Russian camp.

During the combat of Malo-Yaroslawetz, Kutusoff had approached the field

of battle, groping his way, as it were, pausing at every step, and

examining the ground, as if he was afraid of its sinking beneath him; he

did not send off the different corps which were dispatched to the

assistance of Doctorof, till the orders for that purpose were absolutely

extorted from him. He durst not place himself in person across

Napoleon's way, till an hour when general battles are not to be

apprehended.

Wilson, warm from the action, then hastened to him.--Wilson, that active

bustling Englishman, whom we had seen in Egypt, in Spain, and every

where else, the enemy of the French and of Napoleon. He was the

representative of the allies in the Russian army; he was in the midst of

Kutusoff's army an independent man, an observer, nay, even a

judge--infallible motives of aversion; his presence was odious to the

old Russian general; and as hatred never fails to beget hatred, both

cordially detested each other.

Wilson reproached him with his excessive dilatoriness; he reminded him

that five times in one day it had caused them to lose the victory, in

the battle of Vinkowo, on the 18th of October. In fact, on that day

Murat would have been destroyed, had Kutusoff fully occupied the front

of the French by a brisk attack, while Beningsen was turning their left

wing. But either from negligence, or that tardiness which is the fault

of age, or as several Russians assert, because Kutusoff was more envious

of Beningsen than inimical to Napoleon, the veteran had attacked too

faintly, and too late, and had stopped too soon.

Wilson continued to insist on his agreeing to a decisive engagement on

the following day, and on his refusal, he asked, "Was he then determined

to open a free passage for Napoleon? to allow him to escape with his

victory? What a cry of indignation would be raised in Petersburgh, in

London, throughout all Europe! Did he not already hear the murmurs of

his own troops?"

Kutusoff, irritated at this, replied, that "he would certainly rather

make a bridge of gold for the enemy than compromise his army, and with

it the fate of the whole empire. Was not Napoleon fleeing? why then stop

him and force him to conquer? The season was sufficient to destroy him:

of all the allies of Russia, they could rely with most confidence on

winter; and he should wait for its assistance. As for the Russian army,

it was under his command, and it would obey him in spite of the clamours

of Wilson; Alexander, when informed of his proceedings, would approve

them. What did he care for England? was it for her that he was fighting?

He was a true-born Russian, his fondest wish was to see Russia

delivered, and delivered she would be without risking the chance of

another battle; and as for the rest of Europe, it was nothing to him

whether it was under the dominion of France or England."

Thus was Wilson repulsed, and yet Kutusoff, shut up with the French army

in the elevated plain of Malo-Yaroslawetz, was compelled to put himself

into the most threatening attitude. He there drew up, on the 25th, all

his divisions, and seven hundred pieces of artillery. No doubts were any

longer entertained in the two armies that a decisive day had arrived:

Wilson was of that opinion himself. He remarked that the Russian lines

had at their back a muddy ravine, across which there was an unsafe

bridge. This only way of retreat, in the sight of an enemy, appeared to

him to be impracticable. Kutusoff was now in such a situation that he

must either conquer or perish; and the Englishman was hugging himself at

the prospect of a decisive engagement: whether its issue proved fatal to

Napoleon or dangerous to Russia, it must be bloody, and England could

not but be a gainer by it.

Still uneasy, however, he went at night through the ranks: he was

delighted to hear Kutusoff swear that he was at length going to fight;

he triumphed on seeing all the Russian generals preparing for a terrible

conflict; Beningsen alone had still his doubts on the subject. The

Englishman, nevertheless, considering that the position no longer

admitted of falling back, at length lay down to wait for daylight, when

about three in the morning a general order for retreat awoke him. All

his efforts were ineffectual. Kutusoff had resolved to direct his flight

southward, first to Gonczarewo, and then beyond Kalouga; and at the Oka

every thing was by this time ready for his passage.

It was at that very instant that Napoleon ordered his troops to retire

northward on Mojaisk. The two armies therefore turned their backs on

each other, mutually deceiving each other by means of their rear-guards.

On the part of Kutusoff, Wilson asserts, that his retreat was like a

rout. Cavalry, cannon, carriages, and battalions thronged from all sides

to the entrance of the bridge, against which the Russian army was

backed. There all these columns, hurrying from the right, the left, and

the centre, met, clashed, and became blended into so enormous and so

dense a mass, that it lost all power of motion. It took several hours to

disentangle it and to clear the passage. A few balls discharged by

Davoust, which he regarded as thrown away, fell among this confused

crowd.

Napoleon needed but to have advanced upon this disorderly rabble. It was

after the greatest effort, that of Malo-Yaroslawetz, had been made, and

when he had nothing to do but to march, that he retreated. But such is

war! in which it is impossible to attempt too much or to be too daring.

One army knows not what the other is doing. The advanced posts are the

exterior of these two great hostile bodies, by means of which they

overawe one another. What an abyss there is between two armies that are

in the presence of each other!

Besides, it was perhaps because the Emperor had been wanting in prudence

at Moscow that he was now deficient in audacity: he was worn out; the

two affairs with the Cossacks had disgusted him: he felt for his

wounded; so many horrors disheartened him, and like men of extreme

resolutions, having ceased to hope for a complete victory, he determined

upon a precipitate retreat.

From that moment he had nothing in his view but Paris, just as on

leaving Paris he saw nothing but Moscow. It was on the 26th of October

that the fatal movement of our retreat commenced. Davoust with

twenty-five thousand men remained as a rear-guard. While he advanced a

few paces, and, without being aware of it, spread consternation among

the Russians, the grand army in astonishment turned its back on them. It

marched with downcast eyes, as if ashamed and humbled. In the midst of

it, its commander, gloomy and silent, seemed to be anxiously measuring

his line of communication with the fortresses on the Vistula.

For the space of more than two hundred and fifty leagues it offered but

two points where he could halt and rest, the first, Smolensk, and the

second, Minsk. He had made these two towns his two great depôts, where

immense magazines were established. But Wittgenstein, still before

Polotsk, threatened the left flank of the former, and Tchitchakof,

already at Bresk-litowsky, the right flank of the latter. Wittgenstein's

force was gaining strength by recruits and fresh corps which he was

daily receiving, and by the gradual diminution of that of Saint Cyr.

Napoleon, however, reckoned upon the Duke of Belluno and his thirty-six

thousand fresh troops. The _corps d'armée_ had been at Smolensk ever

since the beginning of September. He reckoned also upon detachments

being sent from his depôts, on the sick and wounded who had recovered,

and on the stragglers, who would be rallied and formed at Wilna into

marching battalions. All these would successively come into line, and

fill up the chasms made in his ranks by the sword, famine, and disease.

He should therefore have time to regain that position on the Düna and

the Borysthenes, where he wished it to be believed that his presence,

added to that of Victor, Saint Cyr, and Macdonald, would overawe

Wittgenstein, check Kutusoff, and threaten Alexander even in his second

capital.

He therefore proclaimed that he was going to take post on the Düna. But

it was not upon that river and the Borysthenes that his thoughts rested:

he was sensible that it was not with a harassed and reduced army that he

could guard the interval between those two rivers and their courses,

which the ice would speedily efface. He placed no reliance on a sea of

snow six feet deep, with which winter would speedily cover those parts,

but to which it would also give solidity: the whole then would be one

wide road for the enemy to reach him, to penetrate into the intervals

between his wooden cantonments, scattered over a frontier of two hundred

leagues, and to burn them.

Had he at first stopped there, as he declared he should on his arrival

at Witepsk; had he there taken proper measures for preserving and

recruiting his army; had Tormasof, Tchitchakof and Hoertel been driven

out of Volhynia; had he raised a hundred thousand Cossacks in those rich

provinces; his winter-quarters would then have been habitable. But now,

nothing was ready for him there; and not only was his force inadequate

to the purpose, but Tchitchakof, a hundred leagues in his rear, would

still threaten his communications with Germany and France and his

retreat. It was therefore at a hundred leagues beyond Smolensk, in a

more compact position, behind the morasses of the Berezina, it was to

Minsk, that it was necessary to repair in search of winter-quarters,

from which he was forty marches distant.

But should he arrive there in time? He had reason to think so.

Dombrowski and his Poles, placed around Bobruisk, would be sufficient to

keep Ertell in check. As for Schwartzenberg, that general had been

victorious; he was at the head of forty-two thousand Austrians, Saxons,

and Poles, whom Durutte, and his French division, from Warsaw, would

augment to more than fifty thousand men. He had pursued Tormasof as far

as the Styr.

It was true that the Russian army of Moldavia had just formed a junction

with the remnant of the army of Volhynia; that Tchitchakof, an active

and resolute general, had assumed the command of fifty-five thousand

Russians; that the Austrian had paused and even thought it prudent, on

the 23d of September, to retire behind the Bug; but he was to have

recrossed that river at Bresk-litowsky, and Napoleon knew no more.

At any rate, without a defection, which it was too late to foresee, and

which a precipitate return could alone prevent, he flattered himself

that Schwartzenberg, Regnier, Durutte, Dombrowski, and twenty thousand

men, divided between Minsk, Slonim, Grodno, and Wilna--in short, that

seventy thousand men; would not allow sixty thousand Russians to gain

possession of his magazines and to cut off his retreat.

CHAP. VI.

Napoleon, reduced to such hazardous conjectures, arrived quite pensive

at Vereïa, when Mortier presented himself before him. But I perceive

that, hurried along, just as we then were, by the rapid succession of

violent scenes and memorable events, my attention has been diverted from

a fact worthy of notice. On the 23d of October, at half-past one in the

morning, the air was shaken by a tremendous explosion which for a moment

astonished both armies, though amid such mighty expectations scarcely

any thing now excited astonishment.

Mortier had obeyed his orders; the Kremlin was no more: barrels of

powder had been placed in all the halls of the palace of the Czars, and

one hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds under the vaults which

supported them. The marshal, with eight thousand men, had remained on

this volcano, which a Russian howitzer-shell might have exploded. Here

he covered the march of the army upon Kalouga and the retreat of our

different convoys towards Mojaisk.

Among these eight thousand men there were scarcely two thousand on whom

Mortier could rely: the others were dismounted cavalry, men of different

countries and regiments, under new officers, without similar habits,

without common recollections, in short, without any bond of union, who

formed rather a rabble than an organized body; they could scarcely fail

in a short time to disperse.

This marshal was looked upon as a devoted victim. The other chiefs, his

old companions in glory, had left him with tears in their eyes, as well

as the Emperor, who said to him, "that he relied on his good fortune;

but still in war we must sometimes make part of a fire." Mortier had

resigned himself without hesitation. His orders were to defend the

Kremlin, and on retreating to blow it up, and to burn what yet remained

of the city. It was from the castle of Krasnopachra, on the 21st of

October, that Napoleon had sent him his last orders. After executing

them, Mortier was to march upon Vereïa and to form the rear-guard of the

army.

In this letter Napoleon particularly recommended to him "to put the men

still remaining in the hospitals into the carriages belonging to the

young guard, those of the dismounted cavalry, and any others that he

might find. The Romans," added he, "awarded civic crowns to those who

saved citizens: so many soldiers as he should save, so many crowns would

the Duke of Treviso deserve. He must put them on his horses and those of

any of his troops. It was thus that he, Napoleon, acted at St. Jean

d'Acre. He ought so much the more to take this measure, since, as soon

as the convoy should have rejoined the army, there would be plenty of

horses and carriages, which the consumption would have rendered useless

for its supply. The Emperor hoped that he should have to testify his

satisfaction to the Duke of Treviso for having saved him five hundred

men. He must begin with the officers and then with the subalterns, and

give the preference to Frenchmen. He would therefore assemble all the

generals and officers under his command, to make them sensible of the

importance of this measure, and how well they would deserve of the

Emperor if they saved him five hundred men."

Meanwhile, as the grand army was leaving Moscow, the Cossacks were

penetrating into the suburbs, and Mortier had retired towards the

Kremlin, as a remnant of life retires towards the heart, when death has

begun to seize the extremities. These Cossacks were the scouts to ten

thousand Russians under the command of Winzingerode.

This foreigner, inflamed with hatred of Napoleon, and animated by the

desire of retaking Moscow and naturalizing himself in Russia by this

signal exploit, pushed on to a considerable distance from his men; he

traversed, running, the Georgian colony, hastened towards the Chinese

town and the Kremlin, met with advanced posts, mistook them, fell into

an ambuscade, and finding himself a prisoner in a city which he had come

to take, he suddenly changed his part, waving his handkerchief in the

air, and declaring that he had brought a flag of truce.

He was conducted to the Duke of Treviso. There he claimed, in a high

tone, the protection of the law of nations, which, he said, was violated

in his person. Mortier replied, that "a general-in-chief, coming in this

manner, might be taken for a rash soldier, but never for a flag of

truce, and that he must immediately deliver his sword." The Russian

general, having no longer any hope of imposing upon him, complied and

admitted his imprudence.

At length, after four days' resistance, the French bid an eternal adieu

to that fatal city. They carried with them four hundred wounded, and, on

retiring, deposited, in a safe and secret place, a fire-work skilfully

prepared, which a slow fire was already consuming; its progress was

minutely calculated; so that it was known at what hour the fire would

reach the immense heap of powder buried among the foundations of these

condemned palaces.

Mortier hastened his flight; but while he was rapidly retiring, some

greedy Cossacks and squalid Muscovites, allured probably by the prospect

of pillage, approached; they listened, and emboldened by the apparent

quiet which pervaded the fortress, they ventured to penetrate into it;

they ascended, and their hands, eager after plunder, were already

stretched forth, when in a moment they were all destroyed, crushed,

hurled into the air, with the buildings which they had come to pillage,

and thirty thousand stand of arms that had been left behind there: and

then their mangled limbs, mixed with fragments of walls and shattered

weapons, blown to a great distance, descended in a horrible shower.

The earth shook under the feet of Mortier. At Feminskoe, ten leagues

off, the Emperor heard the explosion, and he himself, in that tone of

anger in which he sometimes addressed Europe, published the following

day a bulletin, dated from Borowsk, to this effect, that "the Kremlin,

the arsenal, the magazines were all destroyed; that the ancient citadel,

which dated from the origin of the monarchy, and the first palace of the

Czars, no longer existed; that Moscow was now but a heap of ruins, a

filthy and unwholesome sink, without importance, either political or

military. He had abandoned it to Russian beggars and plunderers to march

against Kutusoff, to throw himself on the left wing of that general, to

drive him back, and then to proceed quietly to the banks of the Düna,

where he should take up his winter-quarters." Then, apprehensive lest he

should appear to be retreating, he added, that "there he should be

within eighty leagues of Wilna and Petersburg, a double advantage; that

is to say, twenty marches nearer to his resources and his object." By

this remark he hoped to give to his retreat the air of an offensive

march.

It was on this occasion that he declared, that "he had refused to give

orders for the destruction of the whole country which he was quitting;

he felt a repugnance to aggravate the miseries of its inhabitants. To

punish the Russian incendiary and a hundred wretches who make war like

Tartars, he would not ruin nine thousand proprietors, and leave two

hundred thousand serfs, innocent of all these barbarities, absolutely

destitute of resources."

He had not then been soured by misfortune; but in three days every thing

had changed. After coming in collision with Kutusoff, he retreated

through this same town of Borowsk, and no sooner had he passed through

it than it ceased to exist. It was thus that in future all was destined

to be burned behind him. While conquering, he had preserved: when

retiring, he resolved to destroy: either from necessity, to ruin the

enemy and to retard his march, every thing being imperative in war; or

by way of reprisal, the dreadful consequence of wars of invasion, which

in the first place authorize every means of defence, while these

afterwards operate as motives to those of attack.

It must be admitted, however, that the aggression in this terrible

species of warfare was not on the side of Napoleon. On the 19th of

October, Berthier had written to Kutusoff, proposing "to regulate

hostilities in such a manner that they might not inflict on the

Muscovite empire more evils than were inseparable from a state of war;

the devastation of Russia being as detrimental to that empire as it was

painful to Napoleon." But Kutusoff replied, that "it was not in his

power to restrain the Russian patriotism," which amounted to an approval

of the Tartar war made upon us by his militia, and authorized us in some

measure to repay them in their own coin.

The like flames consumed Vereïa, where Mortier rejoined the Emperor,

bringing to him Winzingerode. At sight of that German general, all the

secret resentments of Napoleon took fire; his dejection gave place to

anger, and he discharged all the spleen that oppressed him upon his

enemy. "Who are you?" he exclaimed, crossing his arms with violence as

if to grasp and to restrain himself, "a man without country! You have

always been my personal enemy. When I was at war with the Austrians, I

found you in their ranks. Austria is become my ally, and you have

entered into the Russian service. You have been one of the warmest

instigators of the present war. Nevertheless you are a native of the

states of the Confederation of the Rhine; you are my subject. You are

not an ordinary enemy, you are a rebel; I have a right to bring you to

trial! _Gendarmes d'élite_, seize this man!" The _gendarmes_ remained

motionless, like men accustomed to see these violent scenes terminate

without effect, and sure of obeying best by disobeying.

The Emperor resumed: "Do you see, sir, this devastated country, these

villages in flames? To whom are these disasters to be charged? to fifty

adventurers like yourself, paid by England, who has thrown them upon the

continent; but the weight of this war will ultimately fall on those who

have excited it. In six months I shall be at Petersburg, and I will call

them to account for all this swaggering."

Then addressing the aide-de-camp of Winzingerode, who was a prisoner

like himself, "As for you, Count Narischkin," said he, "I have nothing

to upbraid you with; you are a Russian, you are doing your duty; but how

could a man of one of the first families in Russia become the

aide-de-camp of a foreign mercenary? Be the aide-de-camp of a Russian

general; that employment will be far more honourable."

Till then General Winzingerode had not had an opportunity to answer this

violent language, except by his attitude: it was calm as his reply. "The

Emperor Alexander," he said, "was his benefactor and that of his family:

all that he possessed he owed to him; gratitude had made him his

subject; he was at the post which his benefactor had allotted to him,

and consequently he was only doing his duty."

Napoleon added some threats, but in a less violent strain, and he

confined himself to words, either because he had vented all his wrath in

the first explosion, or because he merely designed to frighten the

Germans who might be tempted to abandon him. Such at least was the

interpretation which those about him put upon his violence. It was

disapproved; no account was taken of it, and each was eager to accost

the captive general, to tranquillize and to console him. These

attentions were continued till the army reached Lithuania, where the

Cossacks retook Winzingerode and his aide-de-camp. The Emperor had

affected to treat this young Russian nobleman with kindness, at the same

time that he stormed so loudly against his general--a proof that there

was calculation even in his wrath.

CHAP. VII.

On the 28th of October we again beheld Mojaisk. That town was still full

of wounded; some were carried away and the rest collected together and

left, as at Moscow, to the generosity of the Russians. Napoleon had

proceeded but a few wersts from that place, when the winter began. Thus,

after an obstinate combat, and ten days' marching and countermarching,

the army, which had brought from Moscow only fifteen rations of flour

per man, had advanced but three days' march in its retreat. It was in

want of provisions and overtaken by the winter.

Some men had already sunk under these hardships. In the first days of

the retreat, on the 26th of October, carriages, laden with provisions,

which the horses could no longer draw, were burned. The order for

setting fire to all behind the army then followed; in obedience to it,

powder-waggons, the horses of which were already worn out, were blown up

together with the houses. But at length, as the enemy had not again

shown himself, we seemed to be but once more setting out on a toilsome

journey; and Napoleon, on again seeing the well-known road, was

recovering his confidence, when, towards evening, a Russian chasseur,

who had been made prisoner, was sent to him by Davoust.

At first he questioned him carelessly; but as chance would have it, this

Russian had some knowledge of roads, names, and distances. He answered,

that "the whole Russian army was marching by Medyn upon Wiazma." The

Emperor then became attentive. Did Kutusoff mean to forestall him there,

as at Malo-Yaroslawetz, to cut off his retreat upon Smolensk, as he had

done that upon Kalouga, and to coop him up in this desert without

provisions, without shelter, and in the midst of a general insurrection?

His first impulse, however, inclined him to reject this notion; for,

whether owing to pride or experience, he was accustomed not to give his

adversaries credit for that ability which he should have displayed in

their place.

In this instance, however, he had another motive. His security was but

affected: for it was evident that the Russian army was taking the Medyn

road, the very one which Davoust had recommended for the French army:

and Davoust, either from vanity or inadvertence, had not confided this

alarming intelligence to his dispatch alone. Napoleon feared its effects

on his troops, and therefore affected to disbelieve and to despise it;

but at the same time he gave orders that his guard should march next day

in all haste, and so long as it should be light, as far as Gjatz. Here

he proposed to afford rest and provisions to this flower of his army, to

ascertain, so much nearer, the direction of Kutusoff's march, and to be

beforehand with him at that point.

But he had not consulted the season, which seemed to avenge the slight.

Winter was so near at hand, that a blast of a few minutes was sufficient

to bring it on, sharp, biting, intense. We were immediately sensible

that it was indigenous to this country, and that we were strangers in

it. Every thing was altered: roads, faces, courage: the army became

sullen, the march toilsome, and consternation began.

Some leagues from Mojaisk, we had to cross the Kologa. It was but a

large rivulet; two trees, the same number of props, and a few planks

were sufficient to ensure the passage: but such was the confusion and

inattention, that the Emperor was detained there. Several pieces of

cannon, which it was attempted to get across by fording, were lost. It

seemed as if each _corps d'armée_ was marching separately as if there

was no staff, no general order, no common tie, nothing that bound these

corps together. In reality the elevation of each of their chiefs

rendered them too independent of one another. The Emperor himself had

become so exceedingly great, that he was at an immeasurable distance

from the details of his army; and Berthier, holding an intermediate

place between him and officers, who were all kings, princes, or

marshals, was obliged to act with a great deal of caution. He was

besides wholly incompetent to the situation.

The Emperor, stopped by the trifling obstacle of a broken bridge,

confined himself to a gesture expressive of dissatisfaction and

contempt; to which Berthier replied only by a look of resignation. On

this particular point he had received no orders from the Emperor: he

therefore conceived that he was not to blame; for Berthier was a

faithful echo, a mirror, and nothing more. Always ready, clear and

distinct, he reflected, he repeated the Emperor, but added nothing, and

what Napoleon forgot was forgotten without retrieve.

After passing the Kologa, we marched on, absorbed in thought, when some

of us, raising our eyes, uttered an exclamation of horror. Each

instantly looked around him, and beheld a plain trampled, bare and

devastated, all the trees cut down within a few feet from the surface,

and farther off craggy hills, the highest of which appeared to be the

most misshapen. It had all the appearance of an extinguished and

destroyed volcano. The ground was covered all around with fragments of

helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms,

and standards dyed with blood.

On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half-devoured corses. A number

of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the

whole. It seemed as if death had here fixed his empire; it was that

terrible redoubt, the conquest and the grave of Caulaincourt. Presently

the cry, "It is the field of the great battle!" formed a long and

doleful murmur. The Emperor passed quickly. Nobody stopped. Cold,

hunger, and the enemy urged us on: we merely turned our faces as we

proceeded to take a last melancholy look at the vast grave of so many

companions in arms, uselessly sacrificed, and whom we were obliged to

leave behind.

It was here that we had inscribed with the sword and blood one of the

most memorable pages of our history. A few relics yet recorded it, and

they would soon be swept away. Some day the traveller will pass with

indifference over this plain, undistinguished from any other; but when

he shall learn that it was the theatre of the great battle, he will turn

back, long survey it with inquisitive looks, impress its minutest

features on his greedy memory, and doubtless exclaim, What men! what a

commander! what a destiny! These were the soldiers, who thirteen years

before in the south attempted a passage to the East, through Egypt, and

were dashed against its gates. They afterwards conquered Europe, and

hither they came by the north to present themselves again before that

same Asia, to be again foiled. What then urged them into this roving and

adventurous life? They were not barbarians, seeking a more genial

climate, more commodious habitations, more enchanting spectacles,

greater wealth: on the contrary, they possessed all these advantages,

and all possible pleasures; and yet they forsook them, to live without

shelter, and without food, to fall daily and in succession, either slain

or mutilated. What necessity drove them to this?--Why, what but

confidence in a leader hitherto infallible! the ambition to complete a

great work gloriously begun! the intoxication of victory, and above all,

that insatiable thirst of fame, that powerful instinct, which impels man

to seek death, in order to obtain immortality.

CHAP. VIII.

While the army was passing this fatal field in grave and silent

meditation, one of the victims of that sanguinary day was perceived, it

is said, still living, and piercing the air with his groans. It was

found by those who ran up to him that he was a French soldier. Both his

legs had been broken in the engagement; he had fallen among the dead,

where he remained unnoticed. The body of a horse, gutted by a shell, was

at first his asylum; afterwards, for fifty days, the muddy water of a

ravine, into which he had rolled, and the putrified flesh of the dead,

had served for dressing for his wounds and food for the support of his

languishing existence. Those who say that they discovered this man

affirm that they saved him.

Farther on, we again beheld the great abbey or hospital of Kolotskoi, a

sight still more hideous than that of the field of battle. At Borodino

all was death, but not without its quiet; there at least the battle was

over; at Kolotskoi it was still raging. Death here seemed to be pursuing

his victims, who had escaped from the engagement, with the utmost

malignity; he penetrated into them by all their senses at once. They

were destitute of every thing for repelling his attacks, excepting

orders, which it was impossible to execute in these deserts, and which,

moreover, issuing from too high and too distant a quarter, passed

through too many hands to be executed.

Still, in spite of famine, cold, and the most complete destitution, the

devotedness of a few surgeons and a remnant of hope, still supported a

great number of wounded in this pestiferous abode. But when they saw the

army repass, and that they were about to be left behind, the least

infirm crawled to the threshold of the door, lined the way, and extended

towards us their supplicating hands.

The Emperor had just given orders that each carriage, of whatever kind

it might be, should take up one of these unfortunate creatures, that the

weakest should be left, as at Moscow, under the protection of such of

the wounded and captive Russian officers as had been recovered by our

attentions. He halted to see this order carried into execution, and it

was at a fire kindled with his forsaken waggons that he and most of his

attendants warmed themselves. Ever since morning a multitude of

explosions proclaimed the numerous sacrifices of this kind which it

already had been found necessary to make.

During this halt, an atrocious action was witnessed. Several of the

wounded had just been placed in the suttlers' carts. These wretches,

whose vehicles were overloaded with the plunder of Moscow, murmured at

the new burden imposed upon them; but being compelled to admit it, they

held their peace. No sooner, however, had the army recommenced its

march, than they slackened their pace, dropped behind their columns, and

taking advantage of a lonely situation, they threw all the unfortunate

men committed to their care into the ditches. One only lived long enough

to be picked up by the next carriages that passed: he was a general, and

through him this atrocious procedure became known. A shudder of horror

spread throughout the column; it reached the Emperor; for the sufferings

of the army were not yet so severe and so universal as to stifle pity,

and to concentrate all his affections within the bosom of each

individual.

In the evening of this long day, as the imperial column approached

Gjatz, it was surprised to find Russians quite recently killed on the

way. It was remarked, that each of them had his head shattered in the

same manner, and that his bloody brains were scattered near him. It was

known that two thousand Russian prisoners were marching on before, and

that their guard consisted of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Poles. On this

discovery, each, according to his disposition, was indignant, approved,

or remained indifferent. Around the Emperor these various feelings were

mute. Caulaincourt broke out into the exclamation, that "it was an

atrocious cruelty. Here was a pretty specimen of the civilization which

we were introducing into Russia! What would be the effect of this

barbarity on the enemy? Were we not leaving our wounded and a multitude

of prisoners at his mercy? Did he want the means of wreaking the most

horrible retaliation?"

Napoleon preserved a gloomy silence, but on the ensuing day these

murders had ceased. These unfortunate people were then merely left to

die of hunger in the enclosures where, at night, they were confined like

cattle. This was no doubt a barbarity too; but what could we do?

Exchange them? the enemy rejected the proposal. Release them? they would

have gone and published the general distress, and, soon joined by

others, they would have returned to pursue us. In this mortal warfare,

to give them their lives would have been sacrificing our own. We were

cruel from necessity. The mischief arose from our having involved

ourselves in so dreadful an alternative.

Besides, in their march to the interior of Russia, our soldiers, who had

been made prisoners, were not more humanely treated, and there,

certainly, imperious necessity was not an excuse.

At length the troops arrived with the night at Gjatz; but this first day

of winter had been cruelly occupied. The sight of the field of battle,

and of the two forsaken hospitals, the multitude of waggons consigned to

the flames, the Russians with their brains blown out, the excessive

length of the march, the first severities of winter, all concurred to

render it horrible: the retreat became a flight; and Napoleon, compelled

to yield and run away, was a spectacle perfectly novel.

Several of our allies enjoyed it with that inward satisfaction which is

felt by inferiors, when they see their chiefs at length thwarted, and

obliged in their turn to give way. They indulged that miserable envy

that is excited by extraordinary success, which rarely occurs without

being abused, and which shocks that equality which is the first want of

man. But this malicious joy was soon extinguished and lost in the

universal distress.

The wounded pride of Napoleon justified the supposition of such

reflections. This was perceived in one of the halts of that day: there,

on the rough furrows of a frozen field, strewed with wrecks both Russian

and French, he attempted, by the energy of his words, to relieve himself

from the weight of the insupportable responsibility of so many

disasters. "He had in fact dreaded this war, and he devoted its author

to the execration of the whole world. It was ---- whom he accused of

this; it was that Russian minister, sold to the English, who had

fomented it, and the traitor had drawn into it both Alexander and

himself."

These words, uttered before two of his generals, were heard with that

silence enjoined by old respect, added to that which is due to

misfortune. But the Duke of Vicenza, perhaps too impatient, betrayed his

indignation by a gesture of anger and incredulity, and, abruptly

retiring, put an end to this painful conversation.

CHAP. IX.

From Gjatz the Emperor proceeded in two marches to Wiazma. He there

halted to wait for Prince Eugene and Davoust, and to reconnoitre the

road of Medyn and Yucknow, which runs at that place into the high road

to Smolensk. It was this cross-road which might bring the Russian army

from Malo-Yaroslawetz on his passage. But on the first of November,

after waiting thirty-six hours, Napoleon had not seen any avant-courier

of that army; he set out, wavering between the hope that Kutusoff had

fallen asleep, and the fear that the Russian had left Wiazma on his

right, and proceeded two marches farther towards Dorogobouje to cut off

his retreat. At any rate, he left Ney at Wiazma, to collect the first

and fourth corps, and to relieve, as the rear-guard, Davoust, whom he

judged to be fatigued.

He complained of the tardiness of the latter; he wrote to reproach him

with being still five marches behind him, when he ought to have been no

more than three days later; he considered the genius of that marshal as

too methodical to direct, in a suitable manner, so irregular a march.

The whole army, and the corps of Prince Eugene in particular, repeated

these complaints. They said, that "owing to his spirit of order and

obstinacy, Davoust had suffered the enemy to overtake him at the Abbey

of Kalotskoi; that he had there done ragamuffin Cossacks the honour of

retiring before them, step by step, and in square battalions, as if they

had been Mamelukes; that Platof, with his cannon, had played at a

distance on the deep masses which he had presented to him; that then

only the marshal had opposed to them merely a few slender lines, which

had speedily formed again, and some light pieces, the first fire of

which had produced the desired effect; but that these manoeuvres and

regular foraging excursions had occasioned a great loss of time, which

is always valuable in retreat, and especially amidst famine, through

which the most skilful manoeuvre was to pass with all possible

expedition."

In reply to this, Davoust urged his natural horror of every kind of

disorder, which had at first led him to attempt to introduce regularity

into this flight; he had endeavoured to cover the wrecks of it, fearing

the shame and the danger of leaving for the enemy these evidences of our

disastrous state.

He added, that, "people were not aware of all that he had had to

surmount; he had found the country completely devastated, houses

demolished, and the trees burned to their very roots; for it was not to

him who came last, that the work of general destruction had been left;

the conflagration preceded him. It appeared as if the rear-guard had

been totally forgotten! No doubt, too, people forgot the frozen road

rough with the tracks of all who had gone before him; as well as the

deep fords and broken bridges, which no one thought of repairing, as

each corps, when not engaged, cared but for itself alone."

Did they not know besides, that the whole tremendous train of

stragglers, belonging to the other corps, on horseback, on foot, and in

vehicles, aggravated these embarrassments, just as in a diseased body

all the complaints fly to and unite in the part most affected? Every day

he marched between these wretches and the Cossacks, driving forward the

one and pressed by the other.

Thus, after passing Gjatz, he had found the slough of Czarewo-Zaimcze

without a bridge, and completely encumbered with carriages. He had

dragged them out of the marsh in sight of the enemy, and so near to them

that their fires lighted his labours, and the sound of their drums

mingled with that of his voice. For the marshal and his generals could

not yet resolve to relinquish to the enemy so many trophies; nor did

they make up their minds to it, till after superfluous exertions, and in

the last extremity, which happened several times a day.

The road was in fact crossed every moment by marshy hollows. A slope,

slippery as glass with the frost, hurried the carriages into them and

there they stuck; to draw them out it was necessary to climb the

opposite ascent by an icy road, where the horses, whose shoes were worn

quite smooth, could not obtaining a footing, and where every moment they

and their drivers dropped exhausted one upon the other. The famished

soldiers immediately fell upon these luckless animals and tore them to

pieces; then at fires, kindled with the remains of their carriages, they

broiled the yet bleeding flesh and devoured it.

Meanwhile the artillerymen, a chosen corps, and their officers, all

brought up in the first school in the world, kept off these unfortunate

wretches whenever they could, and took the horses from their own chaises

and waggons, which they abandoned to save the guns. To these they

harnessed their horses, nay even themselves: the Cossacks, observing

this disaster from a distance, durst not approach; but with their light

pieces mounted on sledges they threw their balls into all this disorder,

and served to increase it.

The first corps had already lost ten thousand men: nevertheless, by dint

of efforts and sacrifices, the viceroy and the Prince of Eckmühl were,

on the 2d of November, within two leagues of Wiazma. It is certain that

the same day they might have passed that town, joined Ney, and avoided a

disastrous engagement. It is affirmed, that such was the opinion of

Prince Eugene, but that Davoust believed his troops to be too much

fatigued, on which the viceroy, sacrificing himself to his duty, staid

to share a danger which he foresaw. Davoust's generals say, on the

contrary, that Prince Eugene, who was already encamped, could not find

in his heart to make his soldiers leave their fires and their meal,

which they had already begun, and the cooking of which always cost them

a great deal of trouble.

Be that as it may, during the deceptive tranquillity of that night, the

advanced-guard of the Russians arrived from Malo-Yaroslawetz, our

retreat from which place had put an end to theirs: it skirted along the

two French corps and that of Poniatowski, passed their bivouacs, and

disposed its columns of attack against the left flank of the road, in

the intermediate two leagues which Davoust and Eugene had left between

themselves and Wiazma.

Miloradowitch, whom we denominated the Russian Murat, commanded this

advanced-guard. He was, according to his countrymen, an indefatigable

and successful warrior, impetuous as that soldier-king, of a stature

equally remarkable, and, like him, a favourite of fortune. He was never

known to be wounded, though numbers of officers and soldiers had fallen

around him, and several horses had been killed under him. He despised

the principles of war: he even made an art of not following the rules of

that art, pretending to surprise the enemy by unexpected blows, for he

was prompt in decision; he disdained to make any preparations, leaving

places and circumstances to suggest what was proper to be done, and

guiding himself only by sudden inspirations. In other respects, a

general in the field of battle alone, he was destitute of foresight in

the management of any affairs, either public or private, a notorious

spendthrift, and, what is rare, not less upright than prodigal.

It was this general, with Platof and twenty thousand men, whom we had

now to fight.

CHAP. X.

On the 3d of November, Prince Eugene was proceeding towards Wiazma,

preceded by his equipages and his artillery, when the first light of day

shewed him at once his retreat threatened by an army on his left; behind

him his rear-guard cut off; and on his left the plain covered with

stragglers and scattered vehicles, fleeing before the lances of the

enemy. At the same time, towards Wiazma, he heard Marshal Ney, who

should have assisted him, fighting for his own preservation.

That Prince was not one of those generals, the offspring of favour, to

whom every thing is unexpected and cause of astonishment, for want of

experience. He immediately looked the evil in the face, and set about

remedying it. He halted, turned about, deployed his divisions on the

right of the high road, and checked in the plain the Russian columns,

who were striving to cut him off from that road. Their foremost troops,

overpowering the right of the Italians, had already seized one point, of

which they kept possession, when Ney despatched from Wiazma one of his

regiments, which attacked them in the rear and dislodged them.

At the same time Compans, a general of Davoust's, joined the Italian

rear-guard with his division. They cleared a way for themselves, and

while they, united with the Viceroy, were engaged, Davoust with his

column passed rapidly behind them, along the left side of the high road,

then crossing it as soon as he had got beyond them, he claimed his place

in the order of battle, took the right wing, and found himself between

Wiazma and the Russians. Prince Eugene gave up to him the ground which

he had defended, and crossed to the other side of the road. The enemy

then began to extend himself before them, and endeavoured to break

through their wings.

By the success of this first manoeuvre, the two French and Italian

corps had not conquered the right to continue their retreat, but only

the possibility of defending it. They were still thirty thousand strong;

but in the first corps, that of Davoust, there was some disorder. The

hastiness of the manoeuvre, the surprise, so much wretchedness, and,

above all, the fatal example of a multitude of dismounted cavalry,

without arms, and running to and fro bewildered with fear, threw it into

confusion.

This sight encouraged the enemy; he took it for a rout. His artillery,

superior in number, manoeuvred at a gallop: it took obliquely and in

flank our lines, which it cut down, while the French cannon, already at

Wiazma, and which had been ordered to return in haste, could with

difficulty be brought along. However, Davoust and his generals had still

their firmest troops, about them. Several of these officers, still

suffering from the wounds received at the Moskwa, one with his arm in a

sling, another with his head wrapped in cloths, were seen supporting the

best, encouraging the most irresolute, dashing at the enemy's batteries,

forcing them to retire, and even seizing three of their pieces; in

short, astonishing both the enemy and their own fugitives, and combating

a mischievous example by their noble behaviour.

Miloradowitch, perceiving that his prey was escaping, now applied for

reinforcement; and it was again Wilson, who was sure to be present

wherever he could be most injurious to France, who hastened to summon

Kutusoff. He found the old marshal unconcernedly resting himself with

his army within hearing of the action. The ardent Wilson, urgent as the

occasion, excited him in vain: he could not induce him to stir.

Transported with indignation, he called him traitor, and declared that

he would instantly despatch one of his Englishmen full speed to

Petersburg, to denounce his treason to his Emperor and his allies.

This threat had no effect on Kutusoff; he persisted in remaining

inactive; either because to the frost of age was superadded that of

winter, and that in his shattered frame his mind was depressed by the

sight of so many ruins; or that, from another effect of old age, a

person becomes prudent when he has scarcely any thing to risk, and a

temporiser when he has no more time to lose. He seemed still to be of

opinion, as at Malo-Yaroslawetz, that the Russian winter alone could

overthrow Napoleon; that this genius, the conqueror of men, was not yet

sufficiently conquered by Nature; that it was best to leave to the

climate the honour of that victory, and to the Russian atmosphere the

work of vengeance.

Miloradowitch, left to himself, then tried to break the French line of

battle; but he could not penetrate it except by his fire, which made

dreadful havoc in it. Eugene and Davoust were growing weak; and as they

heard another action in the rear of their right, they imagined that the

rest of the Russian army was approaching Wiazma by the Yuknof road, the

outlet of which Ney was defending.

It was only an advanced-guard: but they were alarmed at the noise of

this fight in the rear of their own, threatening their retreat. The

action had lasted ever since seven in the morning; night was

approaching; the baggage must by this time have got away; the French

generals therefore began to retire.

This retrograde movement increased the ardour of the enemy, and but for

a memorable effort of the 25th, 57th, and 85th regiments, and the

protection of a ravine, Davoust's corps would have been broken, turned

by its right, and destroyed. Prince Eugene, who was not so briskly

attacked, was able to effect his retreat more rapidly through Wiazma;

but the Russians followed him thither, and had penetrated into the town,

when Davoust, pursued by twenty thousand men, and overwhelmed by eighty

pieces of cannon, attempted to pass in his turn.

Morand's division first entered the town: it was marching on with

confidence, under the idea that the action was over, when the Russians,

who were concealed by the windings of the streets, suddenly fell upon

it. The surprise was complete and the confusion great: Morand

nevertheless rallied and re-encouraged his men, retrieved matters, and

fought his way through.

It was Compans who put an end to the whole. He closed the march with his

division. Finding himself too closely pressed by the bravest troops of

Miloradowitch, he turned about, dashed in person at the most eager,

overthrew them, and having thus made them fear him, he finished his

retreat without further molestation. This conflict was glorious to each,

and its result disastrous to all: it was without order and unity. There

would have been troops enough to conquer, had there not been too many

commanders. It was not till near two o'clock that the latter met to

concert their manoeuvres, and these were even then executed without

harmony.

When at length the river, the town of Wiazma, night, mutual fatigue, and

Marshal Ney had separated them from the enemy, the danger being

adjourned and the bivouacs established, the numbers were counted.

Several pieces of cannon which had been broken, the baggage, and four

thousand killed or wounded, were missing. Many of the soldiers had

dispersed. Their honour was saved, but there were immense gaps in the

ranks. It was necessary to close them up, to bring every thing within a

narrower compass, to form what remained into a more compact whole. Each

regiment scarcely composed a battalion, each battalion a platoon. The

soldiers had no longer their accustomed places, comrades, or officers.

This sad re-organization took place by the light of the conflagration of

Wiazma, and during the successive discharges of the cannon of Ney and

Miloradowitch, the thunders of which were prolonged amid the double

darkness of night and the forests. Several times the relics of these

brave troops, conceiving that they were attacked, crawled to their arms.

Next morning, when they fell into their ranks again, they were

astonished at the smallness of their number.

CHAP. XI.

The spirits of the troops were still supported by the example of their

leaders, by the hopes of finding all their wants supplied at Smolensk,

and still more by the aspect of a yet brilliant sun, of that universal

source of hope and life, which seemed to contradict and deny the

spectacles of despair and death that already encompassed us.

But on the 6th of November, the heavens declared against us. Their azure

disappeared. The army marched enveloped in cold fogs. These fogs became

thicker, and presently an immense cloud descended upon it in large

flakes of snow. It seemed as if the very sky was falling, and joining

the earth and our enemies to complete our destruction. All objects

changed their appearance, and became confounded, and not to be

recognised again; we proceeded, without knowing where we were, without

perceiving the point to which we were bound; every thing was transformed

into an obstacle. While the soldier was struggling with the tempest of

wind and snow, the flakes, driven by the storm, lodged and accumulated

in every hollow; their surfaces concealed unknown abysses, which

perfidiously opened beneath our feet. There the men were engulphed, and

the weakest, resigning themselves to their fate, found a grave in these

snow-pits.

Those who followed turned aside, but the storm drove into their faces

both the snow that was descending from the sky, and that which it raised

from the ground: it seemed bent on opposing their progress. The Russian

winter, under this new form, attacked them on all sides: it penetrated

through their light garments and their torn shoes and boots. Their wet

clothes froze upon their bodies; an icy envelope encased them and

stiffened all their limbs. A keen and violent wind interrupted

respiration: it seized their breath at the moment when they exhaled it,

and converted it into icicles, which hung from their beards all round

their mouths.

The unfortunate creatures still crawled on, shivering, till the snow,

gathering like balls under their feet, or the fragment of some broken

article, a branch of a tree, or the body of one of their comrades,

caused them to stumble and fall. There they groaned in vain; the snow

soon covered them; slight hillocks marked the spot where they lay: such

was their only grave! The road was studded with these undulations, like

a cemetery: the most intrepid and the most indifferent were affected;

they passed on quickly with averted looks. But before them, around them,

there was nothing but snow: this immense and dreary uniformity extended

farther than the eye could reach; the imagination was astounded; it was

like a vast winding-sheet which Nature had thrown over the army. The

only objects not enveloped by it, were some gloomy pines, trees of the

tombs, with their funeral verdure, the motionless aspect of their

gigantic black trunks and their dismal look, which completed the doleful

appearance of a general mourning, and of an army dying amidst a nature

already dead.

Every thing, even to their very arms, still offensive at

Malo-Yaroslawetz, but since then defensive only, now turned against

them. These seemed to their frozen limbs insupportably heavy, in the

frequent falls which they experienced, they dropped from their hands and

were broken or buried in the snow. If they rose again, it was without

them; for they did not throw them away; hunger and cold wrested them

from their grasp. The fingers of many others were frozen to the musket

which they still held, which deprived them of the motion necessary for

keeping up some degree of warmth and life.

We soon met with numbers of men belonging to all the corps, sometimes

singly, at others in troops. They had not basely deserted their colours;

it was cold and inanition which had separated them from their columns.

In this general and individual struggle, they had parted from one

another, and there they were, disarmed, vanquished, defenceless, without

leaders, obeying nothing but the urgent instinct of self-preservation.

Most of them, attracted by the sight of by-paths, dispersed themselves

over the country, in hopes of finding bread and shelter for the coming

night: but, on their first passage, all had been laid waste to the

extent of seven or eight leagues; they met with nothing but Cossacks,

and an armed population, which encompassed, wounded, and stripped them

naked, and then left them, with ferocious bursts of laughter, to expire

on the snow. These people, who had risen at the call of Alexander and

Kutusoff, and who had not then learned, as they since have, to avenge

nobly a country which they were unable to defend, hovered on both flanks

of the army under favour of the woods. Those whom they did not despatch

with their pikes and hatchets, they brought back to the fatal and

all-devouring high road.

Night then came on--a night of sixteen hours! But on that snow which

covered every thing, they knew not where to halt, where to sit, where to

lie down, where to find some root or other to eat, and dry wood to

kindle a fire! Fatigue, darkness, and repeated orders nevertheless

stopped those whom their moral and physical strength and the efforts of

their officers had kept together. They strove to establish themselves;

but the tempest, still active, dispersed the first preparations for

bivouacs. The pines, laden with frost, obstinately resisted the flames;

their snow, that from the sky which yet continued to fall fast, and that

on the ground, which melted with the efforts of the soldiers, and the

effect of the first fires, extinguished those fires, as well as the

strength and spirits of the men.

When at length the flames gained the ascendancy, the officers and

soldiers around them prepared their wretched repast; it consisted of

lean and bloody pieces of flesh torn from the horses that were knocked

up, and at most a few spoonfuls of rye-flour mixed with snow-water. Next

morning circular ranges of soldiers extended lifeless marked the

bivouacs; and the ground about them was strewed with the bodies of

several thousand horses.

From that day we began to place less reliance on one another. In that

lively army, susceptible of all impressions, and taught to reason by an

advanced civilization, discouragement and neglect of discipline spread

rapidly, the imagination knowing no bounds in evil as in good.

Henceforward, at every bivouac, at every difficult passage, at every

moment, some portion separated from the yet organised troops, and fell

into disorder. There were some, however, who withstood this wide

contagion of indiscipline and despondency. These were officers,

non-commissioned officers, and steady soldiers. These were extraordinary

men: they encouraged one another by repeating the name of Smolensk,

which they knew they were approaching, and where they had been promised

that all their wants should be supplied.

It was in this manner that, after this deluge of snow, and the increase

of cold which it foreboded, each, whether officer or soldier, preserved

or lost his fortitude, according to his disposition, his age, and his

constitution. That one of our leaders who had hitherto been the

strictest in enforcing discipline, now paid little attention to it.

Thrown out of all his fixed ideas of regularity, order, and method, he

was seized with despair at the sight of such universal disorder, and

conceiving, before the others, that all was lost, he felt himself ready

to abandon all.

From Gjatz to Mikalewska, a village between Dorogobouje and Smolensk,

nothing remarkable occurred in the imperial column, unless that it was

found necessary to throw the spoils of Moscow into the lake of Semlewo:

cannon, gothic armour, the ornaments of the Kremlin, and the cross of

Ivan the Great, were buried in its waters; trophies, glory, all those

acquisitions to which we had sacrificed every thing, became a burden to

us; our object was no longer to embellish, to adorn life, but to

preserve it. In this vast wreck, the army, like a great ship tossed by

the most tremendous of tempests, threw without hesitation into that sea

of ice and snow, every thing that could slacken or impede its progress.

CHAP. XII.

During the 3d and 4th of November Napoleon halted at Stakowo. This

repose, and the shame of appearing to flee, inflamed his imagination. He

dictated orders, according to which his rear-guard, by appearing to

retreat in disorder, was to draw the Russians into an ambuscade, where

he should be waiting for them in person; but this vain project passed

off with the pre-occupation which gave it birth. On the 5th he slept at

Dorogobouje. Here he found the hand-mills which were ordered for the

expedition at the time the cantonments of Smolensk were projected; of

these a late and totally useless distribution was made.

Next day, the 6th of November, opposite to Mikalewska, at the moment

when the clouds, laden with sleet and snow, were bursting over our

heads, Count Daru was seen hastening up, and a circle of vedettes

forming around him and the Emperor.

An express, the first that had been able to reach us for ten days, had

just brought intelligence of that strange conspiracy, hatched in Paris

itself, and in the depth of a prison, by an obscure general. He had had

no other accomplices than the false news of our destruction, and forged

orders to some troops to apprehend the Minister, the Prefect of Police,

and the Commandant of Paris. His plan had completely succeeded, from the

impulsion of a first movement, from ignorance and the general

astonishment; but no sooner was a rumour of the affair spread abroad,

than an order was sufficient again to consign the leader, with his

accomplices or his dupes, to a prison.

The Emperor was apprised at the same moment of their crime and their

punishment. Those who at a distance strove to read his thoughts in his

countenance could discover nothing. He repressed his feelings; his first

and only words to Daru were, "How now, if we had remained at Moscow!" He

then hastened into a house surrounded with a palisade, which had served

for a post of correspondence.

The moment he was alone with the most devoted of his officers, all his

emotions burst forth at once in exclamations of astonishment,

humiliation and anger. Presently afterwards he sent for several other

officers, to observe the effect which so extraordinary a piece of

intelligence would produce upon them. He perceived in them a painful

uneasiness and consternation, and their confidence in the stability of

his government completely shaken. He had occasion to know that they

accosted each other with a sigh, and the remark, that it thus appeared

that the great revolution of 1789, which was thought to be finished, was

not yet over. Grown old in struggles to get out of it, were they to be

again plunged into it, and to be thrown once more into the dreadful

career of political convulsions? Thus war was coming upon us in every

quarter, and we were liable to lose every thing at once.

Some rejoiced at this intelligence, in the hope that it would hasten the

return of the Emperor to France, that it would fix him there, and that

he would no longer risk himself abroad, since he was not safe at home.

On the following day, the sufferings of the moment put an end to these

conjectures. As for Napoleon, all his thoughts again flew before him to

Paris, and he was advancing mechanically towards Smolensk, when his

whole attention was recalled to the present place and time, by the

arrival of an aide-de-camp of Ney.

From Wiazma that Marshal had begun to protect this retreat, mortal to so

many others, but immortal for himself. As far as Dorogobouje, it had

been molested only by some bands of Cossacks, troublesome insects

attracted by our dying and by our forsaken carriages, flying away the

moment a hand was lifted, but harassing by their continual return.

They were not the subject of Ney's message. On approaching Dorogobouje

he had met with the traces of the disorder which prevailed in the corps

that preceded him, and which it was not in his power to efface. So far

he had made up his mind to leave the baggage to the enemy; but he

blushed with shame at the sight of the first pieces of cannon abandoned

before Dorogobouje.

The marshal had halted there. After a dreadful night, in which snow,

wind, and famine had driven most of his men from the fires, the dawn,

which is always awaited with such impatience in a bivouac, had brought

him a tempest, the enemy, and the spectacle of an almost general

defection. In vain he had just fought in person at the head of what men

and officers he had left: he had been obliged to retreat precipitately

behind the Dnieper; and of this he sent to apprise the Emperor.

He wished him to know the worst. His aide-de-camp, Colonel Dalbignac,

was instructed to say, that "the first movement of retreat from

Malo-Yaroslawetz, for soldiers who had never yet run away, had

dispirited the army; that the affair at Wiazma had shaken its firmness;

and that lastly, the deluge of snow and the increased cold which it

betokened, had completed its disorganization: that a multitude of

officers, having lost every thing, their platoons, battalions,

regiments, and even divisions, had joined the roving masses: generals,

colonels, and officers of all ranks, were seen mingled with the

privates, and marching at random, sometimes with one column, sometimes

with another: that as order could not exist in the presence of disorder,

this example was seducing even the veteran regiments, which had served

during the whole of the wars of the revolution: that in the ranks, the

best soldiers were heard asking one another, why they alone were

required to fight in order to secure the flight of the rest; and how any

one could expect to keep up their courage, when they heard the cries of

despair issuing from the neighbouring woods, in which large convoys of

their wounded, who had been dragged to no purpose all the way from

Moscow, had just been abandoned? Such then was the fate which awaited

themselves! what had they to gain by remaining by their colours?

Incessant toils and combats by day, and famine at night; no shelter, and

bivouacs still more destructive than battle: famine and cold drove sleep

far away from them, or if fatigue got the better of these for the

moment, that repose which ought to refresh them put a period to their

lives. In short, the eagles had ceased to protect--they destroyed. Why

then remain around them to perish by battalions, by masses? It would be

better to disperse, and since there was no other course than flight, to

try who could run fastest. It would not then be the best that would

fall: the cowards behind them would no longer eat up the relics of the

high road." Lastly, the aide-de-camp was commissioned to explain to the

Emperor all the horrors of his situation, the responsibility of which

Ney absolutely declined.

But Napoleon saw enough around himself to judge of the rest. The

fugitives were passing him; he was sensible that nothing could now be

done but sacrifice the army successively, part by part, beginning at the

extremities, in order to save the head. When, therefore, the

aide-de-camp was beginning, he sharply interrupted him with these words,

"Colonel, I do not ask you for these details." The Colonel was silent,

aware that in this disaster, now irremediable, and in which every one

had occasion for all his energies, the Emperor was afraid of complaints,

which could have no other effect but to discourage both him who indulged

in, and him who listened to them.

He remarked the attitude of Napoleon, the same which he retained

throughout the whole of this retreat. It was grave, silent, and

resigned; suffering much less in body than others, but much more in

mind, and brooding over his misfortunes. At that moment General

Charpentier sent him from Smolensk a convoy of provisions. Bessières

wished to take possession of them, but the Emperor instantly had them

forwarded to the Prince of the Moskwa, saying, "that those who were

fighting must eat before the others." At the same time he sent word to

Ney "to defend himself long enough to allow him some stay at Smolensk,

where the army should eat, rest, and be re-organized."

But if this hope kept some to their duty, many others abandoned every

thing, to hasten towards that promised term of their sufferings. As for

Ney, he saw that a sacrifice was required, and that he was marked out as

the victim: he resigned himself, ready to meet the whole of a danger

great as his courage: thenceforward he neither attached his honour to

baggage, nor to cannon, which the winter alone wrested from him. A first

bend of the Borysthenes stopped and kept back part of his guns at the

foot of its icy slopes; he sacrificed them without hesitation, passed

that obstacle, faced about, and made the hostile river, which crossed

his route, serve him as the means of defence.

The Russians, however, advanced under favour of a wood and our forsaken

carriages, whence they kept up a fire of musketry on Ney's troops. Half

of the latter, whose icy arms froze their stiffened fingers, got

discouraged; they gave way, justifying themselves by their

faint-heartedness on the preceding day, fleeing because they had fled;

which before they would have considered as impossible. But Ney rushed in

amongst them, snatched one of their muskets, and led them back to the

fire, which he was the first to renew; exposing his life like a private

soldier, with a musket in his hand, the same as when he was neither

husband nor father, neither possessed of wealth, nor power, nor

consideration: in short, as if he had still every thing to gain, when in

fact he had every thing to lose. At the same time that he again turned

soldier, he ceased not to be a general; he took advantage of the ground,

supported himself against a height, and covered himself with a palisaded

house. His generals and his colonels, among whom he himself remarked

Fezenzac, strenuously seconded him; and the enemy, who expected to

pursue, was obliged to retreat.

By this action, Ney gave the army a respite of twenty-four hours; it

profited by it to proceed towards Smolensk. The next day, and all the

succeeding days, he manifested the same heroism. Between Wiazma and

Smolensk he fought ten whole days.

CHAP. XIII.

On the 13th of November he was approaching that city, which he was not

to enter till the ensuing day, and had faced about to keep off the

enemy, when all at once the hills upon which he intended to support his

left were seen covered with a multitude of fugitives. In their fright,

these unfortunate wretches fell and rolled down to where he was, upon

the frozen snow, which they stained with their blood. A band of

Cossacks, which was soon perceived in the midst of them, sufficiently

accounted for this disorder. The astonished marshal, having caused this

flock of enemies to be dispersed, discovered behind it the army of

Italy, returning quite stripped, without baggage, and without cannon.

Platof had kept it besieged, as it were, all the way from Dorogobouje.

Near that town Prince Eugene had left the high-road, and, in order to

proceed towards Witepsk, had taken that which, two months before, had

brought him from Smolensk; but the Wop, which when he crossed before was

a mere brook, and had scarcely been noticed, he now found swelled into a

river. It ran over a bed of mud, and was bounded by two steep banks. It

was found necessary to cut a way in these rough and frozen banks, and to

give orders for the demolition, during the night, of the neighbouring

houses, in order to build a bridge with the materials. But those who had

taken shelter in them opposed their destruction. The Viceroy, more

beloved than feared, was not obeyed. The pontonniers were disheartened,

and when daylight appeared with the Cossacks, the bridge, after being

twice broken down, was abandoned.

Five or six thousand soldiers still in order, twice the number of

disbanded men, sick and wounded, upwards of a hundred pieces of cannon,

ammunition waggons, and a multitude of other vehicles, lined the bank,

and covered a league of ground. An attempt was made to ford through the

ice carried along by the torrent. The first guns that tried to cross

reached the opposite bank; but the water kept rising every moment, while

at the same time the bed of the river at the ford was deepened by the

wheels and the efforts of the horses. A carriage stuck fast; others did

the same; and the stoppage became general.

Meanwhile the day was advancing; the men were exhausting themselves in

vain efforts: hunger, cold, and the Cossacks became pressing, and the

Viceroy at length found himself necessitated to order his artillery and

all his baggage to be left behind. A distressing spectacle ensued. The

owners had scarcely time to part from their effects; while they were

selecting from them the articles which they most needed, and loading

horses with them, a multitude of soldiers hastened up; they fell in

preference upon the vehicles of luxury; they broke in pieces and

rummaged every thing, revenging their destitution on this wealth, their

privations on these superfluities, and snatching them from the Cossacks,

who looked on at a distance.

It was provisions of which most of them were in quest. They threw aside

embroidered clothes, pictures, ornaments of every kind, and gilt

bronzes, for a few handfuls of flour. In the evening it was a singular

sight to behold the riches of Paris and Moscow, the luxuries of two of

the largest cities in the world, lying scattered and despised on the

snow of the desert.

At the same time most of the artillerymen spiked their guns in despair,

and scattered their powder about. Others laid a train with it as far as

some ammunition waggons, which had been left at a considerable distance

behind our baggage. They waited till the most eager of the Cossacks had

come up to them, and when a great number, greedy of plunder, had

collected about them, they threw a brand from a bivouac upon the train.

The fire ran and in a moment reached its destination: the waggons were

blown up, the shells exploded, and such of the Cossacks as were not

killed on the spot dispersed in dismay.

A few hundred men, who were still called the 14th division, were opposed

to these hordes, and sufficed to keep them at a respectful distance till

the next day. All the rest, soldiers, administrators, women and

children, sick and wounded, driven by the enemy's balls, crowded the

bank of the torrent. But at the sight of its swollen current, of the

sharp and massive sheets of ice flowing down it, and the necessity of

aggravating their already intolerable sufferings from cold by plunging

into its chilling waves, they all hesitated.

An Italian, Colonel Delfanti, was obliged to set the example and cross

first. The soldiers then moved and the crowd followed. The weakest, the

least resolute, or the most avaricious, staid behind. Such as could not

make up their minds to part from their booty, and to forsake fortune

which was forsaking them, were surprised in the midst of their

hesitation. Next day the savage Cossacks were seen amid all this wealth,

still covetous of the squalid and tattered garments of the unfortunate

creatures who had become their prisoners: they stripped them, and then

collecting them in troops, drove them along naked on the snow, by hard

blows with the shaft of their lances.

The army of Italy, thus dismantled, thoroughly soaked in the waters of

the Wop, without food, without shelter, passed the night on the snow

near a village, where its officers expected to have found lodging for

themselves. Their soldiers, however, beset its wooden houses. They

rushed like madmen, and in swarms, on each habitation, profiting by the

darkness, which prevented them from recognizing their officers or being

known by them. They tore down every thing, doors, windows and even the

wood-work of the roofs, feeling little compunction to compel others, be

they who they might, to bivouac like themselves.

Their generals strove in vain to drive them off; they took their blows

without murmur or opposition, but without desisting; and even the men of

the royal and imperial guards: for, throughout the whole army, such were

the scenes that occurred every night. The unfortunate fellows remained

silently but actively engaged on the wooden walls, which they pulled in

pieces on every side at once, and which, after vain efforts, their

officers were obliged to relinquish to them, for fear they should fall

upon their own heads. It was an extraordinary mixture of perseverance in

their design, and respect for the anger of their generals.

Having kindled good fires they spent the night in drying themselves,

amid the shouts, imprecations, and groans of those who were still

crossing the torrent, or who, slipping from its banks, were precipitated

into it and drowned.

It is a fact which reflects disgrace on the enemy, that during this

disaster, and in sight of so rich a booty, a few hundred men, left at

the distance of half a league from the Viceroy, on the other side of the

Wop, were sufficient to curb, for twenty hours, not only the courage but

also the cupidity of Platof's Cossacks.

It is possible, indeed, that the Hetman made sure of destroying the

Viceroy on the following day. In fact, all his measures were so well

planned, that at the moment when the army of Italy, after an unquiet and

disorderly march, came in sight of Dukhowtchina, a town yet uninjured,

and was joyfully hastening forward to shelter itself there, several

thousand Cossacks sallied forth from it with cannon, and suddenly

stopped its progress: at the same time Platof, with all his hordes, came

up and attacked its rear-guard and both flanks.

Persons, who were eye-witnesses, assert that a complete tumult and

disorder then ensued; that the disbanded men, the women, and the

attendants, ran over one another, and broke quite through the ranks;

that, in short, there was a moment when this unfortunate army was but a

shapeless mass, a mere rabble rout whirling round and round. All seemed

to be lost; but the coolness of the Prince and the efforts of the

officers saved all. The best men disengaged themselves; the ranks were

again formed. They advanced, firing a few volleys, and the enemy, who

had every thing on his side excepting courage, the only advantage yet

left us, opened and retired, confining himself to a mere demonstration.

The army took his place still warm in that town, beyond which he went to

bivouac, and to prepare similar surprises to the very gates of Smolensk.

For this disaster at the Wop had made the Viceroy give up the idea of

separating from the Emperor; there these hordes grew bolder; they

surrounded the 14th division. When Prince Eugene would have gone to its

relief, the men and their officers, stiffened with a cold of twenty

degrees, which the wind rendered most piercing, continued stretched on

the warm ashes of their fires. To no purpose did he point out to them

their comrades surrounded, the enemy approaching, the bullets and balls

which were already reaching them; they refused to rise, protesting that

they would rather perish than any longer have to endure such cruel

hardships. The vedettes themselves had abandoned their posts. Prince

Eugene nevertheless contrived to save his rear-guard.

It was in returning with it towards Smolensk that his stragglers had

been driven back on Ney's troops, to whom they communicated their panic;

all hurried together towards the Dnieper; here they crowded together at

the entrance of the bridge, without thinking of defending themselves,

when a charge made by the 4th regiment stopped the advance of the enemy.

Its colonel, young Fezenzac, contrived to infuse fresh life into these

men who were half perished with cold. There, as in every thing that can

be called action, was manifested the superiority of the sentiments of

the soul over the sensations of the body; for every physical sensation

tended to encourage despondency and flight; nature advised it with her

hundred most urgent voices; and yet a few words of honour were

sufficient to produce the most heroic devotedness. The soldiers of the

4th regiment rushed like furies upon the enemy, against the mountain of

snow and ice of which he had taken possession, and in the teeth of the

northern hurricane, for they had every thing against them. Ney himself

was obliged to moderate their impetuosity.

A reproach from their colonel effected this change. These private

soldiers devoted themselves, that they might not be wanting to their own

characters, from that instinct which requires courage in a man, as well

as from habit and the love of glory. A splendid word for so obscure a

situation! For, what is the glory of a common soldier, who perishes

unseen, who is neither praised, censured, nor regretted, but by his own

division of a company! The circle of each, however, is sufficient for

him: a small society embraces the same passions as a large one. The

proportions of the bodies differ; but they are composed of the same

elements; it is the same life that animates them, and the looks of a

platoon stimulate a soldier, just as those of an army inflame a general.

CHAP. XIV.