OVER THE BERESINA.
“Milder yet thy snowy breezes
Pour on yonder tented shores,
Where the Rhine’s broad billow freezes,
Or the tent-brown Danube roars.
Oh, winds of winter, list ye there
To many a deep and dying groan;
Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,
At shrieks and thunders louder than your own!
Alas! even your unhallowed breath
May spare the victim, fallen low;
But man will ask no truce to death,
No bounds to human woe.”
Rougeard and his companions succeeded in reaching Smolensko, but
only to find it a scene of intolerable wretchedness and unutterable
confusion. The Emperor and the Old Guard had left some days previously,
and for the disorganized troops pouring every hour into the miserable,
ruined city, there was neither food nor shelter, neither order nor
discipline. So our little coterie still kept together, and hoping
against hope determined to continue their march towards the frontier.
Ten or twelve weary days of marching followed. Always hungry, always
cold, always tired, Henri would have given up the struggle once and
again, but for the thought which kept for ever
“Beating in upon his weary brain,
As though it were the burden of a song”--
“I must see my mother and my sister again; I cannot die without my
mother’s forgiveness.”
Usually their only food was a little horse-flesh, but even that failed
them frequently; nor could fuel be always found for the fire of their
bivouac. From the bodies of their comrades that strewed the way they
sometimes obtained articles of clothing--a sad resource, but all,
even the gentle Henri, were now becoming inured to sights of horror.
Sometimes they would meet with other coteries whose condition was
as pitiable as their own, or they would be alarmed by a few stray
shots from the “clouds of Cossacks” that hovered about them. Rougeard
informed them that the enemy was _beside_, not _behind_ them; the
Russians having very prudently chosen their lines of march parallel
to that of the retreating French armies, which were thus kept from
straying to the right or to the left, and sternly restricted to the
track their own cruelty had already rendered a desert.
At last a serious misfortune happened to the little band. A long day’s
march, absolutely without food and in piercing cold, had exhausted
them all. Rougeard, who was by far the strongest of the party, said to
his companions, “Rest in the shelter of this wall, while I go a little
further towards the lights I see yonder. I daresay some of our people
are there; perhaps they will respect my uniform, and spare us a little
food.” He moved away, but turned back for a moment to add, “Keep up
your hearts, my lads. If your strength is good for one day’s marching
more, I think you may see the Beresina before to-morrow night.”
That was the last time they looked upon the face or heard the voice of
Pierre Rougeard. Whether he was buried in the snow, was murdered or
made prisoner by the Russians, they could not tell. His loss dissolved
the coterie which his influence had held together. Its members went
their several ways, and far too sad a task would it be for us to follow
them. Each in his own measure fulfilled the awful doom that had fallen
upon the host to which he belonged. For the word had gone forth: “Thus
saith the Lord, Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the
sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and
such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.”
We may, however, follow for a little way the fortunes of Rougeard. The
bivouac fires he saw at a distance proved to be those of a Russian
regiment of volunteers. He fell into the hands of the sentries, and
in spite of a resistance as desperate as his exhausted condition
permitted him to make, was secured, and brought at once to the colonel,
a Russian nobleman named Demidoff. To his questions Rougeard replied
with proud fearlessness; but he owned, upon being asked, that he was
famishing with hunger. Demidoff, who perhaps had been reading the Book
his sovereign loved so well, led the prisoner to his own tent, where
an elegant and abundant dinner had just been served. “Sit down, my
friend,” he said to him, “eat and drink; you are welcome.”
But the veteran did not obey. His brave, proud heart, which no peril
of field or flood or wilderness had ever daunted, was melted, was
crushed by the unexpected kindness. A great shudder passed over his
frame. Trembling “as certainly he never would have trembled before the
enemy,” he said with uncontrollable emotion, “Can it be that a Russian,
an officer, bids me sit down to eat and drink with him, after all the
horrors we have committed in his country, and against his Emperor?”[42]
But it could not be expected that all Russians would take their revenge
after the manner of Demidoff. Many of the mujiks, who had been insulted
and plundered, or had seen their relatives murdered by the French, put
the prisoners that fell into their hands to a cruel death. Fortunately,
reports of these outrages soon reached St. Petersburg, and a ukase was
despatched immediately by the hand of a special courier, forbidding all
such practices on pain of the Czar’s highest displeasure; and, as the
most effectual mode of preventing them, offering the reward of a ducat
of gold for every prisoner brought safely to head-quarters.
Henri de Talmont bore in mind Rougeard’s parting words, and determined
at all hazards to try to reach the Beresina. He was strengthened in his
belief that he was drawing near some point of general rendezvous by the
constantly increasing crowds. At length, instead of a vast and solitary
plain, he found himself traversing a broad high-road, frozen hard,
and thronged with a disorderly rabble of soldiers and camp-followers,
amongst whom vehicles of all kinds were moving with difficulty. Some
of these were baggage-waggons, but the great majority contained women
and children connected in various ways with the French army, and
endeavouring with it to make their escape from a hostile country. Most
pitiable was the fate of those unhappy fugitives.
As Henri stumbled wearily along, the velvet cap of a little child
dropped from one of the carriages and fell at his feet. He picked it up
and restored it to its owner, a pretty fair-haired boy about four years
old.
“Thank you, poor soldier,” lisped the child in soft Italian, a language
of which Henri had learned a little from his mother.
“I think, Guido, we could make room for the poor soldier here,” said
the child’s mother, a gentle-looking lady with an infant in her arms;
“he seems very tired.”
Most thankfully did Henri accept the proffered help. He soon
ascertained that the lady was an Italian singer who had come to Russia,
with the band of professional artists to which she belonged, in the
train of the fantastic and pomp-loving King of Naples. These poor
children of pleasure, dragged unawares into the midst of a horrible
tragedy, seemed like butterflies caught in a thunderstorm. Madame Leone
told Henri, with many tears, that her husband had been made prisoner
by the Cossacks, and that she knew not whether he was alive or dead.
Henri tried to console her, helped her to take care of the children,
and defended her as well as he could from the rude assaults of the
famishing soldiers who surrounded the carriage, begging for food, or
rather demanding it.
At last they reached the bank of the Beresina, but it was to find
themselves in the midst of untold confusion and unutterable horror. The
frozen marsh beside the river was thronged with an innumerable crowd,
increasing in density as it neared the heads of the two bridges which
had been thrown across the current. Hundreds of vehicles were there,
vainly attempting to force a passage through the living mass. Oaths and
shrieks, cries, groans, and entreaties resounded upon every side. To
add to the terrors of the scene, the Russians were pouring a continuous
fire upon the troops which were endeavouring to cross the river.
In the midst of all this bewildering, maddening confusion, Henri found
himself thinking dreamily of his mother’s stories of the terrible
passage of the Loire by the defeated Vendéans. “It was like the day of
judgment,” she used to say. “And what,” asked Henri, “would she have
thought of _this_?”
He was startled by a voice near him. “Monsieur Henri, is it you? Is it
really you?” cried some one in the crowd, seizing his hand and grasping
it. “This is indeed a miracle.”
“Féron! dear Féron!” exclaimed Henri, springing from his seat in the
carriage and throwing himself into the arms of his comrade.
Questions and explanations followed, and each told the other his
adventures since they parted.
“Where is our regiment?” asked Henri.
“It has ceased to exist,” returned Féron. “‘Sauve qui peut’ is our only
marching order now.”
“Ah, friend,” said Henri, “I see you have suffered. Your hand--”
“Frost-bitten one bitter night. I could not help thinking when I lost
it of that poor Russian whom we branded in the hand before we came to
Moscow. Do you remember him, Monsieur Henri?”
“I ought to remember him. I saw him again in the city, and he did me a
good turn.--Now, Féron, I want you, if you can, to help me to protect
this lady and these two helpless little children.”
“_If_ I can. But we must be patient. Those who are rushing madly
forward to try and reach the bridge only increase their own danger.
Already they are trampling one another down by dozens.”
“Ay,” said Henri, “because they are afraid the bridges will be burned
or broken as soon as the effective troops have passed over them, to
protect the retreat of the Emperor.”
“Fools! Do they think the Emperor will let the bridges be touched so
long as one Frenchman or Frenchwoman remains upon this side? They do
not know him,” returned Féron.
“Perhaps not,” said Henri sadly. “Ah, what is this?” he cried the next
moment, as a bullet whizzed close by them through the air.
“I believe our rear-guard and the Russians are fighting it out, and we
are near enough to come in for a stray shot or two.”
“Then help me to turn this carriage over, that we may make a shelter
for the lady.”
This was accomplished, not without some difficulty. Anxious hours of
suspense and forced inactivity followed. Night fell, but an awful light
still illumined the landscape. What looked like a semicircle of flame
environed half the sky. It was the fiery breath of the Russian cannon.
Suddenly there came a sound of fearful shrieks, and a frantic swaying
and tossing of the crowd. One of the bridges--that constructed for the
artillery--had broken down, precipitating its living freight into
the freezing waters beneath; and the miserable multitude on the bank,
who were suffering more and more from the cannonade of the enemy, now
rushed forward in blind terror to gain the only remaining bridge.
Henri lost sight of Madame Leone and the baby in the press, and it was
with difficulty that he saved little Guido from being trodden under
foot, by holding him continually in his arms.
Féron kept by his side throughout. At last, however, he cried aloud
suddenly, “Comrade, I am done for! That bullet--”
Henri saw it was too true. In great distress he knelt down beside him
and tried to stanch the blood that was flowing from his breast.
Almost at the same moment a company of the rear-guard came thundering
by, forcing their way through the living mass, and cutting down without
remorse or pity all who obstructed their retreat.
“Time to go _now_,” said Féron with an effort. “Monsieur Henri, don’t
stay for me. I thought _I_ would have brought home news of you; now
_you_--but go, I entreat of you, go at once. No time to lose.”
“Never, while _you_ breathe. Besides, as you said, the Emperor will
not leave a Frenchman behind him.” Recollecting that Madame Leone had
filled with wine the flask Féron himself had left with him, he mixed
some of its contents with snow-water, and put the reviving draught to
the lips of his comrade.
“Monsieur Henri,” murmured Féron, “can you say a prayer for me? You
used to pray, though we laughed at you for it in the regiment.”
“There is one prayer I have often prayed since all this trouble came
upon us,” said Henri. “It is good, and it is short; you can say it for
yourself--‘God be merciful to me a sinner, for Jesus Christ’s sake.’”
“God be merciful to me a sinner, for Jesus Christ’s sake,” Féron
repeated earnestly; and during the hour that followed--an hour that
seemed like a year to Henri--the cry was often on his lips.
But he grew weaker and weaker, until at last he fell into a kind of
stupor, while Henri watched silently beside him.
Just about the dawning of the day, a cry, great and terrible, thrilled
every heart, and reached even the dulled ear of the dying man. He
roused himself, and murmured faintly, “What is it, Monsieur Henri?”
Henri knew too well. All around him were repeating, in tones that
expressed every variation of anguish and despair--“The bridge is on
fire! the bridge is burning!” So, after all, Napoleon had _not_ waited
until every Frenchman was safe on the other side!
“‘The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for
the sheep,’” thought Henri bitterly. “But _thou_ shalt never know,
Féron. This pang at least shall be spared thy dying hour.”
He bent once more over his friend, who was feebly repeating the
question--“Monsieur Henri, what is it?”
“Nothing that concerns you or me,” Henri answered firmly. “Do you
suffer, comrade?”
“No--no pain. Only I am sinking--sinking. I want to say that prayer
again. God be merciful--for Christ’s sake.”
With these words on his lips, Féron passed away. Henri had scarcely
time to close his eyes before he was forced by the strong current of
the crowd from the spot where he had been standing. He kept fast hold
of Guido: just now he cared but little what became of himself; his only
thought was to save the child. He was at last pushed into a position
from which he could see the river; but he turned shuddering from the
sight, which indeed was horrible beyond description. Men, women, and
children were struggling in the icy waters, or sinking for the last
time beneath them. Here and there a strong swimmer gained the opposite
bank in safety; but the weak, the famished, the wounded perished by
hundreds. Pieces of the broken bridge, to which drowning wretches were
clinging, floated about amidst _débris_ of every conceivable kind;
and those on board the few sorely overcrowded boats were violently
thrusting away their despairing comrades who tried to enter.
One of these boats was just putting off from the bank when Henri called
aloud, “Take this child with you, for God’s sake!”
A tall man stood upright in the boat. “Hold him up, man,” he cried;
“give us a sight of him.”
Henri did so.
“The very child we are seeking--eh, comrades?” said the man, turning
to his companions. “About three or four years old, fair-haired, with a
crimson velvet cap. Well worth our while--a thousand ducats reward.”
Then to Henri: “Throw him in, my lad.”
This was much more easily said than done. Little Guido clung to his
protector with all his might, absolutely refusing to be separated from
him. Henri found it impossible to unclasp those soft arms from about
his neck, though he tried hard to do it.
Meanwhile the men in the boat were disputing with one another. Some
were willing to take Henri as well as the child; others objected,
afraid of losing the reward or of having to share it with him. But the
tall man who had spoken first decided the question. “Let the lad come
with us,” he said. “Anything to save time.”
So Henri stepped into the boat with his little companion still in his
arms. It did not occur to him until afterwards that Madame Leone would
have been by no means able to offer a reward so large as a thousand
ducats for the recovery of her child. Happily during the crossing Guido
engrossed all his attention. Terrified by everything around him, he
cried violently for his mother, and refused to be comforted; so that
a child’s tears drew away the eyes of Henri from the agonized faces of
strong men, who were looking up to Heaven with their last appeal for
mercy ere they sank to rise no more.
Scarcely had the boat touched the opposite bank of the stream, when a
lady ran down to meet it, and stretched out her arms to receive the
boy. But the next moment a cry of bitter disappointment rang through
the air. This was not _her_ child--not the darling for whose recovery
she had offered all her golden store. The broken-hearted mother turned
away, and Henri saw her no more. Still holding Guido in his arms, he
followed listlessly and mechanically the stream of fugitives who were
taking the road to Vilna.