Chapter 23

A multitude of wagons and of cannon, several thousand men and women, and some children, were thus abandoned on the hostile bank. They were seen wandering in desolate troops on the borders of the river. Some plunged into it in order to swim across; others ventured themselves on the pieces of ice which were floating along; and some there were who threw themselves headlong upon the timbers of the burning bridge, which, sinking under them, exposed them at the same time to the horrors of a twofold death. Shortly after, the bodies of many of these unfortunate creatures, wedged in the ice, were seen collecting against the trestles of the bridge. The rest awaited the Russians. The Russian general did not show himself upon the heights until an hour after Eble's departure; and without having gained a victory, he reaped all the fruits of one.

Napoleon remained till the last moment on these melancholy banks, near the ruins of Brilowa, unsheltered and at the head of his guard, one-third of which was destroyed by the storm. During the day they stood to their arms, and were drawn up in order of battle; at night they bivouacked in a square round their leader; and there the old grenadiers incessantly kept feeding their fires. They sat on their knapsacks, with their elbows planted upon their knees, and their hands supporting their heads; slumbering in this manner, doubled upon themselves, that one limb might warm the other, and that they might feel less the emptiness of their stomachs.

About these bivouacs were collected men of all classes, of all ranks, of all ages; ministers, generals, administrators. Among them was remarked an elderly nobleman of by-gone days, when light and brilliant graces held sovereign sway. This general officer of sixty was seen sitting on the snow-covered trunk of some tree, occupying himself with unruffled gayety every morning in adjusting the details of his toilet: in the midst of a hurricane he had his hair elegantly dressed, and powdered with the nicest care, amusing himself in this manner with all our calamities, and with the fury of the elements which assailed him.

Near him were officers of scientific corps, still finding subjects for discussion. Imbued with the spirit of an age which a few discoveries have encouraged to hope for explanations of everything, these individuals, amid the acute sufferings we were enduring from the north wind, were seeking to divine the cause of its unvarying direction. The theory was advanced that, since his departure for the antarctic pole, the sun, by heating the southern hemisphere, had rarefied all its currents of air, elevated them, and left on the surface of that zone a vacuum, into which the currents of air of ours, which were lower on account of being more dense, were violently rushing. That thus the northern pole, loaded with these denser vapors, which had been collecting and cooling since the preceding summer, was discharging them by an impetuous and icy current, which swept over the Russian territory, and stiffened or destroyed everything it encountered in its course.

Others of these officers were remarking with curious attention the regular six-sided crystallization of each one of the flakes of snow which covered their garments.

The phenomena of the simultaneous appearance of several distinct images of the sun, reflected to the eye by means of the icy particles suspended in the atmosphere, was also a subject for observation, and several times momentarily diverted their thoughts from their sufferings.

Sec. 22. Napoleon abandons the Grand Army and sets out for Paris.

On the 29th the emperor quitted the banks of the Berezina, pushing on before him the crowd of disbanded soldiers, and marching with the ninth corps, which was already disorganized. The day before, the second and ninth corps and Dombrowski's division presented a total of fourteen thousand men; and now, with the exception of about six thousand, they had no longer any form of division, brigade, or regiment.

Night, hunger, cold, the fall of many of their officers, the loss of the baggage on the other side of the river, the example of such a number of runaways, and the much more revolting sight of the wounded abandoned on both sides of the river, and left weltering in despair on the snow, which was dyed with their blood: everything, in short, contributed to discourage them; and they were now confounded with the mass of disbanded men who had come from Moscow.

The whole still formed sixty thousand men, but without the least order or unity. All marched pell-mell, cavalry, infantry, artillery, French and Germans: there was no longer either wing or centre. The artillery and carriages drove on through this tumultuous crowd with no other instructions than to proceed as rapidly as possible.

On the 3d of December Napoleon arrived in the morning at Malodeczno,[176] which was the last point where the Russian general, Tchitchakoff was likely to get the start of him. Some provisions were found there, the forage was abundant, the day beautiful, the sun bright, and the cold bearable. There also the couriers, who had been so long kept back, arrived all at once. The Poles were immediately directed onward to Warsaw through Olita, and the dismounted cavalry by Merecz to the Niemen; while the rest of the army was to follow the high road, which they had again regained.

Up to that time Napoleon seemed to have entertained no idea of quitting his army. But about the middle of that day he suddenly informed Daru and Duroc of his determination to set off immediately for Paris.

Daru did not see the necessity of it. He objected "that the communication with France was again opened, and the most dangerous crisis passed; and that at every retrograde step he would now be meeting the re-enforcements sent him from Paris and from Germany." The emperor's reply was, "that he no longer felt himself sufficiently strong to leave Prussia between him and France. And besides, what necessity was there for his remaining at the head of a routed army? Murat and Eugene would be sufficient to direct it, and Ney to cover its retreat.

"His return to France had become indispensable, in order to secure her tranquillity and to summon her to arms; to take measures there for keeping the Germans steady in their fidelity to him; and, finally, to return with fresh and adequate forces to the assistance of his Grand Army.

"But, in order to effect these objects, it was necessary that he should travel alone over four hundred leagues of the territories of his allies: and that he might do so without danger, his resolution should be there unforeseen, his passage unknown, and the rumor of his disastrous retreat still uncertain; that he would, in short, precede the news of it, and anticipate the effect it might produce on them, and the defections to which it might give rise. He had, therefore, no time to lose, and the moment for his departure had already arrived."

Such were the motives assigned by Napoleon; and General Caulaincourt immediately received orders secretly to prepare for his departure. The rendezvous was fixed at Smorgoni,[177] and the time the night of the 5th of December.

When Napoleon reached Smorgoni all the marshals were summoned. As they successively entered, he took each one aside in private, and first of all secured their approbation of his plan, gaining some by his arguments, and others by confidential communications.

His manner was kind and flattering to them all; and afterward, having assembled them at his table, he complimented them for their brilliant actions during the campaign. As to himself, the only confession he made of his temerity was couched in these words: "If I had been born to the throne, if I had been a Bourbon, it would have been easy for me not to have committed any faults."

When their interview was over, he made Prince Eugene read to them his twenty-ninth bulletin; after which, declaring aloud what he had confided to each of them privately, he told them "that he was about to depart that very night with Duroc, Caulaincourt and Lobau, for Paris; that his presence there was indispensable for France as well as for the remains of his unfortunate army. It was there only that he could take measures for keeping the Austrians and Prussians in check. These nations would certainly pause before they declared war against him, when they saw him at the head of the French nation, and a fresh army of twelve hundred thousand men."

He added, that "he had ordered Ney to proceed to Wilna, there to reorganize the army; that Rapp would second him, and afterward go to Dantzic, Lauriston to Warsaw, and Narbonne to Berlin; that his own guard would remain with the army; but that it would be necessary to strike a blow at Wilna, and stop the enemy there. There they would find re-enforcements, provisions, and ammunition of all sorts; that afterward they would go into winter quarters on the other side of the Niemen; and that he hoped the Russians would not pass the Vistula before his return."

He said, in concluding, "I leave the King of Naples to command the army. I hope that you will yield him the same obedience that you would to myself, and that the greatest harmony will prevail among you."

As it was now ten o'clock at night, he rose, affectionately pressed their hands, embraced them all--and departed.

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 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 almost entirely in that short passage, though the winter was its only adversary. That very night the Russians surprised and afterward abandoned a town through which the escort had to pass; and Napoleon was within an hour of falling into that affray.

He met the Duke of Bassano at Miedniki, a village about thirty miles west of Smorgoni. 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 Murat replying, by showing him a statement of the immense stores of provisions and clothing collected at Wilna, he exclaimed "that he gave him fresh life; that he would forthwith 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 remainder of Napoleon's journey was effected without molestation. He went round Wilna by its suburbs, crossed Wilkoski, where he exchanged his carriage for a sleigh, and stopped during the 10th at Warsaw, to ask the Poles for a levy of ten thousand Cossacks, and to promise them that he would speedily return at the head of three hundred thousand men. From thence he rapidly traversed Silesia,[178] visited Dresden and its monarch, and finally reached Paris, where he suddenly made his appearance on the 19th of December, two days after the arrival of his twenty-ninth bulletin.

From Malo-jaroslavetz 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 brief blast of the gale of prosperity once more and for the last time 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 re-enforcement of eighteen thousand men, all fresh troops, of a great city, and immense magazines. Murat and Berthier, abandoned to themselves, fancied they were quite competent to direct the flight. But in the midst of such frightful disorder, it required a Napoleon for a rallying-point, and he had just disappeared. In the mighty chasm which he left, Murat was scarcely perceptible.

It was then but too clearly seen that a great man is not to be replaced; either that the pride of his followers can no longer stoop to obey another, or that, having always thought of, foreseen, and ordered everything himself, he had 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 headquarters. Three thousand men of the Old and the 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 honor of serving him, and scorning to act as guards to another, gave way in their turn, and voluntarily fell into disorder.

Henceforward there was no longer fraternity in arms; there was an end to all society, to all ties; the excess of misery had completely brutified them. Hunger, devouring hunger, had reduced these unfortunate men to that brutal instinct of self-preservation which constitutes the sole understanding of ferocious animals, and which is ready to sacrifice everything to itself; nature, wild and barbarous around them, seemed to have communicated to them all its savageness. The strongest despoiled the weakest; they rushed about 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, and quarrelled among themselves for his remains like ravenous dogs.

The greater number, however, preserved sufficient moral strength to provide for 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, a common religion, and a common cause; they could not even obtain a passing look. The merciless cold of the climate had passed into their comrades' hearts: its rigor had contracted their feelings no less than their features. With the exception of a few of the commanders, all were absorbed by their sufferings, and terror left no room for compassion.

There were a few, however, who still stood firm, as it were, against both heaven and earth: these protected and assisted the weakest; but their number was deplorably small.

Sec. 23. Sufferings of the Grand Army after Napoleon's departure. Arrival at Wilna.

On the 6th of December, the very day after Napoleon's departure, the sky exhibited a more dreadful appearance. Icy particles were seen floating in the air, and the birds fell stiff and frozen to the earth. The atmosphere was motionless and silent: it seemed as if everything in nature which possessed life and movement, even the wind itself, had been seized, chained, and, as it were, congealed by a universal death. Not a word or a murmur was then heard: there was nothing but the gloomy silence of despair, and the tears which proclaimed it.

We crept along in the midst of this empire of death like doomed spirits. The dull and monotonous sound of our steps, the cracking of the frost, and the feeble groans of the dying, were the only interruptions to this doleful and universal silence. Anger and imprecations there were none, nor anything which indicated a remnant of warmth; scarcely was strength enough left to utter a prayer; and most of the men fell without even complaining, either from weakness or resignation, or because people complain only 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 sank beneath their feet, but more frequently, its glassy surface refusing them support, they slipped at every step, and tottered along from one fall to another. It seemed as though this hostile soil were leagued against them; that it treacherously escaped from under their efforts; that it was constantly leading them into snares, as if to embarrass and retard their march, and to deliver them up to the Russians in pursuit of them, or to their terrible climate.

And, in truth, whenever, for a moment, they halted from exhaustion, the winter, laying his icy hand upon them, was ready to seize his victims. In vain did these unhappy creatures, feeling themselves benumbed, raise themselves up, and, already deprived of the power of speech, and plunged into a stupor, proceed a few steps like automatons: their blood froze in their veins, like water in the current of rivulets, congealing the heart, and then flying back to the head; and these dying men staggered as if they had been intoxicated. From their eyes, reddened and inflamed by the constant glare of the snow, by the want of sleep, and the smoke of the bivouacs, there flowed real tears of blood; their bosoms heaved with deep and heavy sighs; they looked towards heaven, at us, and on the earth, with an eye dismayed, fixed, and wild, as expressive of their farewell, and, it might be, of their reproaches against the barbarous nature which was tormenting them. It was not long before they fell upon their knees, and then upon their hands; their heads still slowly moved for a few minutes alternately to the right and left, and from their open mouths some sounds of agony escaped; at last, they fell flat upon the snow, burying their faces in it, and their sufferings were at an end.

Their comrades passed by them without moving a step out of their way, that they might not, by the slightest curve, prolong their journey, and without even turning their heads; for their beards and hair were so stiffened with ice that every movement was painful. Nor did they even pity them; for, in fact, what had they lost by dying? what had they left behind them? They suffered so much, they were still so far from France, so much divested of all feelings of country by the surrounding prospect and by misery, that every dear illusion was broken, and hope almost destroyed. The greater number, therefore, had from necessity, from the habit of seeing death constantly around them, and from the prevailing feeling, become careless of dying, sometimes treating it with contempt; but generally, on seeing these unfortunates stretched on the snow, and instantly stiffened, contenting themselves with the thought that they had no more wants, that they were at rest, that their sufferings were over. And, indeed, death, in a situation quiet, certain, and uniform, may be felt as a strange event, a frightful contrast, a terrible change; but in this tumult, this violent and ceaseless movement of a life of action, danger, and suffering, it appeared nothing more than a transition, a slight alteration, an additional removal, which excited little alarm.

Such were the last days of the Grand Army: its last nights were still more frightful. Those whom they surprised marching together, far from every habitation, halted on the borders of the woods: there they lighted their fires, before which they remained the whole night, erect and motionless like spectres. They seemed as if they could not possibly have enough of the heat: they kept so close to it as to burn their clothes, as well as the frozen parts of their body, which the fire decomposed. The most dreadful pain then compelled them to stretch themselves on the ground, and the next day they attempted in vain to rise.

In the meantime, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal. It had consisted, ever since they left Smolensk, of some slices of horseflesh broiled, and a little rye-meal made into a sort of gruel with snow-water, or kneaded into paste, which they seasoned, for want of salt, with the powder of their cartridges.

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

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

It frequently happened that they demolished their walls, which were formed of dry wood, in order to feed their fires: at other times, repulsed and disheartened, they were contented to use them as shelters to their bivouacs, the flames of which very soon communicated to the buildings, and the soldiers who were within them, already half dead with the cold, perished in the conflagration. Such of us as survived in these places of shelter found our comrades the next morning lying frozen and in heaps around their extinguished fires; while to escape from these tombs effort was required to enable us to climb over the heaps of those who were still breathing.

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

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

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