Chapter XXXIII: Book XII: Chap. I (1)

Comrades! I must confess that my spirit, discouraged, refused to penetrate farther into the recollection of so many horrors. Having arrived at the departure of Napoleon, I had flattered myself that my task was completed. I had announced myself as the historian of that great epoch, when we were precipitated from the highest summit of glory to the deepest abyss of misfortune; but now that nothing remains for me to retrace but the most frightful miseries, why should we not spare ourselves, you the pain of reading them, and myself that of tasking a memory which has now only to rake up embers, nothing but disasters to reckon, and which can no longer write but upon tombs?

But as it was our fate to push bad as well as good fortune to the utmost verge of improbability, I will endeavour to keep the promise I have made you to the conclusion. Moreover, when the history of great men relates even their last moments, how can I conceal the last sighs of the grand army when it was expiring? Every thing connected with it appertains to renown, its dying groans as well as its cries of victory. Every thing in it was grand; it will be our lot to astonish future ages with our glory and our sorrow. Melancholy consolation! but the only one that remains to us; for doubt it not, comrades, the noise of so great a fall will echo in that futurity, in which great misfortunes immortalize as much as great glory.

Napoleon passed through the crowd of his officers, who were drawn up in an avenue as he passed, bidding them adieu merely by forced and melancholy smiles; their good wishes, equally silent, and expressed only by respectful gestures, he carried with him. He and Caulaincourt shut themselves up in a carriage; his Mameluke, and Wonsowitch, captain of his guard, occupied the box; Duroc and Lobau followed in a sledge.

His escort at first consisted only of Poles; afterwards of the Neapolitans of the royal guard. This corps consisted of between six and seven hundred men, when it left Wilna to meet the Emperor; it perished entirely in that short passage; the winter was its only adversary. That very night the Russians surprised and afterwards abandoned Youpranoui, (or, as others say, Osmiana,) a town through which the escort had to pass. Napoleon was within an hour of falling into that affray.

He met the Duke of Bassano at Miedniki. His first words to him were, "that he had no longer an army; that for several days past he had been marching in the midst of a troop of disbanded men wandering to and fro in search of subsistence; that they might still be rallied by giving them bread, shoes, clothing, and arms; but that the Duke's military administration had anticipated nothing, and his orders had not been executed." But upon Maret replying, by showing him a statement of the immense magazines collected at Wilna, he exclaimed, "that he gave him fresh life! that he would give him an order to transmit to Murat and Berthier to halt for eight days in that capital, there to rally the army, and infuse into it sufficient heart and strength to continue the retreat less deplorably."

The subsequent part of Napoleon's journey was effected without molestation. He went round Wilna by its suburbs, crossed Wilkowiski, where he exchanged his carriage for a sledge, stopped during the 10th at Warsaw, to ask the Poles for a levy of ten thousand Cossacks, to grant them some subsidies, and to promise them he would speedily return at the head of three hundred thousand men. From thence he rapidly crossed Silesia, visited Dresden, and its monarch, passed through Hanau, Mentz, and finally got to Paris, where he suddenly made his appearance on the 19th of December, two days after the appearance of his twenty-ninth bulletin.

From Malo-Yaroslawetz to Smorgoni, this master of Europe had been no more than the general of a dying and disbanded army. From Smorgoni to the Rhine, he was an unknown fugitive, travelling through a hostile country; beyond the Rhine he again found himself the master and the conqueror of Europe. A last breeze of the wind of prosperity once more swelled his sails.

Meanwhile, his generals, whom he left at Smorgoni, approved of his departure, and, far from being discouraged, placed all their hopes in it. The army had now only to flee, the road was open, and the Russian frontier at a very short distance. They were getting within reach of a reinforcement of eighteen thousand men, all fresh troops, of a great city, and immense magazines. Murat and Berthier, left to themselves, fancied themselves able to regulate the flight. But in the midst of the extreme disorder, it required a colossus for a rallying point, and he had just disappeared. In the great chasm which he left, Murat was scarcely perceptible.

It was then too clearly seen that a great man is not replaced, either because the pride of his followers can no longer stoop to obey another, or that having always thought of, foreseen, and ordered every thing himself, he had only formed good instruments, skilful lieutenants, but no commanders.

The very first night, a general refused to obey. The marshal who commanded the rear-guard was almost the only one who returned to the royal head-quarters. Three thousand men of the old and young guard were still there. This was the whole of the grand army, and of that gigantic body there remained nothing but the head. But at the news of Napoleon's departure, these veterans, spoiled by the habit of being commanded only by the conqueror of Europe, being no longer supported by the honour of serving him, and scorning to act as guards to another, gave way in their turn, and voluntarily fell into disorder.

Most of the colonels of the army, who had hitherto been such subjects of admiration, and had marched on, with only four or five officers or soldiers around their eagle, preserving their place of battle, now followed no orders but their own; each of them fancied himself entrusted with his own safety, and looked only to himself for it. Men there were who marched two hundred leagues without even looking round. It was an almost general _sauve-qui-peut_.

The Emperor's disappearance and Murat's incapacity were not, however, the only causes of this dispersion; the principal certainly was the severity of the winter, which at that moment became extreme. It aggravated every thing, and seemed to have planted itself completely between Wilna and the army.

Till we arrived at Malodeczno, and up to the 4th of December, the day when it set in upon us with such violence, the march, although painful, had been marked by a smaller number of deaths than before we reached the Berezina. This respite was partly owing to the vigorous efforts of Ney and Maison, which had kept the enemy in check, to the then milder temperature, to the supplies which were obtained from a less ravaged country, and, finally, to the circumstance that they were the strongest men who had escaped from the passage of the Berezina.

The partial organization which had been introduced into the disorder was kept up. The mass of runaways kept on their way, divided into a number of petty associations of eight or ten men. Many of these bands still possessed a horse, which carried their provisions, and was himself finally destined to be converted to that purpose. A covering of rags, some utensils, a knapsack, and a stick, formed the accoutrements and the armour of these poor fellows. They no longer possessed either the arms or the uniform of a soldier, nor the desire of combating any other enemies than hunger and cold; but they still retained perseverance, firmness, the habit of danger and suffering, and a spirit always ready, pliant, and quick in making the most of their situation. Finally, among the soldiers still under arms, the dread of a nickname, by which they themselves ridiculed their comrades who had fallen into disorder, retained some influence.

But after leaving Malodeczno, and the departure of Napoleon, when winter with all its force, and doubled in severity, attacked each of us, there was a complete dissolution of all those associations against misfortune. It was no longer any thing but a multitude of isolated and individual struggles. The best no longer respected themselves; nothing stopped them; no speaking looks detained them; misfortune was hopeless of assistance, and even of regret; discouragement had no longer judges to condemn, or witnesses to prove it; all were its victims.

Henceforward there was no longer fraternity in arms, there was an end to all society, to all ties; the excess of evils had brutified them. Hunger, devouring hunger, had reduced these unfortunate men to the brutal instinct of self-preservation, all which constitutes the understanding of the most ferocious animals, and which is ready to sacrifice every thing to itself; a rough and barbarous nature seemed to have communicated to them all its fury. Like savages, the strongest despoiled the weakest; they rushed round the dying, and frequently waited not for their last breath. When a horse fell, you might have fancied you saw a famished pack of hounds; they surrounded him, they tore him to pieces, for which they quarrelled among themselves like ravenous dogs.

The greater number, however, preserved sufficient moral strength to consult their own safety without injuring others; but this was the last effort of their virtue. If either leader or comrade fell by their side, or under the wheels of the cannon, in vain did they call for assistance, in vain did they invoke the names of a common country, religion, and cause; they could not even obtain a passing look. The cold inflexibility of the climate had completely passed into their hearts; its rigour had contracted their feelings equally with their countenances. With the exception of a few of the commanders, all were absorbed by their sufferings, and terror left no room for compassion.

Thus it was that the same egotism with which excessive prosperity has been reproached, was produced by the excess of misfortune, but much more excusable in the latter; the first being voluntary, and the last compulsive; the first a crime of the heart, and the other an impulse of instinct entirely physical; and certainly it was hazarding one's life to stop for an instant. In this universal shipwreck, the stretching forth one's hand to a dying leader or comrade was a wonderful act of generosity. The least movement of humanity became a sublime action.

There were a few, however, who stood firm against both heaven and earth; these protected and assisted the weakest; but these were indeed rare.

CHAP. II.

On the 6th of December, the very day after Napoleon's departure, the sky exhibited a still more dreadful appearance. You might see icy particles floating in the air; the birds fell from it quite stiff and frozen. The atmosphere was motionless and silent; it seemed as if every thing which possessed life and movement in nature, the wind itself, had been seized, chained, and as it were frozen by an universal death. Not the least word or murmur was then heard: nothing but the gloomy silence of despair and the tears which proclaimed it.

We flitted along in this empire of death like unhappy spirits. The dull and monotonous sound of our steps, the cracking of the snow, and the feeble groans of the dying, were the only interruptions to this vast and doleful silence. Anger and imprecations there were none, nor any thing which indicated a remnant of heat; scarcely did strength enough remain to utter a prayer; most of them even fell without complaining, either from weakness or resignation, or because people only complain when they look for kindness, and fancy they are pitied.

Such of our soldiers as had hitherto been the most persevering, here lost heart entirely. Sometimes the snow opened under their feet, but more frequently its glassy surface affording them no support, they slipped at every step, and marched from one fall to another. It seemed as if this hostile soil refused to carry them, that it escaped under their efforts, that it led them into snares, as if to embarrass and slacken their march, and deliver them to the Russians who were in pursuit of them, or to their terrible climate.

And really, whenever they halted for a moment from exhaustion, the winter, laying his heavy and icy hand upon them, was ready to seize upon his prey. In vain did these poor unfortunates, feeling themselves benumbed, raise themselves, and already deprived of the power of speech and plunged into a stupor, proceed a few steps like automatons; their blood freezing in their veins, like water in the current of rivulets, congealed their heart, and then flew back to their head; these dying men then staggered as if they had been intoxicated. From their eyes, which were reddened and inflamed by the continual aspect of the snow, by the want of sleep, and the smoke of bivouacs, there flowed real tears of blood; their bosom heaved heavy sighs; they looked at heaven, at us, and at the earth, with an eye dismayed, fixed and wild; it expressed their farewell, and perhaps their reproaches to the barbarous nature which tortured them. They were not long before they fell upon their knees, and then upon their hands; their heads still wavered for a few minutes alternately to the right and left, and from their open mouth some agonizing sounds escaped; at last it fell in its turn upon the snow, which it reddened immediately with livid blood; and their sufferings were at an end.

Their comrades passed by them without moving a step out of their way, for fear of prolonging their journey, or even turning their head, for their beards and their hair were stiffened with the ice, and every moment was a pain. They did not even pity them; for, in short, what had they lost by dying? what had they left behind them? They suffered so much; they were still so far from France; so much divested of feelings of country by the surrounding aspect, and by misery; that every dear illusion was broken, and hope almost destroyed. The greater number, therefore, were become careless of dying, from necessity, from the habit of seeing it, and from fashion, sometimes even treating it contemptuously; but more frequently, on seeing these unfortunates stretched out, and immediately stiffened, contenting themselves with the thought that they had no more wishes, that they were at rest, that their sufferings were terminated! And, in fact, death, in a situation quiet, certain, and uniform, may be always a strange event, a frightful contrast, a terrible revolution; but in this tumult and violent and continual movement of a life of constant action, danger, and suffering, it appeared nothing more than a transition, a slight change, an additional removal, and which excited little alarm.

Such, were the last _days_ of the grand army. Its last _nights_ were still more frightful; those whom they surprised marching together, far from every habitation, halted on the borders of the woods; there they lighted their fires, before which they remained the whole night, erect and motionless like spectres. They seemed as if they could never have enough of the heat; they kept so close to it as to burn their clothes, as well as the frozen parts of their body, which the fire decomposed. The most dreadful pain then compelled them to stretch themselves, and the next day they attempted in vain to rise.

In the mean time, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal. It consisted, ever since they had left Smolensk, of some slices of horse-flesh broiled, and some rye-meal diluted into a _bouillie_ with snow water, or kneaded into muffins, which they seasoned, for want of salt, with the powder of their cartridges.

The sight of these fires was constantly attracting fresh spectres, who were driven back by the first comers. These poor wretches wandered about from one bivouac to another, until they were struck by the frost and despair together, and gave themselves up for lost. They then laid themselves down upon the snow, behind their more fortunate comrades, and there expired. Many of them, devoid of the means and the strength necessary to cut down the lofty fir trees, made vain attempts to set fire to them at the trunk; but death speedily surprised them around these trees in every sort of attitude.

Under the vast pent-houses which are erected by the sides of the high road in some parts of the way, scenes of still greater horror were witnessed. Officers and soldiers all rushed precipitately into them, and crowded together in heaps. There, like so many cattle, they squeezed against each other round the fires, and as the living could not remove the dead from the circle, they laid themselves down upon them, there to expire in their turn, and serve as a bed of death to some fresh victims. In a short time additional crowds of stragglers presented themselves, and being unable to penetrate into these asylums of suffering, they completely besieged them.

It frequently happened that they demolished their walls, which were formed of dry wood, in order to feed their fires; at other times, repulsed and disheartened, they were contented to use them as shelters to their bivouacs, the flames of which very soon communicated to these habitations, and the soldiers whom they contained, already half dead with the cold, were completely killed by the fire. Such of us as these places of shelter preserved, found next day our comrades lying frozen and in heaps around their extinguished fires. To escape from these catacombs, a horrible effort was required to enable them to climb over the heaps of these poor wretches, many of whom were still breathing.

At Youpranoui, the same village where the Emperor only missed by an hour being taken by the Russian partizan Seslawin, the soldiers burnt the houses completely as they stood, merely to warm themselves for a few minutes. The light of these fires attracted some of these miserable wretches, whom the excessive severity of the cold and their sufferings had rendered delirious; they ran to them like madmen, and gnashing their teeth and laughing like demons, they threw themselves into these furnaces, where they perished in the most horrible convulsions. Their famished companions regarded them undismayed; there were even some who drew out these bodies, disfigured and broiled by the flames, and it is but too true, that they ventured to pollute their mouths with this loathsome food!

This was the same army which had been formed from the most civilized nation in Europe; that army, formerly so brilliant, which was victorious over men to its last moment, and whose name still reigned in so many conquered capitals. Its strongest and bravest warriors, who had recently been proudly traversing so many scenes of their victories, had lost their noble countenance; covered with rags, their feet naked and torn, supporting themselves on branches of fir tree, they dragged themselves along; all the strength and perseverance which they had hitherto put forth in order to conquer, they now made use of to flee.

Then it was, that, like superstitious nations, we also had our prognostications, and heard talk of prophecies. Some pretended that a comet had enlightened our passage across the Berezina with its ill-omened fire; it is true that they added, "that doubtless these stars did not foretel the great events of this world, but that they might certainly contribute to modify them; at least, if we admitted their material influence upon our globe, and all the consequences which that influence may exercise upon the human mind, so far as it is dependant on the matter which it animates."

There were others who quoted ancient predictions, which, they said, "had announced for that period, an invasion of the Tartars as far as the banks of the Seine. And, behold! they were already at liberty to pass over the overthrown French army, and in a fair way to accomplish that prediction."

Some again there were, who were reminding each other of the awful and destructive storm which had signalized our entrance on the Russian territory. "Then it was heaven itself that spoke! Behold the calamity which it predicted! Nature had made an effort to prevent this catastrophe! Why had we been obstinately deaf to her voice?" So much did this simultaneous fall of four hundred thousand men (an event which was not in fact more extraordinary than the host of epidemical disorders and of revolutions which are constantly ravaging the globe) appear to them an extraordinary and unique event, which must have occupied all the powers of heaven and earth; so much is our understanding led to bring home every thing to itself; as if Providence, in compassion to our weakness, and from the fear of its annihilating itself at the prospect of eternity, had so ordered it, that every man, a mere point in space, should act and feel as if he himself was the centre of immensity.

CHAP. III.

The army was in this last state of physical and moral distress, when its first fugitives reached Wilna. Wilna! their magazine, their depôt, the first rich and inhabited city which they had met with since their entrance into Russia. Its name alone, and its proximity, still supported the courage of a few.

On the 9th of December, the greatest part of these poor soldiers at last arrived within sight of that capital. Instantly, some dragging themselves along, others rushing forward, they all precipitated themselves headlong into its suburbs, pushing obstinately before them, and crowding together so fast, that they formed but one mass of men, horses, and chariots, motionless, and deprived of the power of movement.

The clearing away of this crowd by a narrow passage became almost impossible. Those who came behind, guided by a stupid instinct, added to the incumbrance, without the least idea of entering the city by its other entrances, of which there were several. But there was such complete disorganization, that during the whole of that fatal day, not a single staff-officer made his appearance to direct these men to them.

For the space of ten hours, with the cold at 27 and even at 28 degrees, thousands of soldiers who fancied themselves in safety, died either from cold or suffocation, just as had happened at the gates of Smolensk, and at the bridges across the Berezina. Sixty thousand men had crossed that river, and twenty thousand recruits had since joined them; of these eighty thousand, half had already perished, the greater part within the last four days, between Malodeczno and Wilna.

The capital of Lithuania was still ignorant of our disasters, when, all at once, forty thousand famished soldiers filled it with groans and lamentations. At this unexpected sight, its inhabitants became alarmed, and shut their doors. Deplorable then was it to see these troops of wretched wanderers in the streets, some furious and others desperate, threatening or entreating, endeavouring to break open the doors of the houses and the magazines, or dragging themselves to the hospitals. Everywhere they were repulsed; at the magazines, from most unseasonable formalities, as, from the dissolution of the corps and the mixture of the soldiers, all regular distribution had become impossible.

There had been collected there sufficient flour and bread to last for forty days, and butcher's meat for thirty-six days, for one hundred thousand men. Not a single commander ventured to step forward and give orders for distributing these provisions to all that came for them. The administrators who had them in charge were afraid of being made responsible for them; and the others dreaded the excesses to which the famished soldiers would give themselves up, when every thing was at their discretion. These administrators besides were ignorant of our desperate situation, and when there was scarcely time for pillage, had they been so inclined, our unfortunate comrades were left for several hours to die of hunger at the very doors of these immense magazines of provisions, all of which fell into the enemy's hands the following day.

At the barracks and the hospitals they were equally repulsed, but not by the living, for there death held sway supreme. The few who still breathed complained that for a long time they had been without beds, even without straw, and almost deserted. The courts, the passages, and even the apartments were filled with heaps of dead bodies; they were so many charnel houses of infection.

At last, the exertions of several of the commanders, such as Eugene and Davoust, the compassion of the Lithuanians, and the avarice of the Jews, opened some places of refuge. Nothing could be more remarkable than the astonishment which these unfortunate men displayed at finding themselves once more in inhabited houses. How delicious did a loaf of leavened bread appear to them, and how inexpressible the pleasure of eating it seated! and afterwards, with what admiration were they struck at seeing a scanty battalion still under arms, in regular order, and uniformly dressed! They seemed to have returned from the very extremities of the earth; so much had the violence and continuity of their sufferings torn and cast them from all their habits, so deep had been the abyss from which they had escaped!

But scarcely had they begun to taste these sweets, when the cannon of the Russians commenced thundering over their heads and upon the city. These threatening sounds, the shouts of the officers, the drums beating to arms, and the wailings and clamour of an additional multitude of unfortunates, which had just arrived, filled Wilna with fresh confusion. It was the vanguard of Kutusoff and Tchaplitz, commanded by O'Rourke, Landskoy, and Seslawin, which had attacked Loison's division, which was protecting the city, as well as the retreat of a column of dismounted cavalry, on its way to Olita, by way of Novoï-Troky.

At first an attempt was made to resist. De Wrede and his Bavarians had also just rejoined the army by Naroc-Zwiransky and Niamentchin. They were pursued by Wittgenstein, who from Kamen and Vileika hung upon our right flank, at the same time that Kutusoff and Tchitchakof pursued us. De Wrede had not two thousand men left under his command. As to Loison's division and the garrison of Wilna, which had come to meet us as far as Smorgoni, and render us assistance, the cold had reduced them from fifteen thousand men to three thousand in the space of three days.

De Wrede defended Wilna on the side of Rukoni; he was obliged to fall back after a gallant resistance. Loison and his division, on his side, which was nearer to Wilna, kept the enemy in check. They had succeeded in making a Neapolitan division take arms, and even to go out of the city, but the muskets actually slipped from the hands of these "children of the sun" transplanted to a region of ice. In less than an hour they all returned disarmed, and the best part of them maimed.

At the same time, the _générale_ was ineffectually beat in the streets; the old guard itself, now reduced to a few platoons, remained dispersed. Every one thought much more of disputing his life with famine and the cold than with the enemy. But when the cry of "Here are the Cossacks" was heard, (which for a long time had been the only signal which the greater number obeyed,) it echoed immediately throughout the whole city, and the rout again began.

De Wrede presented himself unexpectedly before the king of Naples. He said, "the enemy were close at his heels! the Bavarians had been driven back into Wilna, which they could no longer defend." At the same time, the noise of the tumult reached the king's ears. Murat was astonished; fancying himself no longer master of the army, he lost all command of himself. He instantly quitted his palace on foot, and was seen forcing his way through the crowd. He seemed to be afraid of a skirmish, in the midst of a crowd similar to that of the day before. He halted, however, at the last house in the suburbs, from whence he despatched his orders, and where he waited for daylight and the army, leaving Ney in charge of the rest.

Wilna might have been defended for twenty-four hours longer, and many men might have been saved. This fatal city retained nearly twenty thousand, including three hundred officers and seven generals. Most of them had been wounded by the winter more than by the enemy, who had the merit of the triumph. Several others were still in good health, to all appearance at least, but their moral strength was completely exhausted. After courageously battling with so many difficulties, they lost heart when they were near the port, at the prospect of four more days' march. They had at last found themselves once more in a civilized city, and sooner than make up their minds to return to the desert, they placed themselves at the mercy of Fortune; she treated them cruelly.

It is true that the Lithuanians, although we had compromised them so much, and were now abandoning them, received into their houses and succoured several; but the Jews, whom we had protected, repelled the others. They did even more; the sight of so many sufferers excited their cupidity. Had their detestable avarice been contented with speculating upon our miseries, and selling us some feeble succours for their weight in gold, history would scorn to sully her pages with the disgusting detail; but they enticed our unhappy wounded men into their houses, stripped them, and afterwards, on seeing the Russians, threw the naked bodies of these dying victims from the doors and windows of their houses into the streets, and there unmercifully left them to perish of cold; these vile barbarians even made a merit in the eyes of the Russians of torturing them there; such horrible crimes as these must be denounced to the present and to future ages. Now that our hands are become impotent, it is probable that our indignation against these monsters may be their sole punishment in this world; but a day will come, when the assassins will again meet their victims, and there certainly, divine justice will avenge us!

On the 10th of December, Ney, who had again voluntarily taken upon himself the command of the rear-guard, left that city, which was immediately after inundated by the Cossacks of Platof, who massacred all the poor wretches whom the Jews threw in their way. In the midst of this butchery, there suddenly appeared a piquet of thirty French, coming from the bridge of the Vilia, where they had been left and forgotten. At sight of this fresh prey, thousands of Russian horsemen came hurrying up, besetting them with loud cries, and assailing them on all sides.

But the officer commanding this piquet had already drawn up his soldiers in a circle. Without hesitation, he ordered them to fire, and then, making them present bayonets, proceeded at the _pas de charge_. In an instant all fled before him; he remained in possession of the city; but without feeling more surprise about the cowardice of the Cossacks, than he had done at their attack, he took advantage of the moment, turned sharply round, and succeeded in rejoining the rear-guard without any loss.

The latter was engaged with Kutusoff's vanguard, which it was endeavouring to drive back; for another catastrophe, which it vainly attempted to cover, detained it at a short distance from Wilna.

There, as well as at Moscow, Napoleon had given no regular order for retreat; he was anxious that our defeat should have no forerunner, but that it should proclaim itself, and take our allies and their ministers by surprise, and that, taking advantage of their first astonishment, it might be able to pass through those nations before they were prepared to join the Russians and overpower us.

This was the reason why the Lithuanians, foreigners, and every one at Wilna, even to the minister himself, had been deceived. They did not believe our disaster until they saw it; and in that, the almost superstitious belief of Europe in the infallibility of the genius of Napoleon was of use to him against his allies. But the same confidence had buried his own officers in a profound security; at Wilna, as well as at Moscow, not one of them was prepared for a movement of any description.

This city contained a large proportion of the baggage of the army, and of its treasures, its provisions, a crowd of enormous waggons, loaded with the Emperor's equipage, a large quantity of artillery, and a great number of wounded men. Our retreat had come upon them like an unexpected storm, almost like a thunderbolt. Some were terrified and thrown into confusion, while consternation kept others motionless. Orders, men, horses, and carriages, were running about in all directions, crossing and overturning each other.

In the midst of this tumult, several of the commanders pushed forward out of the city, towards Kowno, with every thing they could contrive to carry with them; but at the distance of a league from the latter place this heavy and frightened column had encountered the height and the defile of Ponari.

During our conquering march, this woody hillock had only appeared to our hussars a fortunate accident of the ground, from which they could discover the whole plain of Wilna, and take a survey of their enemies. Besides, its rough but short declination had scarcely been remarked. During a regular retreat it would have presented an excellent position for turning round and stopping the enemy: but in a disorderly flight, where every thing that might be of service became injurious, where in our precipitation and disorder, every thing was turned against ourselves, this hill and its defile became an insurmountable obstacle, a wall of ice, against which all our efforts were powerless. It detained every thing, baggage, treasure, and wounded. The evil was sufficiently great in this long series of disasters to form an epoch.

Here, in fact, it was, that money, honour, and every remains of discipline and strength were completely lost. After fifteen hours of fruitless efforts, when the drivers and the soldiers of the escort saw the King of Naples and the whole column of fugitives passing them by the sides of the hill, when turning their eyes at the noise of the cannon and musquetry which was coming nearer them every instant they saw Ney himself retreating with three thousand men (the remains of De Wrede's corps and Loison's division); when at last turning their eyes back to themselves, they saw the hill completely covered with cannon and carriages, broken or overturned, men and horses fallen to the ground, and expiring one upon the other,--then it was, that they gave up all idea of saving any thing, and determined only to anticipate the enemy by plundering themselves.

One of the covered waggons of treasure, which burst open of itself, served as a signal; every one rushed to the others; they were immediately broken, and the most valuable effects taken from them. The soldiers of the rear-guard, who were passing at the time of this disorder, threw away their arms to join in the plunder; they were so eagerly engaged in it as neither to hear nor to pay attention to the whistling of the balls and the howling of the Cossacks in pursuit of them.

It is even said that the Cossacks got mixed among them without being observed. For some minutes, French and Tartars, friends and foes, were confounded in the same greediness. French and Russians, forgetting they were at war, were seen pillaging together the same treasure-waggons. Ten millions of gold and silver then disappeared.

But amidst all these horrors, there were noble acts of devotion. Some there were, who abandoned every thing to save some unfortunate wounded by carrying them on their shoulders; several others, being unable to extricate their half-frozen comrades from this medley, lost their lives in defending them from the attacks of their countrymen, and the blows of their enemies.

On the most exposed part of the hill, an officer of the Emperor, Colonel the Count de Turenne, repulsed the Cossacks, and in defiance of their cries of rage and their fire, he distributed before their eyes the private treasure of Napoleon to the guards whom he found within his reach. These brave men, fighting with one hand and collecting the spoils of their leader with the other, succeeded in saving them. Long afterwards, when they were out of all danger, each man faithfully restored the depôt which had been entrusted to him. Not a single piece of money was lost.

CHAP. IV.

This catastrophe at Ponari was the more disgraceful, as it was easy to foresee, and equally easy to prevent it; for the hill could have been turned by its sides. The fragments which we abandoned, however, were at least of some use in arresting the pursuit of the Cossacks. While these were busy in collecting their prey, Ney, at the head of a few hundred French and Bavarians, supported the retreat as far as Evé. As this was his last effort, we must not omit the description of his method of retreat which he had followed ever since he left Wiazma, on the 3d of November, during thirty-seven days and thirty-seven nights.

Every day, at 5 o'clock in the evening, he took his position, stopped the Russians, allowed his soldiers to eat and take some rest, and resumed his march at 10 o'clock. During the whole of the night, he pushed the mass of the stragglers before him, by dint of cries, of entreaties, and of blows. At daybreak, which was about 7 o'clock, he halted, again took position, and rested under arms and on guard until 10 o'clock; the enemy then made his appearance, and he was compelled to fight until the evening, gaining as much or as little ground in the rear as possible. That depended at first on the general order of march, and at a later period upon circumstances.

For a long time this rear-guard did not consist of more than two thousand, then of one thousand, afterwards about five hundred, and finally of sixty men; and yet Berthier, either designedly or from mere routine, made no change in his instructions. These were always addressed to the commander of a corps of thirty-five thousand men; in them he coolly detailed all the different positions, which were to be taken up and guarded until the next day, by divisions and regiments which no longer existed. And every night, when, in consequence of Ney's urgent warnings, he was obliged to go and awake the King of Naples, and compel him to resume his march, he testified the same astonishment.

In this manner did Ney support the retreat from Wiazma to Evé, and a few wersts beyond it. There, according to his usual custom, he had stopped the Russians, and was giving the first hours of the night to rest, when, about ten o'clock, he and De Wrede perceived that they had been left alone. Their soldiers had deserted them, as well as their arms, which they saw shining and piled together close to their abandoned fires.

Fortunately the intensity of the cold, which had just completed the discouragement of our people, had also benumbed their enemies. Ney overtook his column with some difficulty; it was now only a band of fugitives; a few Cossacks chased it before them; without attempting either to take or to kill them; either from compassion, for one gets tired of every thing in time, or that the enormity of our misery had terrified even the Russians themselves, and they believed themselves sufficiently revenged, and many of them behaved generously; or, finally, that they were satiated and overloaded with booty. It might be also, that in the darkness, they did not perceive that they had only to do with unarmed men.

Winter, that terrible ally of the Muscovites, had sold them his assistance dearly. Their disorder pursued our disorder. We often saw prisoners who had escaped several times from their frozen hands and looks. They had at first marched in the middle of their straggling column without being noticed by it. There were some of them, who, taking advantage of a favourable moment, ventured to attack the Russian soldiers when isolated, and strip them of their provisions, their uniforms, and even their arms, with which they covered themselves. Under this disguise, they mingled with their conquerors; and such was the disorganization, the stupid carelessness; and the numbness into which their army had fallen, that these prisoners marched for a whole month in the midst of them without being recognised. The hundred and twenty thousand men of Kutusoff's army were then reduced to thirty-five thousand. Of Wittgenstein's fifty thousand, scarcely fifteen thousand remained. Wilson asserts, that of a reinforcement of ten thousand men, sent from the interior of Russia with all the precautions which they know how to take against the winter, not more than seventeen hundred arrived at Wilna. But a head of a column was quite sufficient against our disarmed soldiers. They attempted in vain to tally a few of them, and he who had hitherto been almost the only one whose commands had been obeyed in the rout, was now compelled to follow it.

He arrived along with it at Kowno, which was the last town of the Russian empire. Finally, on the 13th of December, after marching forty-six days under a terrible yoke, they once more came in sight of a friendly country. Instantly, without halting or looking behind them, the greater part plunged into, and dispersed themselves, in the forests of Prussian Poland. Some there were, however, who, on their arrival on the allied bank of the Niemen, turned round. There, when they, cast a last look on that land of suffering from which they were escaping, when they found themselves on the same spot, whence five months previously their countless eagles had taken their victorious flight, it is said that tears flowed from their eyes, and that they uttered exclamations of grief.

"This then was the bank which they had studded with their bayonets! this the allied country which had disappeared only five months before, under the steps of their immense united army, and seemed to them then to be metamorphosed into moving hills and valleys of men and horses! These were the same valleys, from which, under the rays of a burning sun, poured forth the three long columns of dragoons and cuirassiers, resembling three rivers of glittering iron and brass. And now men, arms, eagles, horses, the sun itself, and even this frontier river, which they had crossed replete with ardour and hope, all have disappeared. The Niemen is now only a long mass of flakes of ice, caught and chained to each other by the increasing severity of the winter. Instead of the three French bridges, brought from a distance of five hundred leagues, and thrown across it with such audacious promptitude, a Russian bridge is alone standing. Finally, in the room of these innumerable warriors, of their four hundred thousand comrades, who had been so often their partners in victory, and who had dashed forward with such joy and pride into the territory of Russia, they saw issuing from these pale and frozen deserts, only a thousand infantry and horsemen still under arms, nine cannon, and twenty thousand miserable wretches covered with rags, with downcast looks, hollow eyes, earthy and livid complexions, long beards matted with the frost; some disputing in silence the narrow passage of the bridge, which, in spite of their small number was not sufficient to the eagerness of their flight; others fleeing dispersed over the asperities of the river, labouring and dragging themselves from one point of ice to another; and this was the whole grand army! Besides, many of these fugitives were recruits who had just joined it."

Two kings, one prince, eight marshals followed by a few officers, generals on foot, dispersed, and without any attendants; finally, a few hundred men of the old guard, still armed, were its remains; they alone represented it.

Or rather, I should say, it still breathed completely and entirely in Marshal Ney. Comrades! allies! enemies! here I invoke your testimony; let us pay the homage which is due to the memory of an unfortunate hero: the facts will be sufficient.

All were flying, and Murat himself, traversing Kowno as he had done Wilna, first gave, and then withdrew the order to rally at Tilsit, and subsequently fixed upon Gumbinnen. Ney then entered Kowno, accompanied only by his aides-de-camp, for all besides had given way, or fallen around him. From the time of his leaving Wiazma, this was the fourth rear-guard which had been worn out and melted in his hands. But winter and famine, still more than the Russians, had destroyed them. For the fourth time, he remained alone before the enemy, and still unshaken, he sought for a fifth rear-guard.

At Kowno the marshal found a company of artillery, three hundred German soldiers who formed its garrison, and General Marchand with four hundred men; of these he took the command. He first walked over the town to reconnoitre its position, and to rally some additional forces, but he found only some sick and wounded, who were endeavouring, in tears, to follow our retreat. For the eighth time since we left Moscow, we were obliged to abandon these _en masse_ in their hospitals, as they had been abandoned singly along the whole march, on all our fields of battle, and at all our bivouacs.

Several thousand soldiers covered the marketplace and the neighbouring streets; but they were laid out stiff before the magazines of spirits which they had broken open, and where they drank the cup of death, from which they fancied they were to inhale fresh life. These were the only succours which Murat had left him; Ney found himself left alone in Russia, with seven hundred foreign recruits. At Kowno, as it had been after the disasters of Wiazma, of Smolensk, of the Berezina, and of Wilna, it was to him that the honour of our arms and all the peril of the last steps of our retreat were again confided.

On the 14th, at daybreak, the Russians commenced their attack. One of their columns made a hasty advance from the Wilna road, while another crossed the Niemen on the ice above the town, landed on the Prussian territory, and, proud of being the first to cross its frontier, marched to the bridge of Kowno, to close that outlet upon Ney, and completely cut off his retreat.

The first firing was heard at the Wilna gate; Ney ran thither, with a view to drive away Platof's artillery with his own; but he found his cannon had been already spiked, and that his artillerymen had fled! Enraged, he darted forward, and elevating his sword, would have killed the officer who commanded them, had it not been for his aide-de-camp, who warded off the blow, and enabled this miserable fellow to make his escape.

Ney then summoned his infantry, but only one of the two feeble battalions of which it was composed had taken up arms; it consisted of the three hundred Germans of the garrison. He drew them up, encouraged them, and as the enemy was approaching, was just about to give them the order to fire, when a Russian cannon ball, grazing the palisade, came and broke the thigh of their commanding officer. He fell, and without the least hesitation, finding that his wound was mortal, he coolly drew out his pistols and blew out his brains before his troop. Terrified at this act of despair, his soldiers were completely scared, all of them at once threw down their arms, and fled in disorder.

Ney, abandoned by all, neither deserted himself nor his post. After vain efforts to detain these fugitives, he collected their muskets, which were still loaded, became once more a common soldier, and with only four others, kept facing thousands of the Russians. His audacity stopped them; it made some of his artillerymen ashamed, who imitated their marshal; it gave time to his aide-de-camp Heymès, and to General Gérard to embody thirty soldiers, bring forward two or three light pieces, and to Generals Ledru and Marchand to collect the only battalion which remained.

But at that moment the second attack of the Russians commenced on the other side of the Niemen, and near the bridge of Kowno; it was then half-past two o'clock. Ney sent Ludru, Marchand, and their four hundred men forward to retake and secure that passage. As to himself, without giving way, or disquieting himself farther as to what was passing in his rear, he kept on fighting at the head of his thirty men, and maintained himself until night at the Wilna gate. He then traversed the town and crossed the Niemen, constantly fighting, retreating but never flying, marching after all the others, supporting to the last moment the honour of our arms, and for the hundredth time during the last forty days and forty nights, putting his life and liberty in jeopardy to save a few more Frenchmen. Finally, he was the last of the grand army who quitted that fatal Russia, exhibiting to the world the impotence of fortune against great courage, and proving that with heroes every thing turns to glory, even the greatest disasters.

It was eight o'clock at night when he reached the allied bank. Then it was, that seeing the completion of the catastrophe, Marchand repulsed to the entrance of the bridge, and the road of Wilkowiski which Murat had taken, completely covered with the enemy's troops, he darted off to the right, plunged into the woods, and disappeared.

CHAP. V.

When Murat reached Gumbinnen, he was exceedingly surprised to find Ney already there, and to find, that since it had left Kowno, the army was marching without a rear-guard. Fortunately, the pursuit of the Russians, after they had reconquered their own territory, became slackened. They seemed to hesitate on the Prussian frontier, not knowing whether they should enter it as allies or as enemies. Murat took advantage of their uncertainty to halt a few days at Gumbinnen, and to direct the remains of the different corps to the towns on the borders of the Vistula.

Previous to this dislocation of the army, he assembled the commanders of it. I know not what evil genius it was that inspired him at this council. One would fain believe that it was the embarrassment he felt before these warriors for his precipitate flight, and spite against the Emperor, who had left him with the responsibility of it; or it might be shame at appearing again, vanquished, in the midst of the nations whom our victories had most oppressed; but as his language bore a much more mischievous character, which his subsequent actions did not belie, and as they were the first symptoms of his defection, history must not pass over them in silence.

This warrior, who had been elevated to the throne solely by the right of victory, now returned discomfited. From the first step he took upon vanquished territory, he fancied he felt it everywhere trembling under his feet, and that his crown was tottering on his head. A thousand times during the campaign, he had exposed himself to the greatest dangers; but he, who, as a king, had shown as little fear of death as the meanest soldier of the vanguard, could not bear the apprehension of living without a crown. Behold him then, in the midst of the commanders, whom his brother had placed under his direction, accusing that brother's ambition, which he had shared, in order to free himself from the responsibility which its gratification had involved.

He exclaimed, "that it was no longer possible to serve such a madman! that there was no safety in supporting his cause; that no monarch in Europe could now place any reliance on his word, or in treaties concluded with him. He himself was in despair for having rejected the propositions of the English; had it not been for that, he would still be a great monarch, such as the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia."

Davoust abruptly cut him short. "The King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria," said he to him, "are monarchs by the grace of God, of time, and the custom of nations. But as to you, you are only a king by the grace of Napoleon, and of the blood of Frenchmen; you cannot remain so but through Napoleon, and by continuing united to France. You are led away by the blackest ingratitude!" And he declared to him that he would immediately denounce his treachery to his Emperor; the other marshals remained silent. They made allowance for the violence of the king's grief, and attributed solely to his inconsiderate heat, the expressions which the hatred and suspicious character of Davoust had but too clearly comprehended.

Murat was put entirely out of countenance; he felt himself guilty. Thus was stifled the first spark of treachery, which at a later period was destined to ruin France. It is with regret that history commemorates it, as repentance and misfortune have atoned for the crime.