Part 46 (2/2)
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 princ.i.p.al 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 circ.u.mstance that they were the strongest men who had escaped from the pa.s.sage of the Berezina.
The partial organization which had been introduced into the disorder was kept up. The ma.s.s of runaways kept on their way, divided into a number of petty a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociations against misfortune.
It was no longer any thing but a mult.i.tude of isolated and individual struggles. The best no longer respected themselves; nothing stopped them; no speaking looks detained them; misfortune was hopeless of a.s.sistance, 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 const.i.tutes 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 a.s.sistance, in vain did they invoke the names of a common country, religion, and cause; they could not even obtain a pa.s.sing look. The cold inflexibility of the climate had completely pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sion.
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 s.h.i.+pwreck, 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 a.s.sisted 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 gla.s.sy 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 embarra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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.
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