Part 42 (1/2)

It was on the day immediately subsequent to that fatal catastrophe, at the distance of three marches from Borizof, and upon the high road, that an officer arrived and announced to Napoleon this fresh disaster. The Emperor, striking the ground with his stick, and darting a furious look to heaven, p.r.o.nounced these words, ”It is then written above that we shall now commit nothing but faults!”

Meanwhile Marshal Oudinot, who was already marching towards Minsk, totally ignorant of what had happened, halted on the 21st between Bobr and Kroupki, when in the middle of the night General Brownikowski arrived to announce to him his own defeat, as well as that of General Dombrowski; that Borizof was taken, and that the Russians were following hard at his heels.

On the 22d the marshal marched to meet them, and rallied the remains of Dombrowski's force.

On the 23d, at three leagues on the other side of Borizof, he came in contact with the Russian vanguard, which he overthrew, taking from it nine hundred men and fifteen hundred carriages, and drove back by the united force of his artillery, infantry, and cavalry, as far as the Berezina; but the remains of Lambert's force, on repa.s.sing Borizof and that river, destroyed the bridge.

Napoleon was then at Toloczina: he made them describe to him the position of Borizof. They a.s.sured him that at that point the Berezina was not merely a river but a lake of moving ice; that the bridge was three hundred fathoms in length; that it had been irreparably destroyed, and the pa.s.sage by it rendered completely impracticable.

At that moment arrived a general of engineers, who had just returned from the Duke of Belluno's corps. Napoleon interrogated him; the general declared ”that he saw no means of escape but through the middle of Wittgenstein's army.” The Emperor replied, ”that he must find a direction in which he could turn his back to all the enemy's generals, to Kutusoff, to Wittgenstein, to Tchitchakof;” and he pointed with his finger on the map to the course of the Berezina below Borizof; it was there he wished to cross the river. But the general objected to him the presence of Tchitchakof on the right bank; the Emperor then pointed to another pa.s.sage below the first, and then to a third, still nearer to the Dnieper. Recollecting, however, that he was then approaching the country of the Cossacks, he stopped short, and exclaimed, ”Oh yes!

Pultawa! that is like Charles XII.!”

In fact, every disaster which Napoleon could antic.i.p.ate had occurred; the melancholy conformity, therefore, of his situation with that of the Swedish conqueror, threw his mind into such a state of agitation, that his health became still more seriously affected than it had been at Malo-Yaroslawetz. Among the expressions he made use of, loud enough to be overheard, was this: ”See what happens when we heap faults on faults!”

Nevertheless, these first movements were the only ones that had escaped him, and the valet-de-chambre who a.s.sisted him, was the only person that witnessed his agitation. Duroc, Daru, and Berthier have all said, that they knew nothing of it, that they saw him unshaken; this was very true, humanly speaking, as he retained sufficient command over himself to avoid betraying his anxiety, and as the strength of man most frequently consists in concealing his weakness.

A remarkable conversation, which was overheard the same night, will show better than any thing else, how critical was his position, and how well he bore it. It was getting late; Napoleon had gone to bed. Duroc and Daru, who remained in his chamber, fancying that he was asleep, were giving way, in whispers, to the most gloomy conjectures; he overheard them, however, and the word ”prisoner of state,” coming to his ear, ”How!” exclaimed he, ”do you believe they would dare?” Daru, after his first surprise, immediately answered, ”that if we were compelled to surrender, we must be prepared for every thing; that he had no reliance on an enemy's generosity; that we knew too well that great state-policy considered itself identified with morality, and was regulated by no law.” ”But France,” said the Emperor, ”what would France say?” ”Oh, as to France,” continued Daru, ”we are at liberty to make a thousand conjectures more or less disagreeable, but none of us can know what will take place there.” And he then added, ”that for the sake of the Emperor's chief officers, as well as the Emperor himself, the most fortunate thing would be, if by the air or otherwise, as the earth was closed upon us, the Emperor could reach France, from whence he could much more certainly provide for their safety, than by remaining among them!” ”Then I suppose I am in your way?” replied the Emperor, smiling.

”Yes, Sire.” ”And you have no wish to be a prisoner of state?” Daru replied in the same tone, ”that it was enough for him to be a prisoner of war.” On which the Emperor remained for some time in a profound silence; then with a more serious air: ”Are all the reports of my ministers burnt?” ”Sire, hitherto you would not allow that to be done.”

”Very well, go and destroy them; for it must be confessed, we are in a most melancholy position.” This was the sole avowal which it wrested from him, and on that idea he went to sleep, knowing, when it was necessary, how to postpone every thing to the next day.

His orders displayed equal firmness. Oudinot had just sent to inform him of his determination to overthrow Lambert; this he approved of, and he also urged him to make himself master of a pa.s.sage, either above or below Borizof. He expressed his anxiety, that by the 24th this pa.s.sage should be fixed on, and the preparations begun, and that he should be apprised of it, in order to make his march correspond. Far from thinking of making his escape through the midst of these three hostile armies, his only idea now was, that of beating Tchitchakof, and retaking Minsk.

It is true, that eight hours afterwards, in a second letter to the Duke of Reggio, he resigned himself to cross the Berezina near Veselowo, and to retreat directly upon Wilna by Vileika, avoiding the Russian admiral.

But on the 24th he learned that the pa.s.sage could only be attempted near Studzianka; that at that spot the river was only fifty-four fathoms wide, and six feet deep; that they would land on the other side, in a marsh, under the fire of a commanding position strongly occupied by the enemy.

CHAP. III.

All hope of pa.s.sing between the Russian armies was thus lost; driven by the armies of Kutusoff and Wittgenstein upon the Berezina, there was no alternative but to cross that river in the teeth of the army of Tchitchakof, which lined its banks.

Ever since the 23d, Napoleon had been preparing for it, as for a desperate action. And first he had the eagles of all the corps brought to him, and burnt. He formed into two battalions, eighteen hundred dismounted cavalry of his guard, of whom only eleven hundred and fifty-four were armed with muskets and carbines.

The cavalry of the army of Moscow was so completely destroyed, that Latour-Maubourg had not now remaining under his command more than one hundred and fifty men on horseback. The Emperor collected around his person all the officers of that arm who were still mounted; he styled this troop, of about five hundred officers, his _sacred squadron_.

Grouchy and Sebastiani had the command of them; generals of division served in it as captains.

Napoleon ordered further that all the useless carriages should be burnt; that no officer should keep more than one; that half the waggons and carriages of all the corps should also be burnt, and that the horses should be given to the artillery of the guard. The officers of that arm had orders to take all the draught-cattle within their reach, even the horses of the Emperor himself, sooner than abandon a single cannon, or ammunition waggon.

After giving these orders, he plunged into the gloomy and immense forest of Minsk, in which a few hamlets and wretched habitations have scarcely cleared a few open spots. The noise of Wittgenstein's artillery filled it with its echo. That Russian general came rus.h.i.+ng from the north upon the right flank of our expiring column; he brought back with him the winter which had quitted us at the same time with Kutusoff; the news of his threatening march quickened our steps. From forty to fifty thousand men, women, and children, glided through this forest as precipitately as their weakness and the slipperiness of the ground, from the frost beginning again to set in, would allow.

These forced marches, commenced before daylight, and which did not finish at its close, dispersed all that had remained together. They lost themselves in the darkness of these great forests and long nights. They halted at night and resumed their march in the morning, in darkness, at random, and without hearing the signal; the dissolution of the remains of the corps was then completed; all were mixed and confounded together.

In this last stage of weakness and confusion, as we were approaching Borizof, we heard loud cries before us. Some ran forward fancying it was an attack. It was Victor's army, which had been feebly driven back by Wittgenstein to the right side of our road, where it remained waiting for the Emperor to pa.s.s by. Still quite complete and full of animation, it received the Emperor, as soon as he made his appearance, with the customary but now long forgotten acclamations.

Of our disasters it knew nothing; they had been carefully concealed even from its leaders. When therefore, instead of that grand column which had conquered Moscow, its soldiers perceived behind Napoleon only a train of spectres covered with rags, with female pelisses, pieces of carpet, or dirty cloaks, half burnt and holed by the fires, and with nothing on their feet but rags of all sorts, their consternation was extreme. They looked terrified at the sight of those unfortunate soldiers, as they defiled before them, with lean carca.s.ses, faces black with dirt, and hideous bristly beards, unarmed, shameless, marching confusedly, with their heads bent, their eyes fixed on the ground and silent, like a troop of captives.